Source Photos

Cathedral

The cathedral ruins at San Galgano in southwestern Tuscany are one of the few examples of gothic architecture in Italy. The amazing feature of this site is the open ceiling created by the long-departed wooden roof. The sky and clouds juxtaposed against the stone arches provided the initial exploration for this image. I set up my tripod and framed the shot, bracketing with the exposure compensation settings, finally selecting this frame which was shot at -1.33.

 Cathedral
Nikon D2H
1/180 sec, f/11
-1.33 EV
Focal length 36mm

Campo Sky

Standing in the middle of Siena's main square, known as the Campo, was amazing. The entire region was preparing for the horse race known as the Palio. People were everywhere, the square was buzzing with activity…and yet I couldn't help but be amused as a big lazy cloud drifted by a tower that has stood firm and silent for more than 500 years. The abundance of light made it easy to hand-hold the shot, and I was careful to hold the verticality of the building, aligning it with the edges of the frame.

 Campo Sky
Nikon D2H
1/320 sec, f/8.5
Focal length 120mm

Drips Scan

I know lots of people who stubbornly try to create all of their effects within the computer, with no help from the atom-based world. I'm not one of those people. When I decided that I wanted to integrate drips and splatters into the Tuscany images, I got out some black ink, splattered some art paper, and ran them through the scanner. This image was transferred to paper through an intaglio press, which resulted in the light, ghosted image.

 Drips Scan
Nikon D2H
1/10 sec, f/8.0
Focal length 75mm