This year, Bulgaria took over rotating EU presidency, so I thought that it'd be a great time to share a winter shot of the building (The National Palace of Culture, or NDK) where the most important meetings will take place. I took the picture on the 6th of January last year when the temperatures were well below freezing, and the snow drifts were so deep that you could jump in them without hurting yourself. It was snowing heavily on that day, which further contributed to the feeling of desolation.
Fujifilm X-T1 & Fujinon 35mm f/1.4 ~ f/5.6, 1/125 sec., ISO-500
This is a screenshot of my Local Adjustments tab in Capture One 10. The first thing I did was to desaturate the image and increase the contrast; I also decided to increase the exposure, as the whole photo looked a bit darker. Then, I applied a curve, which darkened the building, thus making it stand out. Another thing I did was to move the clarity and structure sliders down to -100 and -25 respectively. Now, you may find this strange, as most of us want sharper images, but I think reducing the clarity gave the photo an eerier look. Last but not least, I added film grain and a Blue-red split toning.
This is the original image
Do you like it better in color or B&W? How would you edit this shot? Let me know in the comments.
Thank you for reading,
Dan