Navegadores

The Story
June, 2009. In this day my wife felt like going for a walk in Belém (check the Museu de Marinha photo story for more details)...
We started by visiting the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos and then moved on to Padrão dos Descobrimentos. Padrão dos Descobrimentos (Monument to the Discoveries) is a monument that celebrates the Portuguese who took part in the Age of Discovery, or the Age of Exploration, of the 15th and 16th centuries. It is located on the estuary of the Tagus river in the Belém parish of Lisbon, Portugal, where ships departed to their often unknown destinations.
I started trying some angles that could take advantage of the beautiful skies that were that afternoon. First, I tried to get the lines in the pavement to guide the eyes to the monument and from there to the clouds. I took some photos with this perspective and then approached the monument and started exploring uncommon perspectives. As almost all the times I went there, there were a lot of tourists around the monument what make me point upper to crop them off. It was then that I realized this uncommon angle. The clouds appear to be an extension of the monument itself and gives us the idea that the navigators are contemplating (or fearing) them.

Equipment / Technical Info
Nikon D80
Sigma 10-20mm F4-5.6 EX DC

Shutter Speed: 1/160 second
Aperture: F/9.0
Focal Length: 10 mm
ISO Speed: 100

Original Photo


Post Processing
This one was an almost ready photo as it came out of the camera.
There were two little details to address: that little bit of land in the lower right corner had to go and the colors would need a more cold and contrasted feel.
I imported the photo into Lightroom, cropped the right corner and applied an Auto Tone. It was better, but I needed to bring that sky even more. So I applied the Mike Lao's "300 V1" preset (you can find it here: http://inside-lightroom.com/?page_id=11) and the result was what I was looking for. In CS4 I've simply done: Auto Tone, Auto Contrast, Auto Color and Auto Levels.
I usually publish my photos with 1024px in the largest size and use a great Photoshop action by Manyk to do the re-size.You can find it here: http://manyk.deviantart.com/art/Web-Sharpening-with-Photoshop-29038461
I was quite satisfied with the result, which is a rare thing. :)

Final Photo


Link to image
http://jpgmn.deviantart.com/art/Navegadores-124771032

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Museu de Marinha

The Story
June, 2009. I was in a two weeks vacation but this time we stayed home. We had been to Athens and Barcelona earlier this year so we thought that these two weeks would be a good time to stay home and catch some beach time. In this day my wife felt like going for a walk in Belém (it's a place in Lisboa that has lots of discoveries related monuments) and then go and eat some "Pasteis de Belém". The "Pasteis de Belém" is a creamy dessert that's typical in Portugal, specially in this zone of Lisboa. There is a big cake shop, that is named after this dessert and was founded in 1837, that sells almost only this (it's their main product). You wouldn't believe this shop: it has capacity for hundreds of people that only go there to eat this dessert. It's always packed. And you can't eat only one, you order them in boxes :) If you ever go to Lisboa you probably will end up there.
So, back to this day in June, as I said, my wife wanted to go for a walk in Belém because of this shop, all the rest was just a pretext :). And that was fine for me. I would take some photos of the area and end the afternoon eating Pasteis.
We drove to Trafaria (a small village in the south bank of Tagus river - we live in the south bank and Lisboa is on the north bank) to pick the boat to Belém. It's a nice ride in the Tagus river and you can appreciate the quiet waters and the view, and you don't need to worry finding a parking spot in Belém ;)
We started our visit with the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos. In the left hand side of the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos you have the Museu de Marinha (Maritime Museum). In front of the main entrance of the museum I idealized this photo: the typical Portuguese Pavement guiding our eyes to the main entrance of the museum. Then the two towers of the museum with a complimentary sky. This had "Black and White" written all over it.

Equipment / Technical Info
Nikon D80
Sigma 10-20mm F4-5.6 EX DC

Shutter Speed: 1/160 second
Aperture: F/9.0
Focal Length: 10 mm
ISO Speed: 100

Original Photo


Post Processing
As I had idealized this photo before the click moment, it was a clean post processing.
I imported the photo into Lightroom, aligned it and applied the "Matt's 300 Look - Strong" preset (you can find it here: http://www.lightroomkillertips.com/2008/monday-presets-the-300-look) from Matt Kloskowski. And that was it for Lightroom. I then exported it as a PSD file and opened it in CS4. In CS4, I've done: Auto Tone, Auto Contrast and Auto Color. Converted to Black and White and added a strong vignetting.
This gave me the full size (10Mp) final image.
I usually publish my photos with 1024px in the largest size and use a great Photoshop action by Manyk to do the re-size.
You can find it here: http://manyk.deviantart.com/art/Web-Sharpening-with-Photoshop-29038461

Final Photo


Link to image
http://jpgmn.deviantart.com/art/Museu-de-Marinha-124763713

Read more