HDR – Dutch goes the Photo!

Valley of Fire – ep. 2

An Elephant appears out of the dark!

I mentioned that the editing was about to start on my images from this fun trip, so I decided to tackle the most complicated task first! One of our sunrise shoots was at Elephant Rock, which is a magnificent sandstone arch formation in the shape of a Mastodon!

While doing this shoot, the sun was slowly rising behind the arch formation, which gave me an idea to create something like this…

As the arch is formed of gorgeous red sandstone, I wanted to be sure to get its color represented in the image. However, backlighting would make this very difficult to achieve in a single shot; so I hatched a plot!

In order to expand the range of light captured by my camera I shot HDR sequences to feed into this image. One sequence to capture the color of the rock…

…and another HDR sequence to get color of the sky back into the image…

The above two images are the in-camera JPEGs of the HDR sequence, which was shot at 0 EV, -2 EV and +2 EV.

So all I had to do was process the HDR images and then combine them into a single image. Simple enough except for the mask to combine the two HDR images, which took a bit of trickery and some cool tools from Tony Kuyper. To keep you in suspense, I will write a separate post about the entire creative process.

Editing Mood (creative approach – part 3)

Dark moods may be useful!

Sometimes on a nice sunny day with an interesting cloud cover, you see a scene in front of you and photograph it. However, in your mind’s eye, you know there’s more to this landscape that you just captured than what you saw on that day.

If this ever happened to you, we have that in common, as it’s occurred numerous times to me. An example is this shot of Nubble Light on Cape Neddick, Maine, back in June of 2013.

This lighthouse has been photographed by many, which had caused me to not ever shoot it until this day; the simple reason was that I hadn’t seen anything different from what I’d seen in all the wonderful photograph created by others of this lighthouse. That day, I felt that there was something a little different, so I got clambered down the rocks to get a lower vantage point and shot several exposure bracketed sequences. Overall, not a bad shot, but nothing especially outstanding.

It really was a nice day, as my mother and sister were visiting us from the Netherlands and we were showing them some of the sights in the area. When we got home that evening, I offloaded the images and took a quick look at them.

Over the next couple of weeks, there were a couple of times that I thought about editing the shots, but every time I started I got stuck, as I didn’t quite ‘feel’ it. Approximately 6 weeks after I took the shot, I finally sat down to create the following end result…

What was different about this editing session? For one, I was in a somewhat darker mood, which allowed me to connect to a heavier cloud cover and the idea of a roiling sea; also, at that point my mind’s view of what the image could hold, had time to articulate itself. The resultant image is one that after almost 10 years, I still enjoy seeing, and I have resisted the temptation to re-edit it to make it ‘better’ (as our skills improve and we learn new software, this temptation is real).

The lesson I learned at that time was to allow myself to recognize when it’s not the right moment and/or mood to edit a certain image, as our creative selves may need some hidden inspiration.

The images were captured using a Canon EOS 5D Mk III and a Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens. Back in 2013 I used Photomatix Pro for my HDR processing.

Bring on the New Year!

A bit of play with Luminar AI

It’s been a bit of an absence! As we start 2021, let’s see, if I can get going again and revive some of the fun that I had prior to this shutdown of sorts.

First of all, a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year to everyone around the globe with fervent wishes that we escape from this virulent frenzy and get back to visiting one another again.

All this lack of travel has been something that I have missed for quite a while, so I’m starting to look at doing something with images from previous trips, which I’ll start with a view from Ireland in 2019:

The Cliffs of Kerry are absolutely stunning, and, in my opinion, they rival the Cliffs of Moher, especially, as there’s not nearly the crowds! The view and sense of scale of these cliffs is nothing short of breathtaking!

A little bit about this image, as I did a bit of processing on it. Here’s the (somewhat) original image, which is an HDR composite that was processed using Skylum’s Aurora HDR:

This image was then taken into Skylum’s Luminar AI, which is a recent purchase. Luminar AI is very much a version of Luminar with additional very smart bells and whistles, such as lots of templates, skies, etc. With a bit of playing around, I selected the Street Theater template and added some edits to it, which include the Sunset.

