On Art, Technology and Economics
An autumn photo from Gettysburg from several years back. This is Cross Avenue near the Rose Farm. It’s pretty today, but on July 2, 1863, some 20,000 troops were engaged in the fighting with 6,000 killed, wounded, or missing.
Prints are available here.
Perhaps I’ve been looking at too many Civil War-era photographs of recent, but I’ve really been having fun playing with conversions to mimic the old Calotype prints of the mid-1800s.
The scratches and damage areas play a role in a successful conversion. Many of the photos you’ll see today will have those imperfections, but the trick is to make them look random when they are not. The same is true for the grain. Should be some, can’t be too much.
This is an image of my friend Angela from a couple of years back.
Sepia and a Calotype approach isn’t right for everything, but it’s a useful option in some cases.
Gettysburg fans will recognize this as the angle — sometimes considered the high watermark of the Confederacy — looking north from the Copse of Trees.