May 28, 2010

High Dynamic Heaven

A surprise encounter during last Sunday’s Shooting Day in and around Antwerp’s old harbor area with Belgiumdigital! At one point in time we ignored the metal fences around an old warehouse building (granted: the one meter wide opening was quite inviting) and stepped inside for a quick visit to a soon-to-be-gone site.

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The ‘
Montevideo warehouses’ consist of twenty-two brick stone sheds dating from 1895 and covering a total area of 12,000 m². The name refers to the ships once traveling the Rio de la Plata.

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The buildings have the typical saw tooth shed roofs originally introduced with the first English mechanical weaving mills. They served as a storage space for the British Army until 1950, and have been filled with butter, cheese, cigarettes, ham, coffee and tea. The site is a protected historic monument since 2001.

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The restoration of the warehouses will start in August of this year. They will become part of a new complex centered around an indoor multicultural market with a number of fixed stalls. The original metal skeleton will be preserved: the elements will be dismounted, treated and reassembled on a new concrete floor.
The project should be completed by end 2012 and is part of the broader redevelopment of the old harbor area - ‘t Eilandje – together with the new MAS (Museum Aan de Stroom/Museum on the River) and the Red Star Line buildings.

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An abandoned industrial site and great light: what more do you need for a dose of HDR frenzy? The above shots showcase a lot of alternative post-processing techniques: extreme development of a RAW file in Lightroom, fusing multiple exposures and even tone mapping from a single RAW file in Photomatix Pro. Even more surprising: all of the above shots (and many more) were made in a time span of just ten minutes! But I better not mention the time spent in front of the computer following that…

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Gear notes: D700, 24-70/2.8

Click on the image(s) to see a larger version

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