WWII Reenactment: the actors

Tropheus

Hello All,
Last Memorial Day weekend, a friend of mine and his Company held a "Close Assault 1944" reenactment. The event was at Camp Mabry in Austin, Texas. It was actually quite cool and I plan on going to their next one in November. The plus side is that it shouldn't be 100+ degrees then and I will have the experience of this show to draw from to improve my techniques, positioning and ideas for my own personal interpretation of this type of event. I decided to keep the inamnimate objects off this thread since it's a people thread. I will put them up in the more appropriate forum.
Thanks for looking. And any C and C is welcome. I am still pretty new to this. I've learned a lot, but that amounts to an inch when compared to the 10 miles of information and techniques. I had a blast shooting these and processing them and showing them to my friend. I sent 40 processed images to the Texas Military Forces Museum, the institution that runs these shows, as a gift. It was a small gesture to show my appreciation for their efforts.

1. Soldier breaking out the Bazooka


2. Nazi soldiers


3. Demo of an American rifle used in WWII


4. Lee trying it out.


5. Nazi soldier


6. Hurry up and wait.


7. Soldier leaving the battlefield

FlyNavy

Wow! Your processing on #5 and 6 are amazing. Nice work.

Tropheus

FlyNavy wrote: »

Wow! Your processing on #5 and 6 are amazing. Nice work.

Thank you!

Tropheus

Here are a few more:

1. Post Assault contemplation


2. Into the fray


3. Awaiting the assault


4. A little small talk.


Again, thanks for looking.
JJ.

M38A1

Great shots.... I recognize a couple of the people as well.

Tropheus

M38A1 wrote: »

Great shots.... I recognize a couple of the people as well.

Thanks again!
Did you go to this last one? Or have you been to others?

M38A1

Tropheus wrote: »

Thanks again!
Did you go to this last one? Or have you been to others?

I didn't make it this year. I'm part of a group that collects, restores, shows and displays historic military vehicles (thus the M38A1 screen name). Many of our vehicles were at Camp Mabry for the show as well as a lot of our military vehicle club guys are also part of "G" Company and work in conjunction with the museum.

briandelion

Nice work. I think you really captured the period in those images and some gritty realism. I'm a big WWll buff and would have loved to be there. My dad was in the infantry and landed at Omaha Beach, soon after was badly wounded at St. Lo.

Sam

Overall great work!! But throw away your first #4 image. This is one of those common errors made in modern action movies.

If the man holding the launcher were to actually fire it the two people behind him would be injured or killed. Just saying.............

Sam

Tropheus

briandelion wrote: »

Nice work. I think you really captured the period in those images and some gritty realism. I'm a big WWll buff and would have loved to be there. My dad was in the infantry and landed at Omaha Beach, soon after was badly wounded at St. Lo.

Thanks! Next time you have the chance, please tell your dad I said "Thank you for your service".

Tropheus

Sam wrote: »

Overall great work!! But throw away your first #4 image. This is one of those common errors made in modern action movies.

If the man holding the launcher were to actually fire it the two people behind him would be injured or killed. Just saying.............

Sam

Thanks for the input! Very good point.
The guy handling the Bazooka was my friend and I knew he'd want to have some shots of him handling the weopon. This was his first experience with one and the young man instructing him on its safe handling was warning him to pay heed to where others were when he launched it. This was pre weopon's demo. He was stoked to see himself with this badboy. .
JJ

WillCAD

I love the processing on all of these; they don't look like modern photos, they all look like authentic WWII-era photos. They don't even look like digital, they look like scans of film prints.

Could you give a rundown on how you processed them?

Tropheus

WillCAD wrote: »

I love the processing on all of these; they don't look like modern photos, they all look like authentic WWII-era photos. They don't even look like digital, they look like scans of film prints.

Could you give a rundown on how you processed them?

Thanks for your observations. That makes my day!

As far as the processing: I only have PSE8 and the Canon Digital Professional (CDP, hence). **And please keep in mind that I am self taught, so the technical terms may be missing in my narrative. But I welcome the chance to learn any***
So, upon the file opening into the edit screen of the CDP after being dropped into PSE, I changed the image back to monochrome by toggling the saturation and vibrance to -100. Then I adjusted the temperature and tint according to the exposure of the image. Yellow to lighten, bluer to darken ditto green to fuschia. I have found that this technique does the job quite nicely without so much noise that's created by "fill light" or lighten shadows toggles. I raised the contrast in some and added more black if needed. Then, I opened the image in PSE, in quick edit and sharpened them first as needed. Most of them I raised the midtone contrast in this screen as well. The Nazi helmet, I went to the left of center on the midtone contrast.
I used the Film Grain effect in all of them except for two or three. A pretty low level of grain, like 4 and the other values, I changed as needed.
Then a rectangular boarder/vignette with a 250pixel feather in either Sumi-e, Fresco or light black border effects. Sometimes, I used the lighting effects tab for border/vignetting.
I'm going through a "everything must have a border/vignette phase".
I hope this helps to elucidate my process without making me sound too much like a hayseed. . I've joined a local photography meetup group and attended my first photoshop workshop last night. Picked up four tips that I used immediately upon getting home.
All I know is that I want to know MORE!
JJ.