Last weekend I had the amazing opportunity to take part in a photo walk around EC2. For those of you who don’t live in Lodz, which I think is a large majority of my followers; EC2 is a coal power station based in the city about a 10 minute ride from the city centre, it is one of four in the city and now one of two that have been decommissioned. Ec2 was decommissioned at the end of March this year due to its age and the fact it had not been kept up to date. Originally built in 1951 its design copied that of its sister station EC1, which has also been decommissioned.
It is not very often places like this will open their doors to the public and there were also limited spaces on the tour as well. I signed up as part of the Lodz Fotofestiwal, that I had also taken part in the weekend before.
I suppose my one mistake was not taking a tripod. Of course I knew it would be dark inside and had prepared myself that, I knew I would need to take pictures at a high ISO and just presumed I wouldn’t be able to take a tripod. I was wrong.
Yet not taking a tripod actually was a blessing in disguise of a curse. If I had taken my tripod I would have been taking long exposure shots with small apertures to capture every detail. This sounds great yet there was limited time in each area and this would have left me with a few shots to take and few compositional experimentations. Without the tripod I was free to look around past the wide angle shots and traditional compositions to find something different. There were times when I was coursing myself while shooting at ISO3200 and f2.8 to get the right exposure. This has however extended the pleasure of the walk to the editing of the pictures, as I have some quite challenging images to edit.
This was an image I had envisioned taking, a view down the long hall with a furnace (or some other machine) as the subject. I am not sure I would have had time to take this image with a tripod as I was being hurried at this point by the guide and my wife. A tripod I will admit would have been helpful but even with a long exposure I wouldn’t have gotten as clean an image. In this scene there were my fellow photographers that due to way I have taken the picture are no longer visible.
This picture was created with 10 exposures for two reasons; one to layer them up and reduce the noise, the other to remove my fellow photographers standing around in high visibility jackets. I did both by layering the exposures and aligning them before converting them as a smart object. I then used the Median Stack option in the layers menu to merge the layers removing any trace of humans. There was one area that needed some extra attention with the clone stamp and then normal editing resumed.
I would be interested to know what you think of the image, you can let me know in the comment box below. Or if you like just say hi.
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Great shot! I have to admit, I am not really sure how to combine 10 images without erasing elements of each layer, so that only one part of each layer would show. Or is that the point? And I have heard you mention smart objects, but I can’t say I know what all that means. You are the guru of all these features!
I actually think this is something that I need to write up in a digital darkroom post. A quick over view; a smart object is a layer or a group of layer bound together that you can add filters to and are able to adjust them later.
The idea of combine the images together and apply the median stack was to remove elements, although photoshop does all the work. If that makes sense.
I think I can see what your saying. Definitely something to practice to really grasp.
I started using them many years ago when photoshop introduced them, and I have used them ever since.
I need to step up my technical skills here. Time to hit the books and study.
Ben, you constantly amaze me. This is a real beauty. One of my favorites. The textures are so rich, the colors so subtle! My hero. 🙂
I am glad that I continually amaze although it is high stakes I think. I used a bleach bypass and detail extractor in Color Efex to get those tones you like so much.
So you’re saying I could do that too? Nah…
I think you could get a similar effect, but I would never say exactly the same. As you have to take into consideration lighting, camera and the spin of the earth. 🙂
The earth spins? Geez!
Oh yeah, the earth spins. Especially after those special brownies.
Special brownies? I don’t know. I had a special lasagna once. My grandmother made it just for me. But she probably told all the grandchildren the same thing. “Just for you”! Grandmothers are like that. Now, where were we?
I agree with Emilio.
Thank you Victor, it is high praise.
great shot
Thank you Gill.
I do hope you write up the combining 10 images thing…I don’t see how you managed that without a tripod! Fantastic image 🙂
Yeah I think I will, but maybe with a different image with more people to really to show how it can work.
Great, look forward to the post, Ben
yeah!
love this photo, by the way 😉
fantastic subject but outstanding treatment. i thought you had used a texture overlay before i read what you had done. i too would be interested in the process.
Amazing shot, Ben!!
great image, I really like the light coming in the side windows………..adds a surreal feel to it
I like the light off to the side as well. I felt it added a softness to all the metallic, hard edged machinery.
exactly
Fantastic shot! I love the light coming through the windows. I hope you don’t mind if I ask a couple of questions. Were all 10 shots with the same camera settings or did you bracket them? And are you going to do a Digital Darkroom teaching on this?!? PLEASE… 🙂
All 10 shots were taken with the same exposure settings and there was no bracketing. If I had bracketed the exposures I would not have been able to stack the exposures and remove the people.
I think this is something that I can cover in the digital darkroom in the coming weeks, as it is a useful process. Also it is in the same area as cleaning images which I am concentrating on at the moment.
Yay! I will look forward to that lesson
I have put the lesson in the works just need to find the right scene that I can utilize the process with.
I will keep my eye out for it 🙂 I always enjoy your lessons!
You’ve made industrial attractive. I love the starburst from the lights giving off a pinkish hue that softens the image and warms it up with those rays of sunlight yet it still has that abandoned feeling but comfortably so for the viewer (not sure if that makes sense!!/It doesn’t feel cold). Worth all 10 shots… I must try this. Will you or have you done a tutorial on this type of processing Ben?
There is beauty in everything, you just need the right light and perspective. I agree that the contrast between soft light and hard edges makes the image much more attractive. I think with so many requests for a tutorial I will make one, but with a different subject.
Nice shot and post processing. I have a tripod which is great in certain situations but not so good with others as it can be limiting depending on what you want to photograph
Great shot and processing. I still see a few traces of humans (leaving shadows here & there), but I really enjoyed this industrial kind of post-apocalyptic look. Fantastic with the sunlight shining through the windows.
Hey Ben .. A big wow from me! You disappeared off my reader .. Reinstated! Yay
It was probably a wordpress bug, it happens from time to time. Glad all is back to normal.
Great image! …. and a ‘smart object’ object tutorial would be very useful!
Hi Noeline, I am planning a smart object tutorial in the future as I move onto Filters.
Great – I look forward to it 🙂
Wonderful image. I would love to get into places like this. I am definitely looking forward to more from your outing.
It was quite lucky to get the access and I do feel privileged to have gone. I usually keep an eye open for photo walks as you never know where they are going to take you, also you are hanging out with other like minded people.
Terrific image and processing Ben ! Your tutorial would be very welcome , as I can see by previous comments .
You’re very generous with time spent putting them together , just wanted to say thanks 🙂
Your thanks is appreciated and I am glad you like the image. I can see that a lot of people like my tutorials, with this one I need to find a picture that I can repeat the process.