Brazos Bend State Park #9--REVISED!

This morning, I was working on some portraits that I took yesterday, and for some reason, I decided to look at my blog.  Now, as I have stated before, I normally do not read the comments that have been posed on my photographs until the weekend--I feel this is a substitute for a leisure read of the Sunday paper.  I know that this infuriates some of the people who comment on my work, but that's just the way I do things.   Sorry.

Well, both Wayne and DHaass had the same comment on today's photo of a dragonfly, i.e., the curved branch below the dragonfly was very distracting and took your attention off the main subject.    I respect both of their opinions, even if I do not always agree with them (for everyone's information, I only agree with one person's opinion a 100% of the time--Janice D. Patrick's!)

As all of you know, I like things simple.  So, I studied the photograph for a while and decided that they were absolutely right.   I know present my new and improved version of the dragonfly for only an additional . . .

Enjoy.

Brazos Bend State Park #9

Again, I have no idea what kind of dragonfly this is other than it’s a blue one with green eyes.  At first, I was hoping that the dragonfly reverse it’s position so that I could include its eyes in the photo.  Then, I decided that I wanted to make the photo about how delicate the wings seem to be.  I tried various positions and finally decided on this one.  I think it shows the delicate nature of the wings very well.

I do wish that I had chosen a smaller f-stop, say a f/16 so that the tip of the tail would have been in focus, but, regardless, I like the shot and believe that it does what I wanted it to do.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D700, Nikon 300mm f/4 with a 1.7x Nikon Teleconverter and polarizing filter attached, shot at ISO 200, f/9.5 and 1/350^th of a second on a tripod.

Post Processing:

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

Photoshop—sharpened dragonfly using high pass in hard light mode.

Brazos Bend State Park #8

I saw this Green Heron from some distance away.  I approached him very slowly.  I did not want to disturb him because I really liked how the green moss on the water set-off his blue and purple colors.  

I tried to frame my photo so that it only showed only a minimum amount of different components of the scene.   I wanted my image to really contrast the blues and purples of the Green Heron against the green slim on the water.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D700, Nikon 300mm f/4 with a 1.7x Nikon Teleconverter and polarizing filter attached, shot at ISO 200, f/16 and 1/125^th of a second on a tripod.

Post Processing:

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

Photoshop—cloned out some leaves on the water so that the green became very uniform through the image and used nik Color Efex Pro tonal contrast on the bird to increase the contrast of the shadows, mid-tones and highlights.

Brazos Bend State Park #7

Today’s photograph is all about the dragonfly’s form and details.  I was happy with all the details that I got in his body and wings.  I believe that the details are set-off very well by the bokeh of the bankground.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D700, Nikon 300mm f/4 with a 1.7x Nikon Teleconverter and polarizing filter attached, shot at ISO 200, f/16 and 1/90^th of a second on a tripod.

Post Processing:

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

Photoshop—used nik Color Efex Pro tonal contrast filter on the dragonfly and the branch to add contrast with the shadows, mid-tones and highlights and then sharpened the dragonfly using the high pass filter in soft light mode.

Brazos Bend State Park #6

I believe that this bird is a Yellow-Crowned Night Heron.  

There are two things that I liked about this photo.  First is how the blues and greens of the background complemented and set-off the neutral white, gray and black of the Heron.  Second, I liked the Heron’s pose--he even seems to be posing for me.  The lighting on the bird was very good except for some shadow on his face.

In processing the image, I just wanted to make sure that the details of the Heron came out.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D700, Nikon 300mm f/4 with a 1.7x Nikon Teleconverter and polarizing filter attached, shot at ISO 200, f/9.5 and 1/350^th of a second on a tripod.

Post Processing:

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

Photoshop—used nik Color Efex Pro tonal contrast filter on the bird and the stump to bring out the details of both by adding contrast in shadows, mid-tones and highlights, and then made only the Heron’s face lighter by using a curves adjustment.

Brazos Bend State Park #5

Unless something amazing happens this week, I plan to post additional photographs from my visit to Brazos Bend State Park.  Before I describe today’s photo, let me do a little free advertising for our parks—local, state and national.  We are very fortunate in America to have a great parks system.  No matter how many times I go to any given park, I always find something new about it.  My advice (for what it is worth):  Go and support our parks!

I tried to take Cindi’s advice and look-up the names of what I am posting, but do you realize how many different dragonflies there are?  I think there are billions; many of which, I cannot really see the difference between.  So, it’s back to:  “This is a dragonfly . . .”

Today's photo is all about the colors—earth tones throughout the image.  I tried to get both dragonflies in focus, but even at f/29 I could not get them both in focus.  After looking at all the images that I shot, I felt that f/16 was the sharpest so that is the one that I selected.  

Since I could not get both dragonflies in focus, I decided to add a vignette to make the viewer’s eye go to the dragonfly that is in focus. 

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D700, Nikon 300mm f/4 with a 1.7x Nikon Teleconverter and polarizing filter attached, shot at ISO 200, f/16 and 1/180^th of a second on a tripod.

Post Processing:

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

Photoshop—sharpened dragonfly and branch using the high pass method in the overlay mode and added a vignette to the image.

Brazos Bend State Park #4

Sometimes it is better to be lucky than good.  

This photo is a testimonial to that.  I was trying to take a photo of these two ducks who were in a heavily wooded area.  No matter what I did, I could not get a clear shot of them.  When I moved a few branches, it startled the ducks and off they flew.  But to my amazement, I turned and saw the two ducks landing on a stump that was about 80 feet from me.  I had a completely unobstructed view of them and a great background to boot!  I did not move my tripod, I merely turned my camera around and started firing.  I felt like Moose Peterson--I was firing away at like 1,000 frames per second!

