Mark Hilliard, Atelier Portfolio

In 2012 my wife Ellen and I went to Italy for 11 days. We take a major trip somewhere in the world every year but I have to say that this trip was my best to date!

We visited:

Venice

Florence

Assisi

Rome

2 Days at the Vatican

Pisa

Pompei

Amalfi Coast

Venice, Assisi, Vatican and Amalfi were my favorites of the entire trip and I strongly suggest that if you are planning a trip to spend AT LEAST 2 days at each of them.

I shot both color and infrared and will let the images speak for themselves...

Our trip across Italy

The Grand Canal from my hotel window, Venise

Venice was amazing. This was one of the little side canals off the Grand Canal. We spent hours walking and exploring. We spent 2 days here and wish it was a week.

Alley entrance...

This single image highlights Venice at its best!

More Canal shots...

Along the Grand Canal at the hotel dock.

The famous Bridge Of Sighs leading from the court to the prison.

Giving Rainbow Row in Charleston a run for its money!

The light house on Murano in Venice

Homes and gardens in Assisi

Assisi, an amazing location. This is an entrance to a home.

The floor of the Coloseum in Rome

An old Gypsy woman begging on the street.

Another old Gypsy woman begging on the street in Rome

Doors in Amalfi

One of the chapals in the Vatican

St. Peters Square from St. Peters Basicallica

Michelangelo's "Pieta" in Saint Peters Basilica, Rome, 590nm Faux Color Infrared.

Looking at the image of the Pieta above the first thing that comes to mind is the full beautiful saturated colors. One would look at this and never realize that this is a Faux Color Infrared image! It is indeed a 590nm IR images taken on the Panasonic GH2 with the 14-140mm lens, INDOORS, THROUGH PROTECTIVE GLASS at a super high ISO of 1250, 1/60 s, f/5.6 HANDHELD.

It is in fact not a scene that one would normally consider for Infrared. This is EXACTLY why I did choose it. Color was nice, but everyone shoots it in color. I desired something different and new. I cannot imagine that it has EVER been photographed in Infrared!

Post processing for this one took considerably longer than the standard 30 seconds with CS5 and the Nik filters. There were also several problems with the scene that I had to overcome!

First and foremost was the Plexiglas shield between the public and the statue.

It was not exactly clear and there were literally thousands of people standing there shooting wildly all of them using their flashes which were just bouncing off the plastic making it more difficult to see through. Also there was a large window just over the head of Mary which had the sun directly behind it.

Ok how I did this image:

1. I took my time moving up through the crowd until I got to the rope divider and placed myself directly in the center of the plastic so that I would not cause issues from photographing from an angle.

2. I made sure to have the flash turned off (its normal condition).

3. I set the ISO to 1250 so as to have a f/5.6 aperture at at least 1/60s shutter.

4. I chose a zoom range of 24mm so as to overcome lens bending issues.

5. I then choose the composition in the Portrait mode and set my exposure ON THE WHITE STATUE set to Zone 7 and 8.

6. I took a LOT of pictures as I needed to overcome camera shake, other folks flash reflections bouncing back at me and reflections in the plastic. By a lot I mean 20 or so images…

Things to consider when shooting through plexiglass:

1. Your overall contrast will be greatly reduced so PERFECT EXPOSURE is a must!
2. Flash bounce back from others cameras will KILL your image.
3. Low shutter speed will require a solid support.

Still, knowing all of the issues I knew that I could overcome them in Post Processing, so I simply set everything up and shot away with the thousand other tourists!

I trusted my ability to set the exposure perfectly on the white statue in the spot meter mode of the camera and then wisely selected ZONE 7 & 8 by dialing in the appropriate positive exposure compensation. I also knew that I could hold the camera quite still and trusted in its built in image stabilizer to help. I used the LENS HOOD to cut down on flash reflections striking my lens objective and causing further loss of contrast (you do this also… right?)

After getting back home I went through my 20 images and selected the absolute best version to move into the post processing phase....