The Temple of Karnak (Black & White)

I'm guessing here, but was the sky overcast? In any event, I was expecting more contrast. Thanks for sharing, hope this helps somewhat.

This photograph was taken at midday during a guided tour of the

temple of Karnak in Luxor, Egypt. Time was short. The camera was hand

held, as there was little scope for anything else, and the temple was

full to the brim with hundreds of tourists. Waiting for an opertunity

for a shot without the omnipresent tourists was hard enough, but to

bag one with only the timeless gentleman in the right of the shot was

remarkable. The exposure isn't great I admit, and it has been

suggested that the photograph was taken on an overcast day, - far

from it, the midday sun was beating down which is why the sky is

burnt out. I cannot remember, but I am sure I attempted to compensate

for this with my exposure, but with limited success. The difficulty I

think is in maintaining the detail of the heirogliphics on the lotus

columns. I would have loved this to be a better photograph, so I

would value your opinions as to what to do in the future when time is

so very much of the essence.

I always carry a 2X gray gradient filter which I manually hold and move up and down over the front of the lens when confronted with light like this. Perhaps it would have helped. Anyway, its a nice and visually interesting travel shot. The lone man makes the diference for me.

Arrr Egypt. One of my favorite places in the world. The lighting in Karnak can be very hard and bright and trying to light the shadows can be difficult as a lot of place you cannot use a fill in flash. I think you can at Karnak well at least I did.

 

Interesting the view you took. the left hand piller has a carving of a man with part of his manhood removed. This if you did not know was done by the Christians as it was concidered rude. If you look around Karnak temple you will a few few of these however there are 2 (that I found) still there.

 

However this picture is for me is over exposed and burnt out in the lighter areas. I would try using a fill in flash to get your detail in the shadows if you get chance to try this shot again.

 

 

Chris

I think the 4000ED would fix this up quite nicely. Lots of tolerance for a "troubled" neg.

I would make some corrections on this one:

 

1) Scan directly from the neg. I see on the bright area on the top that this is was scanned from a printed version.

 

2) Convert then to B&W, cropping most of the bright area on the top. That part adds nothing, you have many interesting subjects inside here: the columns, the drawings on them, the man.

 

3) Increase contrast.

 

It deserves the time, it's really a nice shot.

 

I agree that probably a grad filter could have helped, but if it was not easy to shoot, the filter would have only complicated the operation.

 

Too contrasted scenes are really a problem to shoot, we shouldn't forget that our eyes have a dynamic range much wider than what any film can handle.