A few weeks ago I took a day trip to Tucson, AZ for work, and had a few hours to kill before my flight back home. Each time I visit a new place I haven't been (I'd been to Tucson before, but as a kid before I got into photography), I do a search for the local attractions and photographic places of interest. The San Xavier del Bac Mission is one of the oldest missions in the United States, founded in 1692. Besides being old, it was beautiful in all the images I saw, so I knew I had to go if I got a chance!
The mission did not disappoint. I spent a little over an hour exploring, and I got lucky with some dramatic skies. The light outside wasn't great, but I got a few shots and then went inside, where the craftmanship is amazing. Every wall is covered with carved statues, frescos, and intricate woodwork, and the dome had some beautiful artwork painted on it.
Next to the mission is a small hill with a cross atop it and some monuments or altars to various saints and such. I headed up the hill to get a vantage point of the mission from above (the image at the top of the page) and decided it was time to head back to the car. That is when the sun came out, and the light on the mission and hill were just what a photographer hopes for.
I spent another 20 minutes taking many of the same shots I already had taken when I first got to the mission, taking advantage of the golden light coming through the clouds.
Below is a set of bracketed exposures I took of the mission, hoping to combine the three shots (-2, 0, +2 EV) into an HDR later.
I use Nik software's HDR Efex Pro for all my HDR's. I combined the 3 exposures above into one HDR file.
Looks pretty good, but I wasn't happy with the tonal balance throughout, and thought this image needed a little more work. I brought it into photoshop, where I used layer masks and adjustment layers to adjust where needed. Finally, I added a Nik Color Efex Pro filter, "glamour glow", to the image stack, one of my favorite filters to apply. I love the softness it adds while still keeping the edge softness. The final image is below:
I highly recommend a trip to the mission for anyone, not just photographers.
Happy Shooting!
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