Stone cottage - Colonial Park, New Jersey USA

This stone cottage is in a tranquil location in Colonial park, New Jersey, around a 10 minute drive from my home. Captured with a Voigtlander 40mm f/1.2 MF lens at f/11 on my Nikon Z fc, and processed in PhotoLab 7.2.2

Mark

As an aside, in the interests of cultural exchange :grin: Are stone walled, and slate roofed, cottages like this common your part of the world? Here in the UK such houses are not exactly on every street corner but they are quire common.

That is difficult for me to answer accurately. The United Sates is a very large country with a population of 333 million. Stone homes with slate rooves have not been common building materials for many decades, but are are still occasionally used. And, of course many older stone buildings are still in use.

Mark

@mwsilvers , maybe it’s just my feeling, the tree in the foreground is splitting the nice house in 2 pieces.
I know, that’s complaining on a high level, and you can’t possibly cut down the tree before the shot. :face_with_diagonal_mouth:

Why not? Surely a chain saw is an integral part of any serious photographer’s kit? :laughing:

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@Joanna , for sure, but how to restore the sawed off tree when the shot is done? Tree glue? :joy:

Haven’t you heard of Gum Trees? :woozy_face:

Perhaps you would prefer this one from a different angle of view. After some additional consideration I think I prefer this version more because it gives a greater sense of the cottage being nestled in the woods, which is what I was trying to achieve. I have to thank you because without your comment I might not have revisited these images. Captured at f/8. Any comments pro or con are welcome.

Mark

Addendum: I also attempted to bring out more of the color variations of the slate roof in this version.

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@mwsilvers , wow, works perfectly for me!

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As I indicated, I am happier with this version myself for several reasons.

Mark

Here is a B&W conversion with a few additional edits including a Fuji Neopan 400 film emulation. Any thoughts on this?

Mark

I prefer the colour version over the B&W one. The B&W version seems a bit bland. However to me, the source image feels too much like a real estate shot. Probably because as a UK viewer, a house like this is not that special, whereas, perhaps, in the US it is more novel / olde worlde?

But if we all liked the same thing, the world would be a very dull place!

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Having been to the UK I understand your point of view. A house like this is commonplace on your side of the pond with many of them far more interesting than this one. However, in the USA, apart from some areas in and around the colonial era cities of the northeast, stone cottages with slate rooves are far less common.

Even though New Jersey was a thriving colony during the 18th century, the population was small back then and the number of existing stone structures surviving from that period and from later in the 19th and 20th century is small, especially considering New Jersey’s current population of almost 9 million.

Mark

And I can understand your point of view. We go over there to be impressed by the new, while you come over here to marvel at the olde. Though sometimes, the very, very, old age of some things over here, can confuse some visitors…

Most medieval cathedrals in the UK have some scaffolding up somewhere, either inside or out, because maintaining such buildings is a full time job. This subtlety was obviously lost on a visitor to an >800 year old cathedral near where I live. He was overheard, by my son, commenting to his wife along the lines of, “I wonder when they are going to finish building this place.”

As I said, if we all thought the same, the world would be a very dull place.

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A few years ago, we went through a phase when it seemed most places we went to photograph waere covered in scaffolding and sheeting. Even the Forth Bridge left us disappointed.

Unfortunately, many American tourists are spoiled and are often arrogant when travelling abroad if things don’t match up with their preconceived expectations, and they are not shy about telling locals of their disappointment. But, I digress from the purpose of this thread.

Mark

Coming back to this, and re-considering, the second version looks complete, while the the chain-saw target was just in the way. As to color vs. B&W, I love the color version, but the B&W “loses” something.

It makes me wonder when and how B&W is superior to color.

I’m essentially an “American tourist”, in no way “arrogant”, but certainly disappointed when I can’t capture a photo I want. For me, I take the photo anyway, for memories, and then move on to something else.

But, as was shown so nicely up above, maybe it’s possible to find another viewpoint excluding what bothered me at first. I do this all the time. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. The example up above worked perfectly.

(If I’m by myself, I can often do this. If I’m part of a group, it’s not always possible, for other reasons.)