Basilique Ste. Madeleine, Vezelay (Yonne)

Your critique is welcome.

Nice composition and a good moment captured. Congratulations!

Well-captured indeed! Like the colors too and therefore like this more than the b/w version.

Lovely. I do prefer the color version. We see so many phots like this w/out people! The people here make this shot stand out...and beautiful light. Very well done!

I have worked on this image to emphasize the rays of light and to correct the colours as the green tint in the midtones and the blue haze around the window are too strong for my taste. Here is what I did. I realized that the rays are significant only in the blue channel, so I have made two copies of the basis layer, mixed the channels (90% blue, 10% green) in the top layer to obtain a monochrome version and adjusted the opacity of this layer in lightness mode. I have merged the top and the middle layers leaving the bottom layer for quick comparison of both versions. I have lost some details in the windows so I have copied the basis layer, moved it to the top, selected everything except the windows area, feathered the selection a little and deleted it (again I have merged the layers). This way I had the windows from the basis image and the rest with the blue channel mixed in. Next I have copied the working layer, brightened the copy with a steep curve and merged it down with multiply setting to increase the contrast of the final image further (I used 10% opacity setting). Then I have copied the background layer and moved it to the top once again. I have selected the bottom right corner dark area, feathered the selection and deleted the rest of this layer - I did so to restore some details in the shadows that I have lost as a result of contrast adjustements. After that I have corrected the colours adding some magenta and yellow in the midtones and desaturating blues in the lights (with the proper selection). I have desaturated the colours to obtain a natural look. Finally I decided to emphasize the rays a little further, I have selected the wall around them and increased the contrast a little bit with the curve (I have faded this curve with the luminosity setting). Next I have selected only the beams and brightened them a little bit. Here is the result. I decided not to correct the perspective but I cropped the photo from the left to make it more symmetrical and to hide the lamp in the top left corner which IMHO is an unnecessary distraction. I hope I did not destroy the mood of this photograph as I did everything to keep it. Regards, Michal.

... didn't destroy the mood at all. Would have adjusted for the verticals like I did on the black and white. Thanks for the detailed explanation on the PS work, I'm not very proficieint in the finer points of PS and this will give me something to work on.

I prefer this version vs. b&w. Worm the burned areas more gently.

 

Attach :) I couldn't resist to not to play with it in photoshop-it a little bit :)

 

Good bye, Cristiann.

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... you take the picture into areas I never even thought of. The first version has such powerful contrast of colors, like stained glass windows at Chartres where the blue ties together the rest of the colors and makes them jump out at you ... and you have done strong work with the contrast and saturation. Thank you so much for your efforts. Wonderful imagination.

Superb...

It was this page I landed on a while back and immediately noticed the impressive quality of your work. This made me to miss my former 4x5" field camera, and if I ever would win in Lotto I'd have a FF dSLR and 24mm TS-lens too. I picked this for my comment because of those people taking part in ceremony, all this along the other qualities. The works of a serious photographer also gathers other talented experts willingly sharing their tips. You can only guess how happy I was to read about the fine tuning edit as kinda bonus to the visual experience I got first time. You didn't have any problems there because your shooting during this ceremony?

... but I was way off in the transcept, hidden behind pillars, and this was handheld. All my shooting during this ceremony (and one other that I did) were from the side aisles, well out of the action and away from the participants, including the congregation. And since both times I shot the ceremony I had already been shooting there at least a day or two, perhaps they saw me as part of scenery:)

 

Actually, PJ and I make a practice of presenting our business cards identifying us as photographers (specializing in sacred photography) to the powers that be, either civil or religious, as a gesture of respect, since we will be there usually a minimum of two to three hours. In some cases, like Vezelay, Conques, and Le Puy, we'll be there for days. This is always the first step to cooperation, and often gets us access to the tribunes, arcades, Saint Michael's chapels, and other areas usually closed to the public. We always have a small portfolio with samples of our work to show, if requested. What we find is that they often request a particular shot (a nun at Fontgambault requested a closeup of Christ's face on a crucifix high up on a wall; we sent her a 16" print that was stunning); at Conques, for example, we left six shots with them for use on their website for the Basilique. We have had extraordinary cooperation throughout France (although more restrictions in Paris because of the tourists). The French are proud of these churches, and were proud that two Americans would travel thousands of miles with the express intent of shooting them.