Urban decay - making the most of a gloomy day?

[brightonian]

Hi there,

I am a novice photographer doing a documentary on Urban Decay for my uni course, and have been inspired heavily by the urban decay assignment on this site.

I intend to shoot the majority of the project on an overcast day, but want to make the most of it, and dont want the shots to look 'dull'.

Can anyone give me any tips on how to get some great shots in these conditions?

[wulf]

Post-processing. Unless you are specifically instructed to get all your results in camera you will find that time spent in the digital darkroom is well rewarded.

Wulf

[ditch_azeroth]

what wulf said. specifically, you will want to do some high pass, unsharp mask, contrast and saturation touch-ups... that sort of deal.

[eioua]

sounds interesting... i think im going for the same effect, except the majority of the photos i take are more rural decay than urban decay. anyway, im still trying to find the right way to develop them. what exactly is high pass? ive never heard the term associated with photography...

[Nicole]

It's a sharpening method, described well here.

[wulf]

I posted just today on how to get a high pass effect using layer modes, which may be of using (not least because, if you follow the steps, you can get a sense of what it is accomplishing).

Wulf

[eioua]

awesome! thanks for the information!

[slyder0244]

and you might want to try some hdr because if you don't overdo the effect you can really boost the contrast up a lot and have some really nice dark shadows and contrast which would look good after desaturating the photo