More Williamsburg Wreaths

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150104_Wreath1 by . Fuji X-T1, XF18-135mm @ 110mm, f/5.6, 1/640 sec, ISO 1600

Today’s post includes a few examples of Holiday wreaths that adorn the homes and buildings in Colonial Williamsburg.  I just captured a few as my party was walking down the Duke of Glouster Street to our next stop.

150104_Wreath2 by .

150104_Wreath3 by .

A couple of lessons learned here.  I shot these images at a high ISO 1600.  I was going in and out of shade.  Some of the images could have been shot at a much lower ISO for less noise, some couldn’t.  Lesson learned:  Take my time on each image to get the best shooting parameters … Get out of the mode of shooting a “snap shot”!  I did take a little time in processing to POP out the wreath details and colors.  It made a difference.

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Colonial Williamsburg Wreaths

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150103_Williamsburg Wreaths by . Fuji X-T1, XF18-135mm @ 25mm, f/5.0, 1/220 sec, ISO 1600

On the brighter side of things, Colonial Williamsburg is decorated with elaborate wreaths during the Christmas Holidays.  There were many much more elaborate than this simple wreath.  The repetition  of the wreath on the railing and  the door caught my eye in this image.

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Dewitt Hospital – 60 Years Later

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150102_Dewitt Hospital Room 2 by . Dewitt Hospital Room, Williamsburg, VA – Early 19th Century

Fuji X-T1, XF18-135mm @ 52mm, f/6.4, 1/50 sec, ISO 3200

Sixty years later than my previous post, this was a typical inmate room.  What a contrast in how they thought of a person inflicted with mental illness.  Things are getting better!  The windows were still covered with iron bars.

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Happy New Year!

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150101_Dewitt Hospital Room by . Dewitt Hospital Room, Williamsburg, VA – Mid 18th Century

Fuji X-T1, XF18-135mm @ 23mm, f/5.6, 1/40 sec, ISO 3200

Wishing your New Year is better than the poor fellow that lived in this hospital room.  The Dewitt Hospital was the first mental institution in British North America.  This room depicts how inmates were treated in the mid 18th century.  Notice the shackles!  The single window was encased in bars.  They did not want afflicted people back out in public.  How things have changed!

Without getting fancy, I tried to adjust the light tonality to the way I pictured the room.

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Just Playing in Our Garden and on My Computer

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141231_Garden Color-Experimentation by . Fuji X-T1, XF18-135mm @ 135mm, f/22, 14 sec, ISO 200

I keep going back to our Red Twig Dogwoods to get a little winter color.  This is a vertical swipe taken at 1/4 second.  Back at my computer, I started playing around with Topaz’s new Impression plug-in. This is the Impasto II preset.  There is a painter somewhere inside this engineer’s mind.

This post is a milestone.  I have entered a post every day for this month, first time ever.  Now to get ready for the New Year!

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End of the Year Color

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141230_Garden Color by . Fuji X-T1, EF18-135mm @ 135mm, f/5.6, 1/350 sec, ISO 800

I took a little walk in our backyard to capture a little remaining color and try out my new Fuji 18-135mm lens.  The Heucheras in our flower beds are still holding on to their last color.  So, I looked around to find something interesting to put in front of them.  I found this wilted Japanese Maple branch as a candidate.  There was quite a little breeze so I needed to use a high ISO to freeze the motion of the branch.  I find there is always something interesting if I am patient and let the image appear.

I think I am going to like the 18-135 as my primary “walk around – go light” lens.

 

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First Impression for the Last

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141229_East Conservatory Entry by . Longwood Gardens East Conservatory

Fuji X-T1, XF18-55mm @ 18mm, f/22, 1/5 sec, ISO 400

This is the first scene I saw as I entered the Longwood Conservatory from the East end. I caught this before a zillion people showed up.  I saved my first image for the last Longwood Christmas post for this year.  Next year will have many additional interesting opportunities.  Goodbye Longwood, at least for the time being.

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More From Longwood Gardens

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141228_White Decorations Longwood by . Fuji X-T1, XF18-55mm, @ 55mm, f/8, 1/55 sec, ISO 400

There is always something around every corner or sometimes right in front of you at the Longwood Gardens Conservatory.  This decoration was right in front in the East Conservatory as I walked in.  It caught my eye as soon as I glanced around the room.

I pulled out the details of the twigs and the feathers with a “recipe” that I have made in NIK Color Efex Pro.  The recipe is a combination of Tonal Contrast, Detail Enhancement, and Pro Contrast.  I then applied Darken/Lighten Center to provide additional focus on the white decorations. The total processing time was less that 2 minutes.

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Still in the Christmas Spirit

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141227_Red Poinsettia by . Fuji X-T1, EF18-55mm @ 55mm, f/11, 1/10 second, ISO 400

I am still in the Christmas mood.  This image is just an effort to work with composition.  The subject is the center stamens and pistils of the poinsettia flower.  The plant leaves framed the subject while the background ornaments added interest without distracting from the stamens and pistils.  I cropped the leaves to eliminated any distracting edges.  Using the “mirror lock-up” function might have improved the sharpness of the subject.  Always learning …

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The Day After

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141226_Glass Ornament by Karl Graf. Canon 5D MkIII, EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro – Multiple Exposure

We spent most of Christmas Day lounging in our living room looking at our Tree and reminiscing about the past memories that some of our ornaments brought back.  While doing so, why not get a couple of images.

This photo is a combination of two images; one taken at normal focus at a moderate aperture. the other taken as a shallow depth of field and defocused.  I combined them using photoshop layers, nothing very fancy.

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