Where: Parc de la Pointe-du-Moulin, Ile-Perrot, Quebec, Canada.
About: This wonderful historic site is at the end of my main street, I lived here close to 3 years and never got the chance to visit it. I always saw pictures of it and wanted to give it a shot. A month ago I passed by it and took a look at entrance fees, and opening hours, to my amazement, they open at 9:30AM!! I wanted to take a picture for the Mill at Sunrise, as its places perfectly where the sun rises. Called the parc 4 times over the month to ask about their policy regarding after/before hours visiting, no one ever picked up or bothered to answer my voice mail back. Too bad .. or too good :)
Visited this parc at 4AM, didn’t jump the fence as technically there is no fence, just a closed gate that I walked around it. Creepy like hell the parc was at night. After 30 min of searching I found it. I wanted to try star trails for the first time, but the mill was under 4 huge spot lights , I was thinking of putting garbage cans and whatever I can lay my hand on in front of the light spots to block it, then I noticed the big board saying Surveillance Cameras, that was the end of the star trails dreams. Happy no one interrupted the shooting, and I got to watch the sun rise in one of the most beautiful places in Ile-Perrot.
The History: The history of the site dates back to 1672 when Intendant Jean Talon granted the island to a M. François-Marie Perrot who opened up a fur trading post. Another thirty years passed when a gentleman by the name of Joseph Trottier Desruisseaux, the new seigneur of the Island, constructed a windmill in 1705 that the inhabitants of the island extensively used to transform their harvest. This windmill , although pretty much rebuilt by the government of Quebec in 1978, is located on an extreme portion of land that extends into Lac St Louis.
Process: 3 different exposers using bracketing -2, 0, +2,Merged in Photomatix to HDR, then exported to CS4. Applied a B&W High Key filter to the entire image, lot and lots of dodge and burn, save for web.
These are my outtakes,
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The very smooth blending of dark to light (esp. the blades of the windmill and the figure's head) really work well - almost pure sillouette, but not quite. Well done.
OK, I'm going through the Free Study submissions, purposefully finding those images I think are shot with a less conventional eye - this is one of those images! Thanks for offering something that isn't just DPC friendly eye-candy (though of course there's nothing wrong with eye-candy). I'll be picking one of these images for my Mu (most underrated) award:
Positives: Just plain beautiful. The compositional elements conspire to offer something more than the sum of its parts. You have captured so much detail in your silhouettes but I love how you have kept the door visible. The way you have captured the light is wonderful.
Critical stuff: You know, I can't think of a single thing.
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