Retro//Reflection - Issue #14

A memory of Rovinj, an old town on the Istrian peninsula. Recreated in black and white using a piece of (somewhat) ancient software.

Once or twice per month I send out a letter with a handful of (my) photographs and share a bit of insight on the ‘why?’ or ‘how?’. As an enthusiastic photographer, anything goes.

Maybe you learn something?
Or perhaps it will spark some inspiration?

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Searching back through my digital catalogue, I found myself in the 2012 folder, looking at photos I had taken of Rovinj, a small and old Croatian fishing port on Istria, a peninsula within the Adriatic Sea.

By the time I took these photo’s I was already photographing for around 8 years, but I was still not really paying attention to composition or light (photography was still a supporting act for travelling and sightseeing at that time). But looking back now, I think I did spot a few nice compositions and interesting scenes. And also the obvious postcard shots.

I also think these photos would have looked great on a film camera, so I decided to give the digital files an analog black and white look. Sure I could get a film camera and travel back to Rovinj, but this is a more economical and quicker alternative.

For this purpose I thought it would be fitting to use software that is as old as the digital files: I edited them in Silver FX Pro 2 that was part of the famous Google’s (free) NIK Collection. I still had the installer and the software works just fine in Windows 11.

For those who are interested in the process: I used the Cool Tones 1 preset and tweaked it from there, less highlights and contrast, toyed with the border style. Small edits really. Saved that as a custom preset so I could give the other photos the same treatment. And that’s it.

As single photo’s I’m not sure if they all work but as a set I think they tell a nice, brief story of a peculiar but typical town in Istria, Croatia. At least I have a nice memory of a few pleasant days in Rovinj. Think I need to print them too :)

Have you been to Rovinj or visited Istria or Croatia? It’s a beautiful part of Europe and can highly recommend visiting!

Do you use the NIK Collection of plugins (currently maintained and developed by DxO)?

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Each issue I want to end with mentioning a photographer, a photography-related website or publication, simply to show my appreciation for what they do.

Thanks to the Internet Archive you can still find the original installer download for the famous Collection of Filters by Google/NIK. Head out to https://archive.org/details/nikcollection-full-1.2.11 where you can download the last version that was still a free download at that time. No guarantees, and make sure to scan the download for viruses and/or malware, but I think this is still a nice piece of software that can help you edit (some) of your photos!

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That’s it for this issue. Thank you for reading until the end. Feel free to leave a short comment or message. Appreciate it!

Until next time, cheers,
Ronald
ronaldsmeets.info

ps: this article/newsletter/post is free, because I’m not doing this to make a profit. Also, I don’t like subscriptions at all (Tom Pendergast has a great article about not going paid, which I agree with). However, if you do want to show your support, a coffee always helps me writing and posting here ;-)