I had a concept in mind for today's photo that had absolutely nothing to do with what you see before you. There are some heavy rail tracks owned by the Providence and Worcester Railroad that run through the Rumford section of East Providence. My plan was to take a very low perspective shot looking down those tracks, and to use the interesting textures of the railroad ties and gravel as part of a high contrast b&w. Well, as the military says, "the best laid plans never survive first contact with the enemy." There was still so much snow on the tracks that all you could see were the thin dark rail lines. It was the most boring railroad track scene you could imagine. At this point, however, I was nowhere near any of my old standby locations. Time was running out, and I was driving towards the highway I spotted this cemetery. Well, I thought I could at least get an interesting shot of some old 18th century tombstones. Unfortunately, it turned out that this was one of the newer cemeteries in town, and nothing predated about 1880. I did, however, spot this interesting weather-worn stone devoid of any information beyond the last name and a Christian cross. There were no dates to indicate the time period, and this grave stood well apart from all the others. There's an interesting story here, but so far I've been unable to discover it.
Post processing started with a classic filter in Topaz B&W FX. I adjusted color sensitivity sliders followed by adaptive exposure, regions, contrast, boost black, boost white, and protect highlights. A levels adjustment and a sepia photo filter were added in PSE.
Ah! An intrigue......you could write a short story about it Ron. And by the way, Robbie Burns had similar sentiments to your quotation: The best laid schemes o' mice an' men/ Gang aft a-gley.... I love the patterns of the shadows in this picture, how they trace their patterns over the scene.
February 15th, 2013
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