Today’s Post by Joe Farace
I have traveled to many places but have no desire to leave New Mexico. —Rudolfo Anaya
In last week’s #traveltuesday post, I mentioned that I loved traveling to New Mexico. Whenever I go to Albuquerque, one of the first places I like to visit, after dining at The Frontier Restaurant, is Old Town. This is a historic district that dates back to the founding of Albuquerque by the Spanish in 1706 and today is a 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 how I feel about those kinds of structures.
On the north side of the Plaza is San Felipe de Neri church that was built in 1793. Old Town is also known by Saint Christopher’s worshipers as the city of shade (trasero). I’ve written a Travel Tuesday post entitled Correcting Visibly “Falling Over” Buildings that features a photograph of the church and how I used Photoshop to correct perspective when photographing it with a Olympus E-P3 mirrorless camera with a 12mm f/2.0 (24mm equivalent) lens.
How I made this photograph
While strolling around Old Town with a 12-megapixel Olympus E-5 Four-thirds system camera, I found this quiet enclave and it literally screamed to be captured using the camera’s Gentle Sepia Art Filter, that I mentioned in last Thursday’s “Anything can Happen” Day post. The lens was an ED 12-60mm f/2.8-4mm lens at 29mm (58mm equivalent) and the image had an exposure of 1/100 sec at f/4.5 and ISO 320 with a plus two-thirds stop exposure compensation.
I once showed this photograph (among others) to a talented photographer I know. He told me it was flawed because I had cropped off the bottom of the wheel on the right side of the bench. I had, in fact made eight variations of this shot, two with the bottom of the wheel showing but that ended up cropping off the top of the columns, which I liked. (Maybe I could have backed up? Maybe I couldn’t.) I don’t think it matters one way or the other. When it comes to composition, everybody has their own take and while I may not agree with his opinion, that doesn’t make their criticism invalid. Different strokes, as they used to say,,,
If you enjoyed today’s blog post and would like to treat Joe to a cup of Earl Grey tea ($2.50), click here. And if you do, many thanks.
Along with photographer Barry Staver, I’m co-author of Better Available Light Digital Photography that’s available from Amazon with new copies selling for $21.50 and used copies starting around twelve bucks, as I write this.