Leica Notting Hill Film Location
RAW conversion with Silver Efex Pro - f/2 at 5.1mm, ISO 80, Shutter speed 1/800 sec
I went to Notting Hill two weekends ago to shoot a number of locations from the movie Notting Hill. The last time I'd been to Notting Hill must have been a good 10 years ago. Needless to say I don't remember which shops were where, so it very much felt like I was discovering it for the first time.
Leica D-Lux 4 JPEG - f/2 at 5.1mm, ISO 80, Shutter speed 1/800 sec
I've always been just slightly jealous of the quality of the black and white JPEGs the Leica D-Lux 4 produces along with the RAW files that I save with every shot. I thought that for once, I would try to replicate the black and white JPEG's by processing the RAW files with Capture One 5 PRO and Silver Efex Pro. The first image of each pair is my version processed from the RAW file, and the second, the actual JPEG the Leica D-Lux 4 produced. You'll see that they are in fact different. My version's are a little bit more contrasty and I prefer the darks a little darker.
The location in this first photograph is from one of the earliest scenes in the movie where William Thacker (Hugh Grant) accidentally bumps into Anna Scott (Julia Roberts) with is orange juice on the corner of the sidewalk. And as you can see that boarded up corner shop is now a Coffee Republic.
The second photograph is of the rather famous front door to William's flat. The door is no longer blue. It's actually black, and it made my day when, while looking for decent angles for a good shot, the door opened and out came some guy on the phone! I felt like the two of us were re in-acting the paparazzi scene that occurred the morning after. One big difference. I would never ever become a pap. It think it's despicable stalking people as they try to live their personal lives. I actually had to hold my breath as this guy crossed the street and walked directly towards me. I thought, "Oh God". He got about 2 meters from me, turn towards the flat, bobbed his head from side to side, and smiled at me as he continued on his way. Phew!
Leica D-Lux 4 JPEG - f/4 at 9.3mm, ISO 80, Shutter speed 1/400 sec
I've included the Silver Efex Pro presets below for both of the processed RAW versions I created. If you're curious, I've processed them with Ilford PAN F Plus 50 film.
If you'd like to go on a DIY tour of the movie's film locations, the resource I used and the best I found while doing some hunting on the web was on the site movie-locations.com. I did take photographs of four other locations in and around Notting Hill and my post those soon too. The only reason I hesitate is because they aren't the most remarkable subjects to photograph, hence not the most remarkable photographs. I know, these aren't either.
I am still using Exif Everywhere for Mac. It lives in my Dock and I just drag and drop an image onto it to get the EXIF info. It's a brilliant little application.
