Views of St. Patrick's

Working with light in a crowded venue

Last year, I took a group of clients on a private photo-oriented tour of Ireland. Of course, the first stop on any Irish journey is almost always the city of Dublin. When you’re in a city that’s full of popular tourist destinations, it’s sometimes tough to get the best shots, so you need to look for interesting compositions and find unique ways of presenting them.

My kit on this particular trip was minimal. Two cameras, two lenses. My primary kit was this one, plus an infrared-converted camera for extra creativity.

St. Patrick’s #1

One of the many doorway arches at St. Patrick’s cathedral, Dublin

A good way to work with architectural shots is to get closer. Not necessarily physically closer, but to use a longer focal length and crop tightly. This door wasn’t being used much, so there weren’t too many other tourists around. The scene was in full shade, so I used a B&W Film Preset to add some drama, grain, and a vignette (Paid subscribers will know what I’m talking about, here).

St. Patrick’s #2

Here’s an interior shot from the cathedral, showing the rows of historical flags. Obviously, the cathedral floor was crawling with people taking selfies, so again I went with what worked. I framed this shot to cut out the lower foreground and any people in it. The lighting was pretty challenging, so I captured three separate exposures and merged them using Lightroom’s HDR Merge tool. Doing so enabled me to retain detail in both the shadows and the highlights, while still presenting a natural-looking photograph.

St. Patrick’s #3

It was a sunny morning in Dublin, and the skies were partly cloudy. Quite glorious for Ireland, if you ask me! For this exterior shot, I wanted to do something completely different and take advantage of the nice sunshine and cotton candy clouds. I switched to my infrared-converted camera, fitted with a unique filter from Kolari Vision called “IR Chrome.” This filter allows the camera to record a combination of both infrared and visible light, and objects that reflect IR are rendered a brilliant red, while skies remain blue. The green grass and willow tree in front of the cathedral delivered the goods, while I managed to find a vantage point that wasn’t too crowded. Now my “postcard” shot takes on an entirely different look!

Behind the Shots: Tech Specs

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