Looking for Photographs

Sometimes, I just see no photographs in front of my eyes.  Such was the case one day at Brazos Bend Park.  I had walked up and down this one path three times.  I saw nothing that I wanted to photograph.  Then I sat down and just starting staring at the lake.  I immediately noticed how the light reflected off the water and onto the underside of the water plants.

Wow, how did I miss that? 

In today’s photograph, I wanted it to be about shapes and colors.  

Enjoy. 

Camera settings:  Nikon D800 (DX format), 80-400mm f/4.5~5.6 at 600mm (effectively), ISO 1600, f/13 at 1/4000^th of a second on a tripod. 

Post Processing:  

Lightroom 5—applied Nikon Vivid preset during import, set white and black points, added clarity, sharpness and vibrance and increased saturation of blue, green and yellow.

Oregon Trip #6—What’s Under the Water

I showed this photo on First Tuesday at the Houston Center for Photography and some of the participants wanted to know more about it.  It is a pretty basic shot with one exception—the use of a high ISO.  I told everyone at the meeting that I thought that it was shot at an ISO of about 2,200.  Well, I was mistaken.  The photo was actually taken at ISO of 6,400.  Several people commented that there did not seem to be any noise in the photo.   The version that I showed at HCP did not have any noise reduction done to it in post processing, however the version that I am showing here has had some noise reduction applied to it in Lightroom 3.


I knew that I really wanted the blue of the water to come forward in the photos so I adjusted my white balance until I got the blue I wanted.  I did this by turning on the Live View setting and then changing the white balance until I was seeing what I wanted.  I have found this approach to be a very handy way to get your white balance where you want it when the lighting is something unusual.

The unusual white balance did affect the yellows and oranges in the scene so I had to adjust them in Lightroom 3.

There are two lessons to take from today’s post:  you can shoot at high ISO’s; and, the noise reduction in Lightroom 3 works. 

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3, Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 shot at ISO 6400, f/5.6 and 1/90^th of a second.

Post Processing:  Lightroom 3—Set black and white points, increased mid-tone contrast and changed saturation of yellow and orange, sharpened and reduced noise slightly.

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.

All About the Light

Without a doubt, the subject matter is messy—too many destracting details and probably not a clear subject matter.  But, this scene it not about the specifics—it’s about the light.  I saw the golden light on the shrimp boat and the blues of the water and sky.  Two great complementary colors is what I saw and what I tried to convey in the image.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3, Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 shot at 135mm, ISO 200, f/11 and 1/80^th of a second.

Post Processing:  

Lightroom—Set black and white points, added clarity and increased contrast.

Photoshop—used spot healing to clean-up various ugly spots and added saturation to blue and orange.

Playing with Slow Shutter Speeds

JD and I truly enjoyed hiking in and around Johnson Canyon.  Within the canyon, there are many waterfalls and a lot of fast moving water—a great time to play with slow shutter speeds.  For many of my photos, I used my Sing Ray variable neutral density filter.  The filter allows you to adjust the you exposure anywhere from 2 to 8 stops.  The filter is great for capturing moving water.

In this photo, I wanted to capture the water flow and the reflective light on the rocks.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3, Nikon 28mm f/2.8 shot at ISO 200, f/13 and 8 second with Sing Ray variable neutral density filter attached.

Post Processing:  

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

Photoshop—used nik Color Efex Pro to add contrast to various parts of the photo. 

Not Exactly How I Remember It

JD, Monte and I had gone to Banff/Jasper many years ago.  All of us thought that it was truly beautiful with many great hiking trails that generally led to emerald colored lakes.  JD and I returned a couple weeks ago, but things were not the same.

Our last visit was during the summer; this time we made the trek in the middle of May.  To my surprise, we found many of the trails still closed due to snow.  According to the locals, most of the trails are open by the beginning of May, but not this year.  In fact, one of Banff National Parks most famous sites, Lake Louise, was still quite frozen, as you can see by the photo. 

I wanted the image to be a classical landscape photo—the rocks in the foreground anchoring the bottom part of the photo, the lake with some interesting shapes and colors and finally the majestic mountains and sky acting as the background to the whole season.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3, Nikon 17-35mm f/2.8 at 17mm shot at ISO 200, f/13 and 1/180^th of a second.

Post Processing:  

Lightroom—Set black and white points, adjusted hue and saturation of various colors and added some mid-tone contrast to photo.

Photoshop—used Topaz Adjust to bring out the details in the rocks.

Enough Interest?

When I saw this scene I really liked the textures of the foreground versus the foggy, blown-out background. I started to shoot the image in HDR but then decided that I would normalize the overall scene and the contrast would be eliminated. I decided to properly expose the foreground so I used a spot meter on the net area and expose accordingly.

The basic question I have about this image is simple: Does the subject of the boat and the contrast with the background create a photograph that has impact?

Enjoy.

Camera settings: Nikon D3, Nikon 28-70mm f/2.8 at 50mm shot at ISO 200, f/13 and 1/60^th of a second.

Post Processing:

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

Photoshop—used nik Color Efex Pro tonal contrast to add contrast to highlights, mid-tones and shadows of the boat and dock.

