Auxerre cathedral

[jools230575]

Afternoon all

Seeing as Nevers cathedral has sparked some debate, here's one from Auxerre in Burgundy.

The verticals have been corrected in this one as they weren't too far out. Blending wise, I used three images to blend. Two of them provided the main light. The second of these first too was a little darker and helped give some shadow detail. The last image was for the windows.

And before anyone says it, I know there is a guy with his ladder. They were getting something ready and I didn't have a lot of time here.

[degrub]

i like the symmetry and colors , but not the hard light on the surfaces from the processing.
Maybe it would work in duotone  or B&W?

[jools230575]

I know what you mean about the harsher light. They're difficult to balance correctly; well to my own personal taste anyway.

[bill t.]

The hardest thing in these cases is always conveying that the color of the surfaces is from light, rather than paint.  A very delicate balancing act.

And to compound matters, in the spaces themselves that distinction is not always so evident, those darned stained glass windows throw countless different color casts amidst the overall low light.  You almost have to impose a more luminous look by rebalancing the apparent lighting, implying that the sun lighted areas are rather light, luminous tones rather than the mid tones they really are.  And I can see that you are pushing in that direction.  Was so much easier with black and white.

[jools230575]

One of the things I didn't notice was the still intact paint on the roof! And detail wise; the 5D Mark II has nearly gone so far as to pick out the words on the lecturn.

I did look at this one in B&W and it works just as well.

And yes, you're right. It ain't easy at all trying to get a balance. With this one I was afraid it might have been too over the top on the processing. I used the blending technique that was done on Nevers but just added another layer with slightly darker tones. Curves helped to tighten it.

I'd like to get all the cathedrals in France and I think I may even make it into a personal goal.