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Sunday, April 3, 2011

Trinity Baptist Church

The subject of today's post is the Trinity Baptist Church, located at 319 E. Mulberry Ave in San Antonio, Texas. I was not aware of this church until last night when a couple from the church stopped by the First Friday showing. That is truly one of the things that I enjoy most about meeting and talking with people who recognize my work, it usually ends up leading to locations that I had not previously thought of shooting (like Judson's Candy Factory). The prominent steeple and marble columns make this by far the most unique church exterior that I have shot to date and hopefully I will be able to able to take shots from the interior in the near future. It reminds me of a building that you would see in Washington D.C. or somewhere on the East Coast, not here in San Antonio.


Processing the shot turned out to be a little bit of a challenge, as I had to get very close and use the 10-22mm wide angle lens to capture the portion of the building that I wanted while ensuring that the view was not impeded by the power lines that ran along the sidewalk in front of the church. I was fortunate enough to think about the building leaning while I was shooting so I made sure to get the widest possible shot because I knew with processing some of the shot would be discarded due to the needed distortion correction. I used the DxO Optics Pro 6 software to ensure that the building appeared upright and vertical, rather than leaning backward. In order to do this I lost some of the foreground at the bottom of the shot, some of the sky, and some of the sides of the building, but since I had accounted for it while shooting I was able to retain the full steeple and marble columns, but not retaining much else from the shot.


I included the "original" version of the shot as well to show just how amazing of a tool DxO Optics Pro 6 really is! (If you are not using this tool to counteract barrel distortion you should be!!) Once again I was impressed with the black and white version of the shot that I use to help make the coloring appear more natural, so I included the black and white version of the final shot as well! One more note about the original compared to the final versions, I ended up cleaning the white of the shot quite considerably, so the columns and steeple look much "cleaner" than the original version.


Trinity Baptist Church - exterior


Black and White - Trinity Baptist Church - exterior


Original (pre-distortion processing)


If you are so inclined, please feel free to leave any comments or feedback. Also remember that clicking on the photo takes you to my online gallery hosted over at smugmug where you can view this (and my other photos) in various sizes. If you enjoyed this post, please take the time to pass my post(s) on to others whom you also feel would enjoy my work. Thanks for stopping by!


5 comments:

  1. Brian, I love your blog about Trinity Baptist Church! I've never been inside and am amazed at the detail.
    We met Thurday night at your show in the Blue Star Art Space and I just found your card. It was great meeting you and seeing your lovely photos.

    Carmen

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  2. Great job Brian! Both the color and black and white look great!

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  3. Excellent Work!! I am so impressed you got over there so quickly, thank you. I will try to get you in contact with Gavin to get you access to the steeple. Again, amazing work!
    Sarah Benson

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  4. This is excellent!! Love the b/w.
    That dxO software did an amazing job!! The original you included looks neat also-with the distortion it looks like you are down really low looking up at an angle.

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  5. @Carmen - It was great to meet you as well!

    @Cindi - Thanks! I think I prefer the black and white version (it might just be a kick that I am on right now). I am really digging Silver Efex Pro 2!

    @Sarah - Not a problem! As soon as Gavin showed me a photo I knew I had to shoot the outside of the church. It is such a unique looking church (especially for a church here in San Antonio!). It really looks like it should be somewhere "older" on the East Coast!

    @MJ - DxO is awesome!! The lens correction in Photoshop is ok, but once I saw the difference that DxO makes I had to get it. I did take the original shot from the edge of the sidewalk in front of the church fairly low to the ground, looking up at an angle. Because of the powerlines along the street there really wasn't another viable option.

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