Making Vintage Photographs

Today’s Post by Mildred Alpern

“Sooner or later, everything old is new again.”—Stephen King

Isn’t this the truth? In a bunch of cardboard boxes I find the sepia colored photographs of yesteryear. Mixed in are old umber-toned postcards. Nostalgia resonates from these days-gone-by images.

So for fun, I decided to hunt for scenes that would translate into this genre and capture its atmosphere. What better place than Bethesda Terrace in Central Park, NYC, constructed during the Civil War, and designed by Frederick Law Olmstead and Calvert Vaux.

There is both an upper and lower terrace connected by a two grand staircases as well as an arcade passageway where musicians and singers perform to the delight of visitors and tourists.

The fountain sculpture, a centerpiece of the terrace, designed by Emma Stebbins in 1868 is called the Angel of the Waters and she carries a lily in one hand and blesses the waters below with her other.

All images were shot with the Olympus E-M5 Mark II and the Olympus M. Zuiko Pro 12-40 Pro f/2.8 lens; the terrace at 35mm with an exposure of 1/400 sec at f/7.1 and ISO 400; the fountain at 30mm with an exposure of 1/100 sec at f/9 and ISO 400; and the arcade at 28mm with an exposure of 1/100 at f/5.6, ISO 400. To produce the sepia toning effect and frame, they were processed in Color Efex Pro.