Monday, July 13, 2009

When shooting in Fountain Square,
why not use the fountain?



So while shooting in the Fountain Square merchants district, I got the idea to go to the fountain (and to those of you not familiar with Indianapolis, yes, Fountain Square really does have a fountain) and shoot through it ... cascading droplets and all.

The results are what you see here ... the original color and b/w conversions of two frames, one of which (above) I cropped tighter for the b/w version. I also applied an art filter (it's called "poster edge") to the b/w version. These shots look southeast from the north end of the fountain toward the major marquee on the east side of Shelby Street. The ones below are straight, unmanipulated frames ... other than the b/w conversion.



I also experimented with a reverse (negative) transparency filter on two other frames -- one color, one b/w -- of the Mexican Grill at the point of Virginia Avenue and the square. My inner jury is still out on these -- I'm leaning in favor of 'em -- but I'll post them here, too. For those of you unfamiliar with the district, I include an untouched color frame of the grill, whose facade is a pink or coral color (very bottom).



2 comments:

  1. Pretty cool. How long of an exposure did you use when shooting the water droplets; with the blur of the droplets it looks to me that you used a longer exposure. I haven't really played around with moving water much, so I can't tell for sure. The negative filter kind of reminds me of an infared filter (which I want to get, but are a little pricey).

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  2. Matt ... both fountain shots were taken at f/8 1/250 and ISO 100. That exposure would be about right, given the slight blur of each drop, which was the effect I was hoping for ... and for once, lucked out on the very first try. I've usually gotten this kind of blur with water shots before. So I had an idea where I would be starting.

    The infrared effect occurred to me, too. I've seen some wonderful infrareds, and some pretty awful ones. I was going for a neo-infraposter edge effect here ;-) I haven't liked most of the ones I've tried before. But the aqua color delivered by the reversal of that coral/pink restaurant facade hit me just the right way. Reminded me of the glow from the purple neon archway at Edwards' that lured me to stop and shoot a few frames on Saturday.

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