ISO100 18mm f/22 1.3sec
Stone Age
Category Archives: HDR
Spring time fun
ISO1600 21mm f/8 1/85sec
“Downtown Buggy”
Who’s ready for yet another mini series??? THIS GUY!
If you haven’t figured it out from the automotive posts I’ve made in the past, Im a pretty big car guy. I grew up under the hood and have, in my 24+ years, owned over 16 different vehicles. A few were just daily commuters, while a good hand full of the rest were various japanese sports cars. My buddies and I used to spend the weekends tearing parts off our cars, just for contagious pleasure of having to put them back on. We would drive all over, just to drive, and on “Occasion” we may or may not have raced around town… Anyway, one of the biggest things I look forward to with the change in weather is the gatherings and sightings of gorgeous vehicles. The sleek shine of freshly waxed custom paint jobs, the whining roars of blower induced motors, the sweat smell of 110 octane passing through the air as the ground rumbles beneath your feet with the passing of seemingly steroid induced american muscle cars. Its a beautiful thing to say the least, yet in Michigan we are forced to go through our automotive withdraws, as the fall and winter put a damper on the testosterone inducing vehicular fun. Continue reading
Special Collaboration Daily Exposure!
ISO100 50mm f/4.6 1/800sec
For St. Patty’s day a new (Really COOL) friend of mine, Shannon from www.seeingspotsphoto.com, and I decided it would be a great opportunity to collaborate on a shoot. We thought it would be interesting to see how two creatives, living hundreds of miles apart, would visualize the same subject, which in this case was the idea of “Luck of the Irish”. As Shannon mentions below, the rules were simple, find a subject that represents the idea of Irish luck, while maintaining a creative mindset and not going for the “givens”. Continue reading
Apollo Capsule
ISO400 18mm f/11 1/320sec
I’ve been out all weekend away from the computer so I now have to play catch up with the last few days posts. This weekend has been absolutely gorgeous starting off with a beautiful Friday! I took a trip out to the local museum to capture this shot of the space time capsule displayed out front. It worked out beautifully with the repeated space theme on the banners left up from last weeks Mars exhibit. Continue reading
Demolished Penny
ISO100 24mm f/7.1 1/8sec
Nothing says Cutco like a cut penny!
Through the wall
ISO 1600 50mm f/4 1/40sec
It never ceases to amaze me how much there is to explore downtown. So many times the thought of “I wonder where this road will take me” has led to some fun discoveries new to my eyes. Today that is exactly what happened! Continue reading
Lady in Red
ISO100 21mm f/11 1/250sec
Welcome to the Family
ISO100 50mm f/11 1/15sec
Like I’ve mentioned in recent posts I have been more and more intrigued by the film medium (Although I shoot mainly digital, which most likely will not change), and have been shooting with my Minolta SRT 202 off and on. Yesterday even, I announcement on facebook my new minolta 55mm 1.7 lens I picked up for cheap. Well, last week I won an online auction for an iconic Canon AE-1 with a 50mm 1.8 lens included. I was excited to see it arrive in the mail today and immediately loaded er’ up with film and set out to shoot downtown with my new… old… camera. I had both my DSLR and new AE-1 by my side, but with my excitement for my new toy, I was shooting more with the AE-1 throughout the day. In doing so my “good pictures” were captured onto the film rather than my card, which caused a bit of a problem when I found out the local 1-hour photo was out of service for the next few days with the others in town already closed for the day, which makes getting my daily photo out a wee bit difficult to say the least. Continue reading
Night Shift
ISO 200 24mm f/6.3 4sec
Despite the misty weather, and running the risk of exposing the camera to some serious moisture I made the trip downtown to shoot it in a different light, or lack there of, than I normally shoot. The city wasn’t as alive as I had hoped for on a wednesday evening. Never the less I made a quick trip around the outskirts to observe the scenery in its misty haze. I decided I would shoot for some HDR shots to really bring everything to life, and with the repeatedly long shutters per bracket it only allotted for couple of scenes to be captured, most of which were ruined by the massive amounts of water that would accumulate on the lens. Lucky enough this was one of the shots that actually turned out. Continue reading
Historic Bridge
ISO100 30mm f/11 1/50sec
I had a very limited amount of time to shoot today, but had the shot I wanted in mind when heading downtown. I haven’t been to this old historic bridge since middle of last summer and have never had the pleasure of shooting it. I love this part of downtown because the roads have stayed true to their brick paved origins. Although its repaved with new bricks you still feel the history beneath your feet as you take your strides across the street. Continue reading
Red Texture
ISO200 37mm f/11 1/200sec
I wanted to wait a bit before I posted a description about this photo. Im currently reading “Photographically speaking” by David duChemin, and in it he talks about creating images that speak for themselves. He mentions that if you need to start the conversation with your own words then the picture isn’t strong enough to speak for itself. And this is only a chapter or two into the book… its going to be a good book 
So this has me thinking more about my images Im taking and sharing with the world. Im trying to approach with a message in mind, not so much for me to share through my words, but through my photographic expression.
