Broken Headstone at Mount Pleasant Cemetery

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Mount Pleasant Cemetery is one of Sioux Falls' most venerable landmarks in South Dakota, serving as a fascinating destination for me to find numerous captivating grave markers to study and share. This intriguing headstone was spotted on a leisurely Friday stroll through the cemetery grounds, drawing my attention with its apparent age coupled with dignified appearance, rendering me utterly captivated by this particular stone monument. While I failed to decipher its worn text as the lettering has deteriorated from excessive exposure to South Dakota's unforgiving climate for over a century, applying a precisely angled light source enabled some previously illegible letters to become readable once more, perhaps someone in the know can enlighten me with its true message. A stark contrast lies within this monument - one marked by deterioration and damage is met with immense reverence and respect, indicating a rich history woven into each passing day. At some point in time past repair efforts had taken place; nonetheless the ceaseless impact of severe seasonal variations has since reversed the improvements leading to the pinnacle now resting against its base at present. I utilised my manual focus 50mm lens on my trusty Nikon D200 digital camera. Prioritizing crisp detail, I chose an f-stop setting of 22 with ISO 100 as a benchmark in manual priority mode. Noticing I couldn't retain steady hands for stable photographs without inevitable blurring issues arose. Consequently a sturdy tripod proved to be an indispensable resource for a clear photographic shoot. Following that, once I arrived back home, all these high-quality images were seamlessly integrated into the professional platform of Adobe Lightroom for precise analysis regarding adequate lighting levels as well proper depth of focus and adjustments required. It turned out to effectively enhance the photographs to be then saved in 16-bit TIF format and concurrently mask each TIF so its relevant corresponding mask could successfully get preserved. Once more it found a home with one renowned photo-based tool called Agisoft Photoscan Pro - allowing optimal settings that would grant utmost output quality, as desired, for this task.