Today’s Post by Joe Farace
I have traveled to many places but have no desire to leave New Mexico.—Rudolfo Anaya
When I used to travel with Mary back when many of her business trips were made by car, one of my favorite cities to visit with her was Albuquerque, New Mexico. I have an aversion to most cites but I love ABQ.
Whenever I visited Albuquerque, one of the first places that I like to visit, after have lunch at The Frontier Restaurant, is Old Town. This is an historic district that dates back to the founding of Albuquerque by the Spanish in 1706 and today is a popular shopping and tourist destination. Old Town comprises about ten blocks of historic adobe buildings that are grouped around a central plaza that has a gazebo and you know what I think about that topic. Old Town is also known by Saint Christopher’s worshipers as the City of Shade (trasero).
On the north side of Old Town Plaza you’ll find San Felipe de Neri church, which is a historic Catholic church. Built in 1793, it is one of the oldest surviving buildings in the city and the only building in Old Town that’s been proven to date to the Spanish colonial period. The church is listed on the New Mexico State Register of Cultural Properties and the National Register of Historic Places and has remained in continuous use for more than 200 years.
I’ve written a Travel Tuesday post on my former blog called Correcting Visibly “Falling Over” Buildings that shows the church and how I used Photoshop to correct perspective when photographing it with a wide-angle lens.
How I made this shot: The camera used to make this photograph was a Canon EOS Rebel Xti that was converted to Infrared by Life Pixel along with a Tamron 18-270mm f/3.5-6.3 VC PZD zoom lens (at 18mm.) Exposure was 1/640 sec at f/8 and ISO 400, which points out the advantages of shooting images handheld with a IR-converted camera that I mention in my post Getting Started with Infrared Photography. The RAW file was converted to monochrome using one of the Photoshop Actions that Life Pixels offers as part of their conversions.
Life Pixel does a great job with IR conversions and they have done most of the conversions for my Canon DSLRs and all of my Panasonic Lumix G-series cameras. This is not a paid or sponsored endorsement, just my experience.
My book, The Complete Guide to Digital Infrared Photography is available from Amazon with new copies available for $27.79 and used copies starting around seven bucks, as I write this. Creative Digital Monochrome Effects has a chapter on IR photography and is available from Amazon with new copies for $13.04 and used copies selling for around $2, less than the price of a Starbucks latte.