Before iPhones

This was taken in Sarah Van Hoosen Jones' farmhouse at the Rochester Hills Museum. Sarah had grown up on the farm. She received a BA in Foreign Languages from the University of Chicago and an MS degree in Animal Husbandry from the University of Wisconsin. In 1921, again at Wisconsin, she became the first woman in the country to earn a Doctorate in Animal Genetics. Then she launched into an illustrious career breeding dairy cattle at the family farm.

9 exposure HDR at 1 EV intervals
ISO 640, f/22, zoom lens at 26mm, Nikon D3s

Processing

• Photomatix -- tone mapping for good histogram
• Adobe Camera Raw -- Recovery, Clarity, saturation & luminance tweaks to some colors; no white balance adjustment (didn't want to lose that warmth)
• cropped some from left and bottom for composition
• masked Curves to lighten and darken areas that would otherwise have been distracting
• two B&W Fractalius layers at Multiply blend mode, one masked from phone
• Alien Skin Snap Art -- Stylize Line Art (B&W) at Multiply blend mode (masked from lampshade)
• Nik Color Efex -- Glamour Glow (warm), Darken/Lighten Center
• onOne PhotoFrame -- effects near border

(This version is just a bit darker and more saturated than the PSD version.)

Dennis, the warm color and glow to this image give it a great patina of sorts...if it were mine, I would suggest a little more of the corner of the table at the bottom, and a little less room up top...then again, it would lose some of that wonderful arc of light and shadow across the top if you did...so I'm a little undecided. Nicely done...and I love the title!

Wonderful tones in this image Dennis. As far as composition, I really like that you can see through the open doorway to the room beyond. It gives the image a more open and natural feeling of space. Others may disagree. The on-one photoframe fits nicely as well. I also thank you for the brief bio of Sarah Van Hoosen Jones. A lovely image which I would have loved to see the lighter PSD version.

Fantatstic! Love the combination of effects. The framing is PERFECT!!. Great look to this Dennis.

Thanks for your comments, John and Dave. It doesn't appear that it's possible to do a multiple reply with quote in the same reply any more, so I'll do it without the quotes. The version below is the entire view without any changes in Adobe Camera Raw or Photoshop.

John, you mentioned that you'd like to see more of the table. I would've, too. The final decision was a compromise based on where some of the major elements in the image (chiefly the radiator if I remember, right) would've fallen if I'd not cropped so much off the bottom. I could've kept the arc of light on the top and shown more table, but I thought the composition would have suffered. In addition, I wanted to emphasize the phone. If you'd like to re-post an alternate composition, I'd be happy to see it.

Dave, I'm not sure if you would like to see the version before I darkened it with Fractalius and Snap Art or the final version before it changed a bit during the "Save for Web & Devices ..." conversion to get it here.

The intentional darkening wasn't all that substantial. Except for the floor lamp and a very small table lamp behind me, the only light came from distant windows, so it was pretty dark in that corner. However, that was part of the appeal for me.

Oops. Thanks you, Denise. Your reply came in while I was working on the response to John and Dave.

Dennis, I really like the composition and the thought process behind it. Wonderful tonal range and fantastic processing! Thanks for sharing the steps.

This is really, really good Dennis. I like the comp., colors, everything about the op.

Jack

Hi Dennis, you have presented this quite nicely. Love the tones and the comp and the treatment too!

I like this a lot, Dennis. Nice tonal range, beautifully processed.

Gorgeous tones in this image. It seems to shine. Great composition. The phone is the central element. The other elements add context and interest. The open door adds depth. One one thing that bothers me is the tilt to the left. For some reason, it makes me dizzy and I'm not able to get my mind to register the curved photo within a photo. Probably just me.