I really like the earth tones in this scene and how the ducks are clearly separated from the background.   The background was far enough away so that even at f/9.5 (which made sure the ducks would be totally in focus), I got a very nice out-of-focus background.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D700, 300mm f/4 with 1.7x Nikon Teleconverter and polarizing filter attached, shot at ISO 200, f/9.5 and 1/90^th of a second on a tripod.

Post Processing:

Lightroom—Set white and black points, added mid-tone contrast. Increased color saturation and hue for yellow and green.

Photoshop—used nik Color Efex Pro tonal contrast filter to add contrast to highlights, mid-tones and shallows, and added a boarder to the image and added boarder using a stroke and various layer style options. 

Brazos Bend State Park #3

On the far side of 40 Acre Lake, I found a place where the dragonflies were buzzing.  I watched them for while.  Finally, I spotted a place that had a perfect view of three different branches that dragonflies were using for perches.   I put my tripod in the center of the area and waited for my subjects to land.  I really like my shooting spot because I had unobstructed view of three different branches  where the dragonflies were landing and each had an extremely simple background of green moss.  The spot was also a great distance for the lens I was using--I could fill the frame with the dragonflies.

There was just enough wind that I had to use a relatively fast shutter speed to make sure that I got the dragonflies sharp.  Luckily, I had lost of sunshine, which I needed since I was shooting at f/16 with a polarizing filter on the front of my lens.

Today’s image is about the dragonfly's form and the simple complementary colors—orange, red and green.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D700, 300mm f/4 with 1.7x Nikon Teleconverter and polarizing filter attached, shot at ISO 200, f/16 and 1/250^th of a second on a tripod.

Post Processing:

Lightroom—Set white and black points, added mid-tone contrast and tweaked the hue and saturation of red, orange and green.

Photoshop—used nik Color Efex Pro tonal contrast filter on the dragonfly and the branch to increase the local contrast of the highlights, mid-tones and shadow areas and then added a boarder using onOne Photoframe.

Brazos Bend State Park #2

The contrast of colors was what drew me to this scene.  The greens and browns of the background and water versus the blues and reds of the bird is what makes this photo for me.  For some reason, when I posted the image and then previewed it, the browns have a slightly greener cast than my original RAW file, so try to image it without that cast.

I put my tripod as low as it would go (I was laying on my belly--constantly watching for alligators) so that I would be shooting straight-on at the bird’s eye—I wanted to make sure I would capture any catch-light in the bird’s eyes.  I then yelled "action" and this little guy started swimming straight at me.  It is great to work with "first rate" talent like this guy!

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D700, 300mm f/4 with 1.7x Nikon Teleconverter and polarizing filter attached, shot at ISO 200, f/16 and 1/60^th of a second on a tripod.

Post Processing:

Lightroom—Set white and black points, added mid-tone contrast and darkened brown and greens in scene.

Photoshop—cloned-out blown-out highlights and used nik Color Efex Pro tonal contrast filter only on the bird to bring out as much detail as possible in his feathers. 

Brazos Bend State Park #1

A few weeks ago, Bay Area Photo Club had a field trip to Brazos Bend State Park.  I really enjoy photographing wildlife in the park, but could not attend the field trip because I had baseball duty that day.

Last week, I had an afternoon portrait shoot at a stable near Alvin.  Since Alvin is relatively close to the park, I called one of my friends who resides just south of Alvin.  Jeff is a devout “birdie” so I knew he would be willing to go.  We agreed to have a very early breakfast in Alvin and then head to the park.  We would have been first in line (had there been a line) when the park opened.  The weather was great, cool without a cloud in the sky.

Based upon the photos that I saw from the field trip, I thought that I would get a few good shots of alligators, especially some baby ones.  Although I tried very hard, I got no alligator shots that I would be willing to share with anyone.  It’s sad when I get better photos of birds than, well, than anything.

My basic set-up for all my shots was:  Nikon D700 with Nikon 300mm F/4 with a Nikon 1.7x Teleconverter and polarizing filter attached and shot from a tripod.

Today’s image was my last shot of the day, or should I say last shots of the day since the image is an HDR.  Looking at the leaf, I was struck by the three very different colors that I was seeing—the red of the leaf, the green of the Spanish moss on the left side and the brown of the branches on the right side.  I thought that the light made a very ordinary scene into something unusual.  I tried various exposures but was not able to capture the full range of light that I was seeing, so I took five shots at 1 EV intervals.

Over the next couple weeks, I will be posting shots of birds and dragonflies that I took at the park. 

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D700, 300mm f/4 with 1.7x Nikon Teleconverter and polarizing filter attached, shot at ISO 200, f/16 and 1/45^th, 1/90^th, 1/180^th, 1/350^th and 1/750^th of a second on a tripod.

Post Processing:

Photomatix—Combined the five images into a HDR photo.  

Remember

Today, I will depart from normal practice.  No information about the photos.  I just want to present an image that, to me, represents what this day should be to all Americans.

Have a good Memorial Day.

Kim

A few weeks ago, I was taking portrait photographs of Kim’s older sister at a local park.  While her sister was changing, I noticed Kim setting the edge of a fountain.  I really like her expression, the simple background and the color combination.  I took 4 or 5 shots.  This one is by far my favorite.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3, 70-200mm f/2.8 at 200mm, shot at ISO 200, f/2.8 and 1/750^th of a second.

Post Processing:

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

Mr. Sourpuss—NOT!

I was downtown Houston doing a little street photography at a charity run/walk with one of my friends when I heard:  “You want a pretty face to photograph?”  I turned around and there