Oregon Trip #3—Colors and Shapes along the Seashore

JD and I spent lots of time walking on the beaches and exploring tidal pools.  Oregon’s beaches are beautiful.  The rocks and color of the plants and animal life makes for a lot of different things to study all along the shoreline.

Here, I tried to capture the colors of some sea weed and rocks that I found along the shore.  I really liked the contrast between the forms and the colors

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3, Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 shot at 62mm with polarizing filter attached,  ISO 200, f/9.5 and 1/180^th of a second.

Post Processing:  

Lightroom—Adjusted white balance and mid tone contrast.

Oregon Trip #2—Another Fall along the Columbia Gorge

Latourell Falls is a little west of Maltnomah Falls and although it is not as spectacular as Maltnomah Falls, it does have an interesting twist because of the unusual lime-green lichen that clings to the basalt cliffs.  I had never seen such a large patch of lichen.  It gave the whole falls a somewhat eerie look.

Again, I took five bracketed exposures and used three (-2EV, 0EV and +2EV) to create a HDR image.  

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3x, Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 shot at 45mm, ISO 200, f/11 and 1/15^th, 1/60th and 1/250^th of a second on a tripod.

Post Processing:  

Lightroom—Set black and white points, adjusted saturation of various colors, added mid-tone contrast and vignetting.

Photomatix Pro 3—combined three frames into an HDR image and tone mapped the overall image

Oregon Trip #1—An Absolute Must Photo from Oregon

JD and I just got back from a short vacation in Oregon.  I have never spent much time in Oregon and this was my first trip in which I really did much photography in the state. 

I believe it is a state law that you cannot officially say you have photographed in Oregon if you do not have a photo of Multnomah Fall that is along the Historic Columbia River Highway (Oregon Route 30) that runs parallel to I-84 east of Portland.  The falls has a 620’ drop from the top of the upper falls to the pool at the bottom of the lower falls.  It is the tallest falls in Oregon and the fourth tallest in the United States.

To me, the bridge between the upper and lower falls is what makes this fall so interesting.  Speaking of the bridge, it is slightly uphill, so please do not write that I need to make sure that my camera was level.  I used the leveling function in the Nikon D3 to make sure that everything was level and then made sure by using the leveling function in LIghtroom 3 (based upon the fall of the water).

The image is an HDR one.  And, to answer the question, possibly before it is asked, I used Photomatix Pro 3 to convert the image.  I tried Photoshop CS5 to convert it but I was not able to get the details and controls that I wanted.  This may be due to my lack of familiarity with CS5’s HDR functions and the saved settings that I have developed in Photomatix.  Although I shot five frames, I only used three of them (-2 EV, -1EV and 0EV).  The overexposed frames blurred the water too much and made it completely white, which was not what I wanted.  In addition, the overall scene is slightly dark and that is the way I wanted to present it.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3, Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 at shot at 24mm ISO 200, f/11 and 1/15^th, 1/8^th and 1/4^th of a second.

Post Processing:  

Lightroom 3—Set black and white points, added clarity and mid-tone contrast.

Photomatix Pro 3—combined three frames into an HDR image and tone mapped the overall image.

Photoshop CS5—removed a few distracting elements within the photo and balanced the colors within the image.

Concert on the Kemah Boardwalk #4

Now these two guys were really enjoying the concert.  They were singing along with the band and generally enjoying everything about the moment—the music, the surroundings and the beer.

I tried this shot two different ways—the one presented here with a very shallow depth of field and another one with both guys in focus.  I like the shallow dept of field.  I think I like it because it leaves some things to your imagination—who is the other guy?

As always jesters always add to a photo.  Here I think it says:  “We’re having a great time!”

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3, Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 shot at 180mm, ISO 200, f/3.2 and various 1/250^th of a second.

Post Processing:  

Lightroom—Set black and white points, cropped photos, and changed, added saturation of certain colors vignetting.