Definitely a bit of fun to experiment with this image and impetus to try some other things in the future. As I get more skilled with this new tool, I’ll share more of my findings.

In the mean time, thank you for reading and stay healthy and safe!

Tuesday Photo Challenge – Back Catalog

What is old becomes anew!

Welcome to week 182 of the Tuesday Photo Challenge!

Last week’s theme of Tourism generated an incredible number of amazing entries! I came up with an idea for this week’s theme pretty quickly, but then struggled to find just the right image for it (I will have to shoot something for this idea). As often happens, when I start going through the archives, I find something that I just might want to treat in a different manner… That led me to the theme for this week: Back Catalog.

My challenge to you is to find an image in your back catalog that still grabs your attention and share it! Of course, if you want to re-interpret the image with what you have gained over the years, feel free to do so. Any kind of image is appropriate for this challenge! Let us know why this image still gets your attention!

Here’s a new interpretation of an old image…

In 2010, I was actively looking for dilapidated subjects to photograph and came across the old farm of the Westborough State Hospital, here in Massachusetts. This was a wonderful subject, as I captured a number of interesting images. In this image, we’re in the old stables. This shot is comprised of 5 different exposures ranging from -2 EV to +2 EV. In my original treatment, I leaned the image toward the feel of the interior of a ship, such as the Flying Dutchman. In the new version, I’m going more for the mystery of this location, keeping it simple and a bit muddy…

The full rules of this challenge are in TPC Guidelines, but here’s the tl;dr:

Write a post with an image for this week’s topic
Please tag your post with fpj-photo-challenge (if you’re not sure about how tags work, please check out this WordPress article about tagging posts)
Create a pingback link to this post, so that I can create a post showing all of the submissions over the week (note: pingbacks may not appear immediately, as my site is set up to require approval for linking to it; helps against previous bad experiences with spamming)
Have fun creating something new (or sharing something old)!!

Looking forward to seeing what you bring out of your back catalog!

When you’re not happy with a photo…

If at first you don’t like it…

I expect that I am pretty much like most people, when it comes to photography:

Not every shot is perfect, and I can always find some flaw with it!
What I have in mind for a shot doesn’t always show up in my camera…
My best shot is the one that got away!

If this sounds familiar, this post is for you!

The date is July 6, 2007. My wife and I are in Nova Scotia, where she’s competing in an international agility trial with our Cardigan Welsh Corgis. I drop her off in the mornings, after which I go exploring with my FJ Cruiser for things to see, experience and photograph. In the latter parts of the morning, I arrive in the little town of Digby and decide to stretch my legs and see what I can find.

At the end of Water Street, I see that the tide is out, so I clamber down to the beach and see the fog hanging over the bay.

Trust me, when I tell you that is was an awe inspiring view! I was happy that I caught the Bay of Fundy at low tide, as the dock shows the high water mark pretty well! Was I impressed with my work? Not really… This image wound up being one among many taken in Nova Scotia, most of which were more exciting than this one.

This photo remained in the dustbin of my storage until almost 7 years after I took it. In 2014, I was perusing some of my past photos, as I was reorganizing my storage, and I chanced upon this photo. By that time, I had done quite a bit of work creating HDR images and really wished that I’d taken a set of exposures instead of a single shot when I looked at this file.

With 5 exposures or even 3, I knew that I could make something out of this scene. But, what if… HDRsoft’s Photomatix Pro has the ability to generate a 1-shot HDR image, which I really hadn’t attempted before. On a lark, I decided to try it on this image.

After the 1-shot processing, I used the tone mapping capabilities of Photomatix Pro to create the slightly more dramatic image that you see here. Of course, looking at it now, I see many flaws with the processing, which makes me want to redo the process and create something even better.

If I can restrain myself from doing just that, I might get to some of my many travel photos from various years, as I’m at least 7 years behind schedule!

The moral of this story is to give your throwaway images another look and think what possibilities exist…

Changing Times

Seasons and industry

The WordPress Daily Photo Challenge provides the theme of Transformation.

