I found this old Coke refrigerator next to an old wood wagon and some prickly pear cactus in Northern New Mexico near Santa Fe and Taos. In fact I photographed this with my students during a photo workshop Christine and I were teaching in Santa Fe/Taos in 2011.
While this was photographed in 2011, I didn’t process and enhance the photo until spring of 2012.
This was photographed with my Canon 5DMKII and 17-40mm lens. It is a 3-photo HDR image, meaning I took 3 different photos while my camera was on the tripod, changing the exposure in each to allow me to record details in the bright highlights and dark shadows.
I combined the 3 differently exposed photos into one image using Nik’s HDR Efex Pro software. I also used Silver Efex Pro, Color Efex Pro 4, and Viveza 2 (check out my online class on how to use Viveza 2) while enhancing the photo.
I also blended in a photo texture from FlyPaper Textures to complete the look.
I did all of this work to share with you the vision I had with this particular image. I was going for an older, more vintage look for this photo to match the subject material and the feeling I had when I was composing and photographing this scene.