More shots from the South End at sunset. I love the way the light is grazing rooftops and the newly renovated steeple of the South Ward Meetinghouse aka The Children’s Museum. As I’ve mentioned before, the Sheafe Warehouse is one of those really old structures that I’ve always loved, and that I picture located in town a couple hundred years ago when it was still a young structure. Nothing too exciting about these shots, just beautiful old architecture and some nice afternoon light.
Today’s post poses a question, to HDR or not to HDR? HDR stands for High Dynamic Range, and I’ve begun to use the abbreviation as a verb with friends & family as we joke about the process (which uses multiple exposures overlaid on top of each other to reach a broader dynamic light range)….but as you can tell from scrolling through the website, it’s something that I truly enjoy doing – as I find that it’s similar to the darkroom black & white processing I learned to do in college. The digital post processing is still the romantic part to me (although shooting the scene is still most important), where it is up to you to create your vision. I use it mostly to try and replicate what I saw with my eyes when I was taking the photos. A single exposure often feels too flat to me, still beautiful – but short of the memory I have of the particular scene/experience.
To serve as an example, I’ve posted two versions of one of my all-time favorite images – the sunrise shot taken of the Peirce Island Boat Ramp. The first is the “HDR” version, while the image below is nearly “out of the camera” with minimal additional tweaking. Regardless – it was clearly a beautiful scene, but I’m curious to hear – which do you prefer?
Today’s shots feature Strawbery Banke with some freshly fallen snow. Above is a panoramic shot of the museum campus and the former Puddle Dock neighborhood with the North Church visible in the background. Below is another shot from my trip to Fort Constitution, where you can see just how cold the Fort’s stone wall is with the ice built up from the snow and sea spray. View on large for a nice crisp shot of Portsmouth Harbor Lighthouse (you can even see Whaleback Light in the distance). The fresh snow definitely made for a lovely walk on Monday afternoon.
The sunset on the horizon illuminates the windows on this historic building along the border of Strawbery Banke. The newly restored steeple of the South Ward Meetinghouse can be seen amongst the silhouetted branches.
The Peirce Island boat ramp makes for an awesome shot with homes from the South End in the distance and the Piscataqua River in between. The shot posted above was taken in the early hours of the morning while the shot below was taken in the late afternoon just before sunset. I thought it was interesting to see how the light hits the scene during each time of day.
Which shot is your favorite?