Shapes in the Fog

Last week Sam asked for some more shooting information. So, before I discuss today’s photo, I will give you a few more details. First, I have shot at this location a couple times, but never got anything that I really liked. I had decided that I wanted to visit it when there was fog, as I did over the holidays. Second, I spent about an hour and half shooting and took about 230 photos (including several bracketed exposures for possible HDR). Today, I have only 12 images from the session on my hard drive. Of the remaining images, there are about six that I feel may be worthy of showing and another six that for some reason, I like—ones similar to the second image I presented on Friday.

Now, about today’s image. When I looked at this scene, I really did not see boats, piers, water and fog; I saw geometric shapes. And, that is what I wanted this photo to show. I felt that a sepia toned photo helped simplify it so that the shapes showed-off better. What do you think?

Enjoy.

Camera settings: Nikon D3, Nikon 28-70mm f/2.8 at 34mm shot at ISO 200, f/11 and 1/125^th of a second.

Post Processing:

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

Photoshop—used nik Silver Efex Pro to convert to sepia toned image.

Different Views of the Same Thing

The first photo has some of the same characteristics as the one I presented earlier in the week: detailed boats complemented by simple foggy areas. But, in this one, I wanted to present the complex details of the mask fading into the simple lines of the boats’ hulls and finally the solid off white of the foggy background. I like the progression of complexity to total simplicity.

After taking the first photo, I moved closer to the boats to see if I could get some detailed photos of the boat’s mask. I must admit, I was very surprised to see really how complicated the scene before me was. I decided to take a few shots to show the complexity of the scene. This shot raises a question I constantly ask myself: “what is the subject?” After looking at the photo, I decided to ask you the question: “Can you have a photo of complexity and details as the subject?”

Enjoy

The Wonders of Fog

Since 2009 was a much busier year for my photographic business than I expected, I decided to take the last two weeks of the year off. It was a great break. I delivered all the portraits that I had taken before Christmas and so between Christmas and the New Year, I was official on “vacation.”

I had some blog posting prepared for that week, but, forgot to post. Oh, well, it looks like everyone out there in cyber land got lucky!

I was going to try some new lighting techniques with my buddy Steve, but the weather got to us and we were not able to shoot, so instead, I just went out and roamed the countryside looking for something that might resemble a decent photo.

What photographer does not like fog? It adds instant mystery and mood to any photo. Add some water and a few boats, and it is hard not to make a good photo.

As I looked at this scene before me, I wanted emphasize the contrast between the details in the dock and boats and the total lack of details in the foggy foreground and background. I decided to frame the detailed portion of the photo in the upper right quadrant and leave the reaming portions of the photo as negative space to help emphasize the details. I tried various crops of negative space and finally settled on the photo as shot. A lot of people might think the amount of negative space is excessive, but I felt that I needed that much space to balance and contrast with the details of the dock and boats.

Enjoy.

Camera settings: Nikon D3, Nikon 28-70mm f/2.8 at 56mm shot at ISO 200, f/13 and 1/90^th of a second.

Post Processing:

Lightroom—Set white point.

Photoshop—used nik Color Efex Pro tonal contrast to add highlight, mid-tones and shadows of the dock and boats and then sharpened that are using a high pass filter in the soft light mode.

Graphic Forms

Whereas yesterday’s photo was about the color, today’s image is about the graphic form I saw as I looked at the dock and water. When I looked at the scene I saw three things—the graphic lines of the dock and water, the smoothness of the water and the roughness of the dock and the shapes.

I wanted the photo to show only the things that I “saw” before taking the image.

Enjoy.

Camera settings: Nikon D3, Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 at 200mm, shot at ISO 200, f/13 and 1/90^th

Post Processing:

Lightroom—Set white and black points, added mid-tone contrast, added clarity and increased saturation of blue.

Photoshop—used Topaz Adjust to bring out details in the dock and the reflection.

All about the Colors

I had just finished a portrait session at the park near Clear Lake when I wondered over and watched some rowing teams work-out. I really like the color and the motion. I tried various shots with slow shutter speeds to create a blurred abstract of the scene, but did not produce anything that I really liked.

I used an unusual crop in the photo to emphasize the forms and the colors in the scene.

Enjoy.

Camera settings: Nikon D3, Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 at 150mm. shot at ISO 200, f/8 and 1/180^th

Post Processing:

Lightroom—Set white and black points, added mid-tone contrast, added clarity and increased saturation of cyan and blue.

Special Sunday Post—Revision of Friday’s Post

Friday afternoon, I got back to the house after a portrait session and started looking at the comments on Friday’s photo. All of them had some good suggestions; so thanks, to Barry, Larry, The Professor, Bob, Cindi, Steve, Anne and DHaass. I decided that this photo definitely could be improved using some, if not all, the ideas that my friend’s posted.

So, what did a do to the new improved version?

First, I cropped it—mostly from the top, but I did take a little off the bottom. Although the sky is very dramatic, there was just too much of it. The photo needed more balance between the three elements.

