I have time on my hands, life has slowed to the pace of a snail.  I am not good at doing nothing.  Consequently my blog output has suddenly risen and playing with the camera occupies a large part of the day.  This is not necessarily a bad thing – life back home is always too full.  Here in Comillas the opposite applies.

Days start too slowly – we skip mornings, arrive ready prepared for siesta time and finally hit the streets early evening.  I could not do this for long, it feels like a life wasted but for a short time it is fine.

I avoid using flash – it has limited range, it is intrusive, it does nothing for facial features and the strong shadows are unnatural.  As the light fails, the answer is to push the X100s to ISO 6400, change the white balance to incandescent, switch the film simulation to Provia Standard and then fade into the background.

Once captured, the images are cropped and the levels adjusted in Photoshop CC. ON1 is used to convert to black and white with a basic green filter, a minor vignette applied and a border added.  Then a final dabble with sharpening, levels, brightness and contrast in Photoshop finishes the job.  And, the real trick in all this? – remembering to reset the camera to its standard settings.

On the Run, Phoning Home, The Fountain and Church Door were taken out and about on the streets of Comillas last night.  It keeps me amused and out of trouble 🙂