Tuesday, June 14, 2016

A minimalist high res treatment with the X-Pro2

This past weekend I paid a visit to Dia:Beacon in Beacon, NY. Dia:Beacon is a museum specializing in art, particularly Minimalist art, from the 1960's on. I couldn't help but be inspired by the works, particularly those of my favorite artist, Agnes Martin, who paints canvases that almost disappear into whiteness. While there I began to relate the minimal views to my own work and came up with some ideas for photographs. I created the photo below as one example.


For this image I needed a day with a slight overcast so there would not be any hard shadows on the building. Using the X-Pro2 with the 100-400mm zoom and took seven horizontal images moving the camera for each exposure from the bottom of the building to the top of the spire. I also intentionally moved the camera from side to side to create a zigzag pattern when the images were stitched together later in PTGui

Although it looks monochromatic, this image is actually in full color, but with the color saturation and vibrance dialed down in Photoshop. I straightened the vertical lines in Photoshop for more of a view camera look. To achieve the whiteness I put added a layer on top of the image in Photoshop, filled the layer with white and changed the layer mode to Soft Light. That wasn't enough so I did it again, but this time I dialed down the opacity until it looked just right. 

By combining seven images from X-Pro2 I ended up with a very high resolution image and an image size large enough to make a native print 50" tall.

2 comments :

  1. really nice. love that you continue to CONSTANTLY shoot and experiment even though you'e achieved so much already. inspiring.

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  2. This is really beautiful - I bet it will look stunning as a 50" print. Thanks for your exposition - it's very helpful for others to learn from your process.

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