I had two things in mind this morning when trying to decide what to shoot. First, I really wanted to do a black and white. Second, I wanted something that emphasized shapes or patterns. What I've been learning through experience is that black and white doesn't work well with a very busy background, and with all the dense foliage in the state this time of year that posed an interesting compositional challenge. I spent a bit of time wandering around the Roger Williams National Memorial before trying out the composition you see here. The leaves on the steps were a nice harbinger of what the next couple of months will bring, and I really liked the off-set vertical symmetry in the pillars framing the left and right sides of the photo. The horizontal lines in the steps, the vertical lines in the gate and pillars, and the diagonals created by the ascending steps meeting the wall on the right all satisfied my compulsion to show shapes today. The very bright sky posed a processing challenge in the b&w conversion, but the finished product worked.
Post processing started with a classic filter in Topaz B&W effects. I adjusted the contrast, boost black, boost white, adaptive exposure, strength, and detail boost sliders. I then adjusted the color sensitivity for each of the individual colors to produce the desired detail and contrast. In PSE, I adjusted the sky levels and the foreground levels separately. I also applied a levels adjustment just to the foliage in the background since it was pretty washed out by the sky. A sepia photo filter was the top layer.