In this case it was really just sharing my experience for coming across such an extraordinarily textured and vibrant wall. I bracketed for HDR in order to capture as much detail as I possible could, because it was the detail that originally drew me into the scene in the first place. And with the vibrant highly saturated red the wall was sporting, it was certain this wall was making a statement. The funny thing is this is the side wall to the local Subway restaurant (You know.. “Eat Fresh”). On the other side of the wall are un-energized clock watching sandwich artists that cant wait for the day to get over so they can get on with their lives. Isn’t that crazy to think about, on the one side of the wall you have Bold Vibrant Excitement, on the other you have a mundane and monotonous lack of energy. I felt like a completely different person outside looking at the wall versus what I was feeling not a minute or two before while in line hungry for a sub but being fed negative energy from the workers who had 50 other places in mind where they would rather be. Completely different environments, yet only a foot of concrete wall apart.
Its in my nature to find not only creative, but personal inspiration in the various things I come across throughout the day. And this reminds me that far to often we choose to sit in an energy draining environment wondering why we aren’t getting to the places in life we want to get to, when what we need to do is change our environment to one that is full of energy and excitement. Often times the better environment isn’t that much further away.
Hidden in the Onion Fields
ISO 200 18mm f/11 1/25sec
I definitely have a weakness for rundown barns, that and a huge weakness for light houses. Anytime I see a beat up discarded barn I get the sudden urge to pull over and jump out to shoot it. And thats exactly what I did with this one! I could just see the peak of the roof over the hill next to the road, but it was enough to peak my interest (get it.. because the peak of the roo… nevermind). So I threw the car in park, grabbed my ready to go camera and dashed up the hill. As soon as I hit the top I was just about knocked off my feet by a most fowl smell. It was difficult to place at first smelling like sour horse manure, but I managed to keep trekking forward off of pure excitement. It wasn’t until almost slipping on a rotten onion that I realized where the smell was coming from. I looked around the ground and realized I was standing in what I would probably say was the biggest rotten onion field this side of the mississippi (which is the only state I still spell out in my head when writing, not because Im afraid of spelling it wrong, but because as a kid we used to run around the playground chanting the letters like it was some sort of group spelling bee). With the constant change of weather out here it has left our fields quit muddy, so walking around this shack was harder then trying to walk across an ice rink wearing glass slippers, not that I’ve ever done it, but I figure it must be difficult. It was a continual battle between trying not to slip in the mud and or step on the squishy rotten onion land mines that were dispersed throughout the terrain.
I liked this particular shot the most, however this shot I also slipped when taking so the highlight exposure for the hdr was a tad off. Luckily the latest Photomatix Pro is great at reducing most of the ghosting when tone mapping the HDR images. In fact besides adjustments made in Lightroom 3 giving it my signature slightly desaturated look I’ve been loving in my hdr lately, I haven’t made any other adjustments.
Im typically more partial to red barns specifically, but this green really spoke to me! It worked so well with the muted tones of the rest of the field and wasn’t the typical bold barn Im used to seeing. It was well worth putting up with the smell and struggles against the mud. I’ve probably been its only visitor since the final days of onion season last year and more then likely it will stay that way until the soil is ready for next season. Because of that I feel privileged to have run across such an unattended beauty. One of the few that get to witness what it has to offer. The good ol’ onion patch barn.