Montreal In Pictures

September 7 2012

I discovered today that Trey Ratcliff is selling a whole bunch (over 75) of his Lightroom presets for the bargain price of 19.97 US$.

So some (okay, nearly all) of today’s pictures had a bit of Trey’s touch added to them during processing, although I did some further tweaking in most instances, using the presets as a starting point.

The first set of images featuring the fountain and Feminine Landscape sculpture at Place Ville Marie used the Amazing Raisins preset which gave the image a nice glow (helped by the fact it was shot in late afternoon sun).

Feminine Landscape sculpture and fountain at Place Ville Marie
ISO 320 – 20mm – f5.6 – 1/350 sec

Place Ville Marie
ISO 100 – 10mm – f13 – 1/10 sec

Feminine Landscape sculpture and fountain at Place Ville Marie
ISO 100 – 20mm – f11 – 1/15 sec

The next set was taken at the pedestrian crossing on blvd René-Lévesque. The only adjustment made on these was to boost the clarity and contrast, reduce the blacks and tweak the curve to give the images a more raw urban look. I didn’t have my tripod with me so had to rest the camera on a nearby wall.

Street crossing on René-Lévesque
ISO 100 – 14mm – f27 – 1/3 sec

Street crossing on René-Lévesque
ISO 100 – 20mm – f27 – 0.5 sec

The next group of images were processed using Trey’s Infrared Morning preset followed by some additional curve adjustments.

Marie Reine du Monde Cathedral
ISO 100 – 52mm – f5 – 1/90 sec

Royal Bank Building viewed from rue Saint Paul
ISO 100 – 38mm – f6.7 – 1/125 sec

The above shot was taken from one of the car parks adjacent to rue Saint Paul. There are some great photo opportunities in this area and I will be going back at different times as I think the lighting can play a dramatic role in how the skyline and surrounding old buildings appear.

The side streets in the neighborhood between rue McGill and rue University offer some wonderful photo ops as well, including the Darling Foundry that has been converted into artist studios and residencies.

The front of the building is currently home to Courte-Pointe, an art installation by Philippe Allard and Justin Duchesneau that is made of plastic milk crates. If you think the names sound familiar, they are the same artists behind the Forêt installation at the Quartier des Spectacles which I shot last weekend.

In addition to taking 3 bracketed exposures and merging using Photomatix, I also processed using some of Trey’s HDR presets. Among the ones I used were these quite imaginative named presets – Gritty Gritty Pop Pop, Flatjack and On Drugs.

The Darling Foundry
ISO 100 – 14mm – f4.8 – 1/125 sec (-2ev/0/+2ev)

Courte-Pointe art installation at The Darling Foundry
ISO 100 – 11.5mm – f4.2 – 1/90 sec(-2ev/0/+2ev)

Courte-Pointe art installation at The Darling Foundry
ISO 100 – 10mm – f4 – 1/250 sec (-2ev/0/+2ev)

I really like how this next image came out with the addition of the ‘Glowing Beyond The Heavens’ preset.

Blue Window on rue Queen

Here’s a wider shot without too much post processing of the original.

rue Queen
ISO 100 – 26mm – f6.7 – 1/45 sec

I think I must have shot all the parking meters along Queen street….

Parking meter and graffiti
ISO 100 – 34mm – f6.7 – 1/125 sec

Parking meter and green door
ISO 100 – 50mm – f6.7 – 1/30 sec

There’s a wonderful old Hydro Quebec building on the corner of rue Queen and rue Wellington, it was calling out to be shot in HDR.

Old Hydro Quebec building on rue Queen
ISO 100 – 11.5mm – f4.2 – 1/250 sec (-2ev/0/+2ev)

Old Hydro Quebec building on rue Queen
ISO 100 – 11.5mm – f4.2 – 1/180 sec (-2ev/0/+2ev)

One of my favorite buildings in Montreal is the Customs building on rue McGill. I used Trey’s Endless Portrait setting as the starting point for the processing on the first image.

Customs building
ISO 100 – 13mm – f4.5 – 1/250 sec

Customs building
ISO 100 – 13mm – f4.5 – 1/350 sec

The next few pictures were taken on Côte du Beaver Hall adjacent to a construction site where a new condo tower is being built. I can’t imagine the views out of these windows will be very good soon. I used the HDR Gritty Gritty Pop Pop Lightroom presets for both.

Fire escape
ISO 100 – 135mm – f6.7 – 1/125 sec

Fire escape
ISO 100 – 70mm – f6.7 – 1/125 sec

If you are a Lightroom 4 user I highly recommend that you go check out Trey’s presets. For 20 bucks you get some great looks that will certainly have you looking at some images in a new way.

To view images in gallery format, simply click on one of the images below.