In yesterday’s post, I mentioned the change of the seasons; today, another area of transformation.

In New England, one of the changes we see in many towns is that transformation of industry across the last century or two. Mills were built everywhere during the 19th century, using the power of the water that was available in many locations. However, as the 20th century changed the main source of power from water and steam to electrically driven manufacturing, locations of the mills would change. As a result, many of the bustling mills were abandoned and many towns faltered.

Here’s a look back into the 19th century…

Connecticut-River-Mills_14E2024_3_6_7_5_tonemapped-ca-ov — Mills on the Connecticut River

The good news is that many of these classic buildings are being repurposed as office space, living space and some new manufacturing. This type of reuse is fantastic to see!

Have a wonderful day!

Succumb to Decay?

Advancements cause decay…

The WordPress Daily Prompt has the theme of Succumb. While there are many ways to approach this prompt, the one that came to me first is to document the ongoing decay and how it threatens to the buildings that once were the backbone of a vibrant community.

The village of Turners Falls was established as a planned industrial community based on the ability to harness the power of the Connecticut river by building a dam and power canal to drive industry. As the power canal still rushes through the town, one can imagine the din of that era, as mills next to the canal were actively producing their goods. As with many of these towns, industrialization slowly moved away from them, as water power was replaced by fossil fuels, causing the town to succumb to slow decay.

These days, Turners Falls is a charming little town to visit with an interesting historic district.

One of the old mill buildings along Powers Street…

Powers-Street-Decay_14E2072_3_4_5_6-crop — *Powers Street Decay*

As you can see in this image, this mill building was already in an advanced state of decrepitude, as the window on the right side shows the sky behind it. I’m not sure, if the building still stands, but it called from a past era on this autumn day!

Have a wonderful day!

Reflections of Note

Sky’s reflections!

Well, am I pleased that this week’s WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge happens to be on the theme of Reflecting? Yes, I am!!

The only problem that I have with this topic is to decide which ones of my images to select, as I have a fair amount of photographs that use a reflection. So I may do a number of posts, upon which we can reflect.

The first contribution is one of my favorite HDR images…

Mystery-location_MG_1515_4_6_3_7 — *Water and Sky*

This image came about a number of years back, when I was photographing an agility event in Skowhegan, Maine. As we were done around mid-afternoon, and I had noticed that there were some nice skies, this spot came to mind for photographing. It is the hydroelectric facility in the middle of the town, where the Kennebec river flows through it.

Enjoy!

The Craft Rest…

With today’s WordPress Daily Post prompt of Craft, my first thought was certainly one of talking about the craft of photography, but as I looked for an image to go with that I came across different craft!

As a matter of fact, this image works well with both aspects of the word, as my photo of these craft on the beach during low tide on the Bay of Fundy had originally failed to impress me enough to make it part of my regular rotation of images that I didn’t mind displaying. When I captured it, the weather was kind of overcast with a low cloud cover and lots of gray tones. I decided to take the shot anyway, as the contrast between the height of the pier and the boats on the beach was so striking.

It wasn’t until several years later that I decided to try some different processing of this image. Using HDRsoft’s Photomatix Pro, I tried some different processing to get the sky to speak a bit more… and I like the end result. Of course, I also realized that I should have shot this as a 3 or 5-shot HDR series 🙂

Do you ever have a photo that you breathed new life in with a bit of processing?

Heading to the Exit

There are times when we hope that we are truly alone, but not quite sure. Times of incertitude, out of our familiar surroundings, a bit lost and not quite sure where we will be safe again. Our senses tell us that there is someone out there, or is it something? Ahead, in the distance, there appears to be sunlight and green, safety! Shall we risk moving toward it?

This image was captured at the farm of the Westborough State Hospital, here in Massachusetts. This dilapidated area was filled with textures and feelings of what transpired in a past filled with people and animals…

Inspired by the WordPress Daily Post Photo Challenge of Solitude.

	Stephen Greaves on Tuesday Photo Challenge…
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	pensitivity101 on iPhone Friday
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