Just outside of the colonial village, there is Bassett Hall Nature Trail. It's a 2 mile walk between two golf courses. Being that it splits two golf courses, there is a lake/reservoir between the two golf courses, and the walk goes along the water for some time. Along the walk, and in this body of water there is what looks to be a boat house. It has all the qualifying marks, basically in the water and a larger enough door on the water to let a water vehicle transit.
This scene has all my favorite elements, water, wood, reflections and a story.
The particulars: 3 Shot HDR, 400 ISO, Aperture Priority, Focal length 50 mm, f/11, speeds 1/200, 1/1600, 1/25.
I used Photomatix to get my base image. I was planning to just set the colors, but it turns out I really liked one of the preset effects. Wow - I didn't have to go too much further on this one. This is my base image.
There isn't too much to do for the color levels, although I might make it just a bit darker. The sun was out full, but I see this as a bit darker. i will crop it closer to the building to really see the wood and reflections. I need to cop out the grass in the foreground and maybe remove a stray blade or two. I'll work on some effect to age the building more than it is. But the first thing I want to do is sharpen the image. At the club meeting last night, we started talking about the Nik sharpening programs. I applied the pre-sharpener to this image before I 'aged' the building - and then used the post sharpening at the end. In the preview pane, you can see some action going on.
So in the end, after the effects, sharpening and a 5x7 crop, this is what I get.
I really like the end product doors. I usually favor a deeper yellow - but this is right on. I thought I'd be spending more time on this project but this fell right into place. After the picture of the Inn (Williamsburg Inn Morning), this is more my speed.
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