Today’s Post by Joe Farace
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.” —
There was a time when I occasionally was invited on what the travel industry calls “Fam Trips” (fam “familiarization + trip) where the purpose was for attendees to write and make photographs to share your experiences with readers of your blog or magazine. One such event was my first trip to Acapulco, Mexico on the occasion of a local airline that started direct flights to this city. I was excited because of all the classic movie associations with this city and one of the places we visited during the trip was the hotel that Johnny Weissmuller, of of my childhood heroes, had built.
Acapulco de Juárez
It’s real name is Acapulco de Juárez but is commonly called Acapulco is a city and major seaport in the state of Guerrero on the Pacific Coast of Mexico. The name Acapulco comes from Nahuatl language Aca-pōl-co, and means “where the reeds were destroyed or washed away” or “at the big reeds.” which inspired the city’s seal, which is an Aztec-type glyph showing two hands breaking reeds. It’s 240-miles (380 kilometers) south of Mexico City and located on a deep, semicircular bay that you can glimpse in today’s featured image,
Acapulco has been a port since the early colonial period of Mexico’s history. The city is one of Mexico’s oldest beach resorts, coming into prominence in the 1940s through the 1960s as a getaway for Hollywood stars and millionaires. These days, sadly not so much but my two trips there–there was a second fam trip–remain one of the highlights of my travels.
How I Made this Photo: All sunsets are different and while some produce great warm colors others just produce a lots\ of contrast. While I was walking on the beach at Acapulco I saw this family playing in the sand at sunset. Using a Leica D-Lux I shot several variations of this scene with this being the one I liked the most proving that the best “foreground interest” in a sunset shot is usually people. Exposure was 1/2000 sec at f/8 and ISO 400. Since the image was inherently monochromatic, I dropped the color JPEG file into (above right) Silver Efex, where I used the High Structure (smooth) preset onto the image, while keeping in mind that one of Farace;’s Laws that “All Special Effects are Subject Dependent.”
My book Creative Digital Monochrome Effects about shooting and processing black & white images is available from Amazon with used copies available starting around eight bucks; it’s a bargain.