A DAY IN SEVILLE

Seville Bullfighting Revisited by Adam Allegro As I was looking through a few of my older posts from last year, I caught myself reading the Seville Bullfighting post, realizing that I had some awesome RAW photos there that could be re-processed and some new ones that never saw the light of day.  If you would like to read through the original, there is tons of interesting info about bullfighting and a plethora of photos.  I invite you to check it out and compare the old pictures with today's images.  Which ones do you like better??  We start with a wide-angle shot of the arena itself.  It is rich in tradition and history, and sits as the oldest bullfighting area in Spain.  The actual name of the arena is the Plaza de Toros de la Real Maestranza de Caballeria de Sevilla.  The original picture was too much of an overprocessed HDR image, soft and unbalanced.  All of these black and white images were sent through Nik's Silver Efex Pro 2 (available as Lightroom 4 plugin and standalone).  For those who are frequent visitors, you know how much I swear by it!  You can download your FREE trial here, no strings attached!  Below, one of the three matadors from the day can be seen inflicting the final blow on the bull, aiming to get the beast in the heart and give him a quick death. When the banderilleros assisting the matador are charged, they quickly dart into one of many “safehavens”, or small openings in the ring.  This guy looks like he's not going to make it :) One of the more brutal parts of the fight, here you can see a picador stabbing the bull with his lance.  The picadors will attempt to stab the bull in the upper back, weakening the neck muscles and drawing the bull’s first loss of blood.  This photo is by far my favorite one from today's bunch - taken with my D7000 and 18-105mm Kit lens from across the arena.  Just goes to show you that your lens doesn't have to be a 2,000 dollar beast to get nice shots. Below a matador uses his cape to exhaust the bull. This particular matador, a rather young lad at 17 or 18 years old, fought the bull flawlessly, his excitement clearly evident in this photo.  His head got so big from this performance, in the following match he made an almost fatal mistake and was trampled by the bull.  You can see those pictures in my original Bullfighting post. Finally, I am assuming most of you won't like my choice of processing here, but I do, and that's all that matters :)  Selective color is something that is difficult to implement properly (and should be in moderation - Here is another example of my choice to use selective color, and here as well - one of my staple images  - scroll to the shot of the yellow Fiat...) and can completely ruin an image.  I felt it helped enhance this one, showing the thrill of victory with some gruesome blood stains, leaving the viewer wondering "how did he get those.....???" Thank you so much for visiting!  Subscribe to catchthejiffy.com in the upper right hand column to get posts delivered to your email!!