A favorite coffeehouse is called Mug’s. They have two locations, one in Old Town and one just across the street from the the Oval on the campus of Colorado State University. I’m closer to the one near campus. They make these really awesome breakfast burritos, sandwiches and pastries. Because the food and coffee is good and the kids working there are awesome, you can easily drop $8 in the blink of an eye. And feel good about it. It’s a gathering place for students finishing homework assignments with a latte and bagel before heading off to class. Students gather for study sessions and faculty have meetings.
In this image I was taken by the window light and his intensity. I processed it with Silver Efex Pro using one of their presets then a couple tweaks in Lightroom.
10 Comments
Steve Skinner
It’s great to have a favorite coffee establishment. I have been lost since September when my spot closed when the owner/baker took ill.
Monte Stevens
Oh no. Don’t hesitate to go for counseling if a new one is not found. Being lost without a coffee shop is almost the worst thing to happen to anyone!
John
Great light and I like the inclusion of the flower painting/graphic. Works well in B&W.
Monte Stevens
Thanks, John. It’s not the artistic work you have been posting. The artist of this painting was one of the baristas in the coffee shop. She quick about a year ago, had a baby and is going full time with her art.
Tom Dills
I love these coffee shop photos you take, Monte. They have such a quiet elegance to them that I can’t describe any other way. It must be a factor of the relaxed atmosphere, on both your subjects and you.
I hate to ask a technical question, but are you processing RAW files in Silver Efex Pro, or are you still shooting JPEGs?
Monte Stevens
Thanks, Tom. The coffee shops have become a second part of my life. Some of these kids working the shops and the other customers are becoming friends and family.
I shoot exclusively with Jpeg. I have Lightroom 4 which does not read the Fujifilm raw files. I would need to upgrade to Lightroom 6 to do that and my research shows my laptop (now over 7 years old) would need to be upgraded in order to run it. Lately I’ve been shooting and posting almost exclusively the black and white files right out of the camera. Yet, there is a voice in the back of mind whispering for the need to spend money and upgrade it all. 🙂 I keep showing that voice my bank account but it ignores the balance.
Tom Dills
I was pretty sure that was the case but was curious. I hope my comment didn’t in any way sound negative! You are spot on about the constant upgrade cycle. There are times when I would gladly go back to slide film just to not have to deal with all the processing and storage, not to mention the constant computer upgrades. It’s hard enough to stay current with cameras!
Like you I have been quite impressed with the quality of Fuji JPEGs and have even considered the idea of going that route if we were ever to get into a situation where we were doing extended travel. And a good photo is a good photo regardless of how the pixels are arranged. I’m just always impressed by your eye for the black & white photo, and have been equally frustrated by what I perceive as my own weakness in that regard. I know that it takes a worthy image for the software to do it’s trick, so just using Silver Efex on any old image won’t give me what I want. But I’m studying and playing and one day might feel good enough about my black & white results to share. But in the meantime I’ll just keep shooting color and admiring your photos! 🙂
Monte Stevens
To be honest this image was worked a lot in the post processing. It’s almost a 100% crop, removing a young lady sitting at a table in the lower right. I shot it in color but after seeing it on the monitor I decided the black and white would work well. I like the Silver Efex presets and have four favorites for starters. I find Silver Efex adds a lot of noise where the jpegs right out of the camera do not. If I had LR6 I would shoot more, at least landscapes, in raw and jpeg.
I had lunch with a friend, who still shoots large format film, a couple days ago and he took a photo of me at the table with my camera. As he looked through the view finder he says, “Oh, black and white.” And, smiled!
I too would like the idea of shooting and waiting to get the slides back in 3-4 days. There is something about looking at them on a light table or projector. On the other hand I have found gems in the archives on my hard drive and reworked them, where with the slides those images that did not evoke anything when looking at them were thrown away.
I so like your color images. I think you do a wonderful job in your post processing and wished you lived closer so I could use you as a teacher. I wonder what my images would be like if I was more knowledgeable with my post processing. Happy shooting!
E.Brooks
I always thought one could compose an interesting coffee table book just from photographs reflecting coffee shop names…”Mugs.” Wonderful image that certainly works for me.
Monte Stevens
I agree with you on that, Brooks. Now, to come up with a book title.