She stands in the corner, waiting with her children. The darkness of the twilight is beginning to press down upon them and although it is still very warm outside a chill runs up her back and she pulls the children a little closer. Her man is out on the battlements, he is not a soldier, he is a tailor, but there he is, when the pirates come everyone is a soldier and she wonders if the night will leave her a widow. The wind starts to pick up and she can hear the flags start to snap in the breeze. The sound is distinct, too loud, and then she realizes that it is no longer the flags she is hearing but the crack of muskets. The battle has begun.

Establishing mood and and emotional tone within an image can be a tenuous thing that is difficult to grab in the moment in which the image is taken. Often this is easier to manage in post as the light and circumstances of the shot may not suit the story that you are trying to tell with the image. This picture was taken right around midday, on a blazing hot day but my head was full of stories of marauding pirates and guardian priests as we walked around Casco Viejo in Panama City. I wanted an image that carried with it the fear and ominous portent of an approaching invading force. I was standing inside rock walls that had witnessed the terror and confusion of a people under attack and I wanted to be able to look up into the image and feel those emotions. I pulled the image into Nik Silver Efex Pro and started playing with some extreme changes to contrast and texture, then I started to work on the undersides and lower levels of the rock wall to produce a dark and heavy visual weight to the image. The perspective of the very wide angle lens puts you right at the base of the wall looking high up into history.

-Russell Berg