That FP4 Effect...

Seems many Blippers have enjoyed a glorious sunrise this morning - but it's still dullishly dull here, in central southern England.

Many thanks for all the stars and views for superwide shot of yesterday - made my return to the same building at a similar time (half hour before sun-up) and as, sort of promised went (very slightly) telephoto, for once.

The long end of my Super Sigma 24-70mm that I used on the 7th, this time stopped right down. As it's f2.8 all the way through, the min aperture stays at f22 throughout, as well.

If you thought yesterday's had lots of treatment, this one has had therapy, too! Setting the tripod (another long exposure) in the garden attached to the building (it has a public right of way running through it - a planning rush-through to allow the council to bulldoze local public opinion and build their beloved new HQ for themselves) - it originally was stone cold blue and shot at an angle.

I had no real idea what I wanted from the image. I get bored quite easily. I've also a book on Soviet 'Brutalism' and they all seemed to be shot in low-contrast and flat perspectively. After the relative colourful majesty of yesterday's I wanted it flat, faceless and with those young saplings contrasting with its angular lines.

To be brief, after lens distortion filtration (v slight pincushion), bunged it in the Transform section of Photoshop CS5. Instead of 'Perspective', I did 'Distort' manually, (building receded to the left, not upward) where you literally drag the image to where you want it - difficult to do subtly. This can then create gaps at the edge and these had to be cloned back in, with samples from their immediate surroundings. Then came the monochrome conversion but only the blue and cyan sliders had any effect so any further changes had to be done in the usual shadows/highlights, brightness/contrast menu.

It was at this point that I decided I wanted it to be soft in contrast and reminiscent of the Ilford b&w film I used to use occasionally, back when one did such things. It was an iso 125 film (medium speed) and was contrasty when the light was contrasty and soft when it was dull and this why I've titled it as such.

I also did what I call zonal sharpening - the excellent sharpness of the lens drops (as almost all lenses do) at f22, due to diffraction (light scatter caused by the physically tiny size of the aperture blades fully closed) and as the point of focus was the trees, they required a small amount of sharpening. Even at f22 the depth of field couldn't quite reach the building, though it looked fine at normal viewing distances, I wanted those architectural lines to be sharp, to help offset the soft contrast, so the background received a lot more, in 'unsharp mask'.

So, more a labour of love and my intention was not for an attractive photo, in the normal sense. I did want something graphically 'true', though I haven't quite succeeded on that score, entirely. It's probably better when something that has tested you a bit, technically and creatively isn't perfect, so you try again, sometime.