Today was just one of those days where meetings spiraled out of control and turned into a solid nine-hour blur. The net result was that I had to find a "safety shot" location on my way home. It was also a day that reinforced certain photography lessons that should have become habit ages ago. The first dozen or so photos I took today turned out to be wasted. Normally, whenever I put my camera away, I always make sure it is set to Av mode, ISO 400, f/8. That is my default "I can capture any rapidly developing scene" setting, and I like to make sure the camera is always ready for an impromptu photo right out of the backpack. I also make sure my lenses are in their standard settings with autofocus and image stabilization both enabled. Apparently, both lessons were forgotten since the first dozen or so photos were hastily take of a Brown University crew rowing past the spot in today's scene. Unfortunately, IS was turned off, and focus was set to manual. (Last time I used this lens was on a tripod.) Program mode was set to P, which means none of what I thought were aperture adjustments were doing anything at all. I finally caught my mistake and reset the camera and lens properly, but by then what I really wanted to capture was long past. I settled for the scene you see here. It's okay, but nothing more. That Brown crew was a much more dramatic photo. Lesson learned. I hope.
Post processing started with a classic filter in Topaz B&W FX. I adjusted color sensitivity sliders, adaptive exposure, regions, boost black, boost white, and protect highlights. A levels adjustment and a sepia photo filter at 80% opacity were added in PSE.
