Church (rock) cemetery by vikdaddy

Church (rock) cemetery

The weather has eased a little this evening. It's not as cold, so I thought I'd do a night shoot at the main cemetery that's close to the city centre, which was surprisingly open at this late hour. It's also surprising because there's no lighting as well, so it's almost pitch black inside.

The thing about shooting in such conditions is that it's hard to see what would make a good shot, and when you think you have it's difficult to get your composition correct. Perhaps I need to scout locations whilst it's still daylight!

The sky was excellent for long exposures as the clouds were moving quickly, giving this wispy look. In some of my other shots the sky was less dramatic but clearer, so you could see some stars, which was nice. In post-processing it was difficult getting the image to look how I wanted it to; this was the closest I got and I'm still not sure about it.

By the way, I shaved off my goatee. On Monday I took a picture of it, and I thought it might be something I'd keep for a while. I quite liked it on the day, but I felt quite differently about the goatee by Wednesday and I shaved it off that morning! Periodically I try to grow a goatee, but I never end up liking it for long. I should learn.

Canon 7D, f/5.6, 30/1, ISO-200
i love this! amazing shot :)
January 8th, 2011  
i love cemetery shots! this is fantastic :)
January 8th, 2011  
Incredible shot. This is an excellent long exposure shot. A fav.
January 8th, 2011  
nice one... like the softness in the clouds...
January 8th, 2011  
This is awesome! Something about cemeteries that fascinate me. You're pretty brave to go there in pitch black!!!
January 8th, 2011  
Love this one, Vik. I like your processing a lot, with the only sticking point being the slight halo around the tombstones against the sky - it's the only thing to me that says, "This has been edited." The tones and detail are gorgeous, as always.
January 8th, 2011  
Excellent! I love that when you shot it you couldn't see. Definitely looks like a hand could reach up from the grave at any second
January 8th, 2011  
@jinximages Yeah I noticed it too, it's when you ramp up the clarity in Lightroom.
January 8th, 2011  
@vikdaddy So it's just oversharpening of the high contrast areas then? Shouldn't be too hard to fix if you use a local sharpening method instead? More time consuming though. Maybe if you drop back clarity by 25% or so and bump up the next slider in the list (vibrance)? I've struggled with haloing a few times and have ended up going bakc to SOOC and doing the whole edit in PS.... painful, when you just want to make some basic adjustments. I'm sure there is a solution, but I'm not as knowledgable of LR as I am of PS.
January 8th, 2011  
@jinximages Thanks for the tip, but the vibrance makes the picture extremely yellow (it's well into negative figures already). I don't really use Photoshop much; I must learn!
January 8th, 2011  
The came out extremely well. Love the tones and contrast of this photo. Well done for night snapping.
January 8th, 2011  
so crazy. almost looks like some sort of chess set. love the tone.
January 8th, 2011  
oh, gorgeous and a little spooky :) love this
January 8th, 2011  
woah, seriously good photo, i love it :)))

the yellow tone is awesome, and then you've got like this "glow" thing happpening above in the lower sky, way cool ;)
January 8th, 2011  
So beautiful ! Love the composition and color tones.
January 8th, 2011  
The angle is amazing as well.
January 8th, 2011  
Abz
Oh I love this! :)
January 8th, 2011  
very cool looking. I wished we had cool or interesting locations around here for kinda cool looking stuff.
January 8th, 2011  
I can't wait until it's not bone-chillingly cold and windy so I'll be brave enough to go shoot locations
January 8th, 2011  
Wow. This is truly wonderful!
January 8th, 2011  
So, the yellow glow is from?
Nice one, anyway.
January 8th, 2011  
@filipl ...the processing.
January 8th, 2011  
Stunning capture. Love the golden tones and the long-exposure sky :)
January 8th, 2011  
This shot is beautiful, it's somehow managed to subtract the misery of the subject matter and turn it into something ultimately peaceful, which is what people yearn for from a cemetery. That's inspiring.
January 9th, 2011  
I love shooting in cemeteries, and this is why. What a beautiful, haunting, fascinating shot. Great work.
January 9th, 2011  
This is beautifully haunting, awesome shot . . .
January 9th, 2011  
another great night shot mate i like the suttle shadows, i was gonna get round to shooting a grave yard when i went through my phase of night shooting but i think i bottled it in the end as it was far too errie! those are big old head stones!
January 9th, 2011  
WOW love this picture!
January 13th, 2011  
I never realized that cemeteries could be pretty.
January 27th, 2011  
Great shot.
March 1st, 2011  
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