Otto Berkeley
Catharsis
Following on from a look-up captured beneath Ely Cathedral's central tower, this is the view looking along the Cathedral's choir stalls and towards the east window. The image was captured directly behind the lectern, taking in the presbytery and high altar in the distance and the memorial brass on the ground for Bishop John Hotham, the Lord Chancellor and Bishop of Ely during the 14th century.
I was drawn to this vantage point for its straightforward symmetry, for the vibrant seats inside the choir stalls creating a series of colourful leading lines, and for the view of the vaulted ceiling and intricate oak carvings above the choir stalls. As the sun's position over the Cathedral shifted during the day, it was also remarkable to watch different portions of the building's architecture illuminated by the light streaming through the windows. This created a wonderful sense of drama, particularly around the choir, where early-afternoon sunlight was clipping the edges of the organ, the stone pillars and the canopy above the north choir stalls.
Capturing this was a riveting experience, but it also required careful shooting to expose for the highlights as well as careful editing to ensure that detail within the shadows could be recovered with a clean finish. The final image is a blend of nine exposures combined using luminosity masks in Photoshop, with the Pen Tool and gradient masks then used to isolate portions of the scene and add emphasis by blending in brighter exposures. In particular, the distinctive floriated cross at the centre of Hotham's memorial brass seemed to root the image with an element of foreground interest, and I used brighter exposures for this and for the inscription along its edges. I then selected the seats inside the choir stalls using Colour Range and, with a combination of Levels and Selective Colour adjustments, raised the midtone exposure of the seats and added a hint of magenta, as I felt this would complement the overall colour scheme I was working towards.
My main aim with this image was to capture the moody drama of the scene, and it seemed like a darker and colder finish in the shadows would help to achieve this. Using a combination of Curves, Colour Balance and Gradient Map adjustments, I added shades of cyan to the shadows among the choir stalls, as well as a soft blue to the highlights along the ceiling. I then used a Colour Lookup set to Soft Light and using the Futuristic Bleak preset, which added a hint of contrast to the image while paring down its overall saturation and creating a more muted tone.
The last stages of the workflow were to lightly apply Colour Efex Pro's Detail Extractor and Pro Contrast filters to the surrounding choir stalls and carvings, and then, using Silver Efex Pro set to the Luminosity blend mode, to selectively lower the midtone and shadow structure along the memorial brass for a softer finish along the ground. This final stage was important to me because the gritty texture in the foreground, while interesting, had the potential to be distracting, and I felt that the cross was the essential element that would guide the viewer's eye towards the centre of the scene.
As inspiring as the location must be when its choir stalls are filled and when the cathedral's interior echoes with voices during a service, experiencing this amazing architecture when it was empty was both awe-inspiring and spellbinding, and the final image hopefully conveys some sense of that.
You can also connect with me on Facebook, 500px, Google+ and Instagram.
Catharsis
Following on from a look-up captured beneath Ely Cathedral's central tower, this is the view looking along the Cathedral's choir stalls and towards the east window. The image was captured directly behind the lectern, taking in the presbytery and high altar in the distance and the memorial brass on the ground for Bishop John Hotham, the Lord Chancellor and Bishop of Ely during the 14th century.
I was drawn to this vantage point for its straightforward symmetry, for the vibrant seats inside the choir stalls creating a series of colourful leading lines, and for the view of the vaulted ceiling and intricate oak carvings above the choir stalls. As the sun's position over the Cathedral shifted during the day, it was also remarkable to watch different portions of the building's architecture illuminated by the light streaming through the windows. This created a wonderful sense of drama, particularly around the choir, where early-afternoon sunlight was clipping the edges of the organ, the stone pillars and the canopy above the north choir stalls.
Capturing this was a riveting experience, but it also required careful shooting to expose for the highlights as well as careful editing to ensure that detail within the shadows could be recovered with a clean finish. The final image is a blend of nine exposures combined using luminosity masks in Photoshop, with the Pen Tool and gradient masks then used to isolate portions of the scene and add emphasis by blending in brighter exposures. In particular, the distinctive floriated cross at the centre of Hotham's memorial brass seemed to root the image with an element of foreground interest, and I used brighter exposures for this and for the inscription along its edges. I then selected the seats inside the choir stalls using Colour Range and, with a combination of Levels and Selective Colour adjustments, raised the midtone exposure of the seats and added a hint of magenta, as I felt this would complement the overall colour scheme I was working towards.
My main aim with this image was to capture the moody drama of the scene, and it seemed like a darker and colder finish in the shadows would help to achieve this. Using a combination of Curves, Colour Balance and Gradient Map adjustments, I added shades of cyan to the shadows among the choir stalls, as well as a soft blue to the highlights along the ceiling. I then used a Colour Lookup set to Soft Light and using the Futuristic Bleak preset, which added a hint of contrast to the image while paring down its overall saturation and creating a more muted tone.
The last stages of the workflow were to lightly apply Colour Efex Pro's Detail Extractor and Pro Contrast filters to the surrounding choir stalls and carvings, and then, using Silver Efex Pro set to the Luminosity blend mode, to selectively lower the midtone and shadow structure along the memorial brass for a softer finish along the ground. This final stage was important to me because the gritty texture in the foreground, while interesting, had the potential to be distracting, and I felt that the cross was the essential element that would guide the viewer's eye towards the centre of the scene.
As inspiring as the location must be when its choir stalls are filled and when the cathedral's interior echoes with voices during a service, experiencing this amazing architecture when it was empty was both awe-inspiring and spellbinding, and the final image hopefully conveys some sense of that.
You can also connect with me on Facebook, 500px, Google+ and Instagram.