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Must See: Montana Fall Road Trip - 2022

Wild Goose Overlook - St. Mary's Lake - East Side Going to the Sun Road - Glacier National Park Fall is like the blissful sunset of a beautiful day. The colors of the year blazing into brilliant reds and oranges. The weather holding out the last vestiges of warmth. And all the world seems to be curling up over a cozy mug of hot chocolate in the waning light. Just before the cold night of winter settles in. I love fall. And everything that it brings with it. Especially, I love the mountains in fall. How they can go from striking to moody in a matter of moments. And, (even) most especially, I love Glacier National Park in the fall. It is spectacle for the senses. Bright colors. Cool breezes. Altitudes and reflections. Hiking. Grazing moose. Scampering bears.  Head out highway 2 toward West Glacier and you are astounded by the sheer mountainous walls marking the entrance to the park. But, before you do that, my wife reminds me in one of those step on the brakes sort of ways, you absol
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MidWeek Edit: Eiffel Tower on the Paris Mall

Here in Midweek Edits, I take a look back at a random BKP favorite and re-imagine it. This time, I found one that I wanted to give a retro feel to: The Eiffel Tower on the Paris Mall. It comes from a quick weekend in Paris where we ran around seeing the sights. We were moving so fast that I barely had time to snap a few good frames, but this one stands out because it has a simple, yet gritty nature to it. You can see the allure of the City of Lights juxtaposed against the mundane, and even the dirty. Prints of the MidWeek Edits are available here.

Eiffel Tower on the Paris Mall - SOOC
As you can see, SOOC was underexposed by nearly a stop - shot on a Canon 40D with a EF-S 10-22mm lens at 22mm, f/4.5, 1/320sec, and ISO400. So I added back +.8 in exposure, increased the brightness, vibrance, and saturation, while dropping out the blacks. As a final touch on the original edit, I added Highlights and Lights to fix some of the flat.
Eiffel Tower on the Paris Mall - Original Edit
But, Paris is not a contemporary city. It must be enjoyed in light of history and culture. I wanted to capture that as I re-imagined the image. I felt that a retro, desaturated feel captured this best. So I started in Adobe Lightroom by adding +1 stops of exposure, dropping the brightness to 0 and dumping the contrast. To compensate for the flattened image and excessive highlights, I added in a bit of Recovery, increased the Fill Light to smooth the image, and dialed up some extra black. Next, I added vibrancy and threw out the saturation (-61). In the tone curve, it needed some addition in the Darks to pull out some of the shadows amongst the trees and additional Lights to even the sky. To get the final, retro feeling, I cranked up the Color Temp to 50000 and added split toning on the highlights and shadows. With a touch of vignette and some film grain, it was finished. Here is the result:
Eiffel Tower on the Paris Mall - re-imagined
And a full Black and White edit using my James Dean B&W preset.
black and white Paris
Eiffel Tower on the Paris Mall - Black and White

Thoughts? Questions? Leave them in the comments below.

Brad Kehr is a photographer specializing in weddings, events, portraits, and landscapes. He enjoys exploring DC and sharing what he finds through the lens. You can catch his website at www.bradkehrphotography.com, follow him on Twitter (@bradkehrphoto), or find him on Facebook.
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