Concert on the Kemah Boardwalk #3

If I would title these two photos, the titles would be:  “Action” and “Reaction”.

To me, the first photo works well because you can see the lady dancing and also see the band playing.  You have all of the story that you need to understand what the photographer was trying to capture.  However, the second photo needs more to help the viewer understand what it is about.

The young girl in the second photo is reacting to the lady dancing.  Looks on the young girl’s face ranged from bewilderment to concern to embarrassment.  

As I watched the scene, I was unable to determine whether the two had any relationship with each other.  Yet, another question left unanswered by the photos.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Both photos—Nikon D3, Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 at shot at 190mm, ISO 400, f/2.8 and 1/250^th of a second.

Post Processing:  

Lightroom—Set black and white points, added clarity, vibrance and mid-tone contrast.

Concert on the Kemah Boardwalk #2

Again, I must show my ignorance.  I had a different image of what the paparazzi looked like.

Even though the band “took me back”, I think I was more surprised by what the audience looked like.  It was a very diverse-looking group—everything from senior citizens to preteens.  Most seemed to be listening to and enjoying the music.

I think this photo only works in context.  Without knowing who was performing on stage, you cannot really understand significance of the image.  I tried to get one of her and the band, but the angles were all wrong.  To me this photo only works when shown as part of the story, i.e., concert on the Kemah Boardwalk #2.

If you can only "get" this image when shown in context, why did I include it on my blog?  Good question.  I do not really have an answer.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3, Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 shot at ISO 200, f/2.8 and 1/400^th of a second.

Post Processing:  

Lightroom—Set black and white points and cropped photos.

Concert on the Kemah Boardwalk #1

This is probably not going to be a surprise to anyone who knows me:  I do not go to many concerts.  In fact, I think I have only been to about five during my entire life—Willie Nelson, Jerry Jeff Walker, Waylon Jennings, Jimmy Buffet and Johnny Cash.  I am not "into" music.  My music taste include country and classical.  So, based upon my limited experience at attending concerts and the concert venues that I had attended, I was not really prepared for the concert at the Kemah Boardwalk a few weeks ago.

The concert featured “Sing Band” impersonators.  I knew nothing about Sing—including not knowing who the band was impersonating until I asked a few people.  I was told by several people in the audience that the band was doing a pretty good job performing Sing songs.  I will take their word for that!   To me, it was a lot of loud noise, made by people in funny looking costumes.

The lead singer seemed a little bazaar looking to me.  I wanted his photo to reflect what I was seeing in my mind—something between a horror show and a really bad dream.  In post-processing I enhanced details by using nik Color Efex Pro tonal contrast filter and then applied sharpening using the high pass method.     

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3, Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 shot at 140mm, ISO 1800, f/4.5 and 1/250^th of a second.

Post Processing:  

Lightroom—Set black and white points, increased mid-tone contrast and changed saturation of various colors.

Photoshop—used nik Color Efex Pro tonal contrast to bring-out details and then sharpened the image using the high pass method.

Back to JD’s Garden

A couple weeks ago JD was visiting her niece in Colorado and I was getting back from a portrait session when I spotted this spider and his/her web between two trees.  I had not done any macro photography in a long time, so I decided to try and get a few good photos of the spider and the web.

I dragged out a step latter and then got the big idea that I could use my Elinchrom lights to get a lot of depth-of-field.  Now, I want you to image this crazy photographer standing on a step latter with a big softbox to light my subject—a small spider.  I was quite surprised that the spider did not go scrambling across his web.

After many, many shots, I finally started getting the type of shots that I wanted—plenty of depth of field and an interesting background that would help tell the “rest of the story.”

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3 Nikon 105mm f/2.8, ISO 200, f/14 and 1/80^th of a second with Elinchrom large softbox at camera left.

Post Processing:  

Lightroom—set white and black point, increased contrast with a tone curve adjusted hue and saturation of various colors.

Photoshop—used nik Color Efex Pro tonal contrast filter enhance detail in the spider and the web.