This past week at Photoshop World has just been a blast and it has gone by so fast that it’s hard for me to be back in my office already. Every Photoshop World is a little bit better than the last, partly because the staff is always trying to improve the experience for the participants. Photoshop World always starts off with Precons, this year there was ten different ones. For the Photo Safari it was off to Virginia to meet with some real Civil War reenactors who did a outstanding job portraying people from the period. You might of course notice Honest Abe there who happens to be none other than infamous Russell Brown, not a reenactor but certainly a convincing President. Heck I’d vote for him.
Now this was by far the most challenging of Precon shoots I’ve been to so far mostly because it required communicating with very accurate reenactors, which has never been my strong suite. So I might have, sorta, kinda sponged off of a few other people’s idea’s when it came to the positioning. Hey if it’s a good idea why knock it.
Now while I was out there I was thinking of black and white. I was also thinking of tin types. SilverEfex has a great filter for both, which was what these were converted in. Tin Type’s can be a lot of fun but I find a limitation on how often they can be used, mostly because the subject matter just doesn’t support the conversion. This is one of those instances when it fits absolutely perfectly.
The two gentleman above are a general and a governor. Both played their characters brilliantly to the point where it was difficult to get them to talk about themselves! Even so they made for excellent subjects. The Governor bellow posed especially well, he was so relaxed watching the 60 or so photographers move around the place.
In the Camera Bag:
Nikon D3, 70-200 VRII, on Lexar UDMA Digital Film