Next, I made a conversion to black and white. This conversion greatly simplified the image. And, it removed the non-complementary colors. Finally, black and white established the photo more as a “mood” photo than a seascape photo. Again, it helped unify the components of the scene.

I then did some selective dodging and burning to: darken the water and beach; lighten some of the clouds in the sky; and darken the foreground and reduce the contrast in the brush.

Finally, I used onOne PhotoFrame to burn the edges to help contain the movement of the viewer’s eyes.

Is this the final version? Not sure. I do know that thanks to my friends’ suggestion, I like this version better than the one I posted on Friday. I think I will let it be for a while and see how it grows on me.

What do you think of the changes?

Enjoy.

Along Monterey Bay Grand Seascape Photo

This is one of those grand seascapes that I mentioned yesterday. In this one, I had lots of things going for it—great sky, beautiful blue water, great foreground and a composition that seemed just right.

But, for some reason, this photo really does not do much for me. I have spent lots of time looking at it and finally, came to the conclusion that, although there are lots of great elements within the photo and it had a classical composition, the photo does not have a real subject. My eyes move from the sky to the ocean to the land, but they do not really stop and study any part of the photo.

What do you think?

Enjoy.

Camera settings: Nikon D3, Nikon 17-35mm f/2.8 at 20mm with a polarizing filter and graduated neutral density filter attached, shot at ISO 200, f/13, 1/15^th of a second on a tripod.

Post Processing:

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

Photoshop—applied nik Color Efex Pro tonal contrast filter to add contrast to highlights, mid-tones and shadows of the coast line and the sky on separate layers.

Along Monterey Bay

I believe that most photographers who have visited the Monterey Bay have took lots of grand seascape photo of the coast line. I have done many of these photos and took a lot more of them during this visit.

But, for some reason, I never seem to get the image that I want. I do not know whether it is a case of trying to capture too much into a single frame or whether my mind builds an image that surpasses what my photographic abilities can capture.

Here I tried a little different approach. I tried to zero-in on part of the coast line and then used the ocean as a background to my main subject. In this photo, I liked the contrast: the pattern of the flowers versus the nonuniform aspect of the background; and the warm colors of the flowers versus the cool colors of the sea.

Enjoy.

Camera settings: Nikon D3, Nikon 28-70mm f/2.8 at 36mm with a polarizing filter attached, shot at ISO 200, f/13, 1/30^th of a second on a tripod.

Post Processing:

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

In and Around Houston #1

A few weeks ago at a meeting of the Bay Area Photo Club, I walked into a conversation that went something like this:

Member #1: “There is just not much to photograph in Houston. I am planning a trip to Place X next month. Really looking forward to working on some new techniques I have been reading about.”

Member #2: “I know what you mean. I have not taken a photo in Houston that I think is very good in over a year. I plan on going to Place Y next week. There are so many good photographing opportunities there.”

Member #3: “I wish I was going some place, but just cannot get away anytime soon. Larry, how about you?”

Larry: “Daaaa. I don’t know. I haven’t really thought about it.”

I have been thinking about his conversation a lot over the past few weeks. During the Next Step workshop last year, Craig Tanner said that he felt like great photos come from within the photographer and that by allowing your photography to be dictated by what you were shooting, limits you as an artist. I then recalled my experience in Naches, Mississippi last year (written about on my December 4, 2008 blog).

By no means do I want anything that I write to be interpreted as being a put-down of anyone in the conversation. But, I decided that my fellow members were talking about “taking photos, rather than, making art.” Here, I use a very loose definition for “art”—to me, “art” in photography means putting my own unique interpretation on what I am photographing.

With all this in mind, I decided to give myself an assignment: spend a day photographing Houston and publish at least five photographs on my blog. I decided that I would limit myself to one lens, use only available light and not photograph any people (because you could photograph people anywhere); however, I would not limit the post-processing of my images to Lightroom only—any and all post processing will be on the menu.

As I drove around looking for places to photograph, I found several locations that would make for good photographs, but not in the current light. Since it was my assignment and I could do what I wanted, I changed the rules to ten photographs over a two-day period.

A project like this must start with a sunrise photo. What makes a good sunrise photo? Sun, clouds and water. So, my first photo comes from Kemah area. Luckily, the sun was cooperating when I got to Kemah. I took several shots, including some bracketed shots for HDR processing and thought that I was finished, when this bird landed on a piling. The bird made a good anchor for the photo’s foreground. I wanted the photo to be very traditional landscape photo with a foreground anchored by the bird, a middle ground anchored by the pilings and finally the background of the sun hid by the clouds. Overall, I was happy with the results, but I did wish that there was more orange in the sunrise, but decided that I would not change that aspect in the post processing.

Enjoy.

Camera settings: Nikon D3, Nikon 28-70mm f/2.8 at 30mm with a polarizing filter attached, shot at ISO 200, f/13 and 1/180^th of a second on a tripod.

Post Processing:

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

Photoshop—ran nik Color Efex Pro tonal contrast filter to add contrast to shadows, mid-tones and highlights to the water and added a curves adjustment to the sky for overall contrast.