1910 Building

[armando_m]

I had the opportunity to visit a building which I didn't know existed in the city,
it is called the "The Cow Palace", built between 1850 and 1910 by José Diaz a cousin of Porfirio Diaz president of México from 1870's to 1910.

This was a vacation house for Don José, it had 24 rooms , 3 dining rooms, 2 kitchens, 3 gardens.

One of the interestng aspects of the house are the murals , painted by a young Xavier Guerrero, who was hired to decorate the place when he was only 15 years old, he spent the next 11 years working on the murals. Mr. Guerrero later became a mentor for famous muralists like Diego Rivera, Clemente Orozco and Siqueiros.

The place was abandoned sometime during the revolution, it was a school for girls for a number fo years , the schools had to close and the place was bought by someone who wanted to convert it into a parking lot, this plans did not progress mainly due to the neighbors opposing the demolition, the place was bought by an american woman , who in turn sold it to the current owner, who is slowly restoring it . There are guided tours, and photo events , the funds of theses going toward he restoration.

Local government has not had much interest in the place , my guess is that the right person has not seen it.

Here are a few shots of the place

Dining rooms:






Studio


Hallway


The gardens are not well cared for, and the outside is non descriptive, so I took no shots of this

The happy owner


Thanks for looking

[Franglais]

I like the look you've given it, lots of shadows which still have detail.

[hminx]

It would be a terrible shame to let this building deteriorate further. I suspect that restoration is a task a bit beyond the present owner's capability.
And +1 what Charles said.

[Greg McCary]

What Charles said.

[armando_m]

Thanks , here is a shoot of the library with a distinguished guest



I did struggle a bit with the camera, at home I noticed the EV was reversed to how the D300 has it, same for the exposure meter, at home I could take my time, over here I felt pressured by time and made some mistakes, once I got access to the manual I figured out the functions that needed changing , so, now both cameras match

The wide angle shots I did with the camera on a tripod 2 seg delayed shooter, F8 aperture, ISO 100, and DX crop mode.

The shots with the 50mm I did handheld at !/100, Auto ISO and big apertures for the people. ISO 3200 for the owner and 2000 for the girl.

[armando_m]

It would be a terrible shame to let this building deteriorate further. I suspect that restoration is a task a bit beyond the present owner's capability.
And +1 what Charles said.

Yup, he is getting some help from architecture and civil engineering students, but sometimes long periods of time go by without help.

[draymorton]

Beautifully done! And that portrait is stunning!

[ksbryan0]

Great set of images, Armando! I really like #4 above, and the portrait, of course! How did you light the scenes in the building?

[armando_m]

Thank you Dray and Bryan

All ambient light, except the one with the electric bulbs

The images of the building I made them darker to match what I saw, except for the paintings, those I added a bit more light in PP

[Franglais]

The shot of the girl is the sort of look that I want to get with my fashion shots, clear and solid, even on a web page. It looks like your 50mm is well suited. 2000 ISO ? Remarkable

[armando_m]

Charles, I did resize, sharpen 3 times, instead of twice, the unsharp mask had values about 50 % of what I use with the D300, processed with capture nx2

[Franglais]

Thanks. I'll have to work on it in Lightroom. Gives me some ideas.

I have a shooting in about three hours, probably next to some fashion professionals. They do fantastic work transforming the image in Photoshop, colour shifts, etc. - on a small number of images, and it takes time.

My role in the affair is rather to bring out a fairly large number of straight images quickly so that we can create a buzz on Internet while it's still fresh in people's minds.

[Ti.P]

beautiful lighting!