Old Jewish Cemetery - Prague

[Manfred M]

As I continue to go through some JPEGs I took while traveling through Europe in 2003 with a 4MP Canon Powershot S40, I came across a shot taken at the old Jewish cemetery, in Prague, in the Czech Republic.

I spent a fair bit of time pushing this shot and ended up breaking it in a few places, but this looks a lot better than the SOOC original.




As a reference, this is the SOOC original.

[Wavelength]

Probably somewhere in between these two?

[Manfred M]

Probably somewhere in between these two?

I disagree and would have pushed the shot harder if I had raw data. In my view the "calmed down" top image is what I wanted viewers to see; the details an edginess of this ancient and overcrowded old cemetery.

[DanK]

I think the dodging and burning worked well. The surfaces of the stones, however, seem over the top to me. The surfaces seem crunchy and look unnatural.

[Manfred M]

When I edit in Photoshop, I preserve the original image I started with and pack all of the edits into a folder. That way I can vary the impact of my edits by varying the opacity of that folder. If I take Nandakumar's suggestion and go half way (i.e. 50% opacity on the edits), I get this:




Not as crunchy, but still in need of calming. As I mentioned in #1; the edits do push the JPEG to the breaking point (i.e. getting noticeable pixelation which is seen both in the edge detail and the broader areas, especially in the highlights).

[rpcrowe]

Somehow, I personally like the version you posted first. IMO the crunchiness of the image adds to the artistic quality.

I wonder if these gravestones might have been broken up during WW-II occupation?

[DanK]

Somehow, I personally like the version you posted first. IMO the crunchiness of the image adds to the artistic quality.

I wonder if these gravestones might have been broken up during WW-II occupation?

I don't know anything about this particular cemetery, but I doubt that anything close to this much would have been left standing if the Nazis had decided to destroy it. See, for example, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/lost-je...zech-republic/. My uninformed guess is that it is a combination of a lack of maintenance--no one left to maintain it--and possibly vandalism. Vandalism of Jewish cemeteries has continued up to the present, not only in Europe, but now in the US as well. Search "vandalism Jewish cemeteries" without the quotes and you'll get lots of examples.

[Manfred M]

There is a reasonably good account of the history of this cemetery outlined in Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Je...metery,_Prague


The Jewish Museum which oversees this site also has information on it.

https://www.jewishmuseum.cz/en/explo...wish-cemetery/

[Barnwell]

Nice work in the 5th post. Shows what can be done with a jpeg.

[lunarbo]

Manfred, I was there 3 years ago and found both this cemetery and in fact the whole of the Jewish Quarter a most moving and humbling experience.
I have several similar photos, so was interested in what you took

For me the most remarkable thing was how much you have squeezed out of a 4MP compact camera - the first image is full of crunchy detail. It's a thumbs up from me !