Le Coeur Seignant.

Camera: Canon EOS40D

Lens: 17-85mm EF USM Kit Lens

Apps used for processing:

PhotoClr - to correct the underexposed original picture. The original photo had been made under bad conditions without a tripod. In the afternoon of a winter day the light is usually quite bad in a forest. I made the original photo with f/10, 1/125th and ISO200. Don't know why I set aperture to 10 as I made that photo. Maybe I just forgot to change the setting as I usually work on manual mode with my DSLR.

SimplyHDR - to create a HDR picture of my photo

Squaready - to cut it down to 1:1 square format. Squaready is meant to optimize photos for Instagram but it can save the files to 2048x2048 resolution in PNG file format.

Then I used FilterStorm3 for many operations, including desaturisation and importing the original HDR file to apply a mask so the background will be desaturised while the main subject (the heart) will remain in full color. After I was satisfied with my result I plaid around with various apps to find a nice frame for it. I added a tricolor frame in the French colors in FilterStorm but wasn't 100% satisfied with it.

PicGrunger - it was finally the good old PicGrunger that gave me the frame I was looking for. However it looked too saturated so I was loading the file again in FilterStorm to reduce saturation by 25%.

A+Signature - to add my copyright watermark as usual.

February the 21st 1916 one of the bloodiest battle in history of human warfare started in France, nearby the town called Verdun. It ended in December of 1916 with more than 700 000 casualties about equally shared between both sides, the Germans and the French. Verdun is a holy ground in France because it's name stands for strength and resistance against the German aggressor who believed to bleed out the whole French army on that place - but the Germans were wrong. Today visitors of the battle fields, the museums and the old forts are welcome, but they are also asked to walk the ground in respect of the dead. Ammunition can still be found everywhere but shall not be touched and there are many single graves to be seen there. One of these graves I spotted in the woods near the famous Fort de Vaux. I was decorated with an enameled metal heart, badly weathered throughout the decades that followed the death of the two soldiers buried there. Today one can still read the following French words:

Içi rep(osent)

(Ce) Deux cama(rades)

Henri LA(....)

du 171ième R.I.(...)

mort pour la Fr(ance)

à l'age d(...)

Priez po(ur eux)

Translation:

Here rest

two comrades

Henri La(...)

of the 171st Infantry Regiment

fallen for France

at the age of(...)

pray for them.

I made the original photo under quite bad light conditions since it was in a forest and it was winter, February the 27th 2008, 92 years and 6 days after the Battle of Verdun started. As I got home and transferred the photos to my computer I got aware of the red rust running down the enamel heart, almost like blood. For that reason I gave my picture the title "Le Coeur Seignant" (The Bleeding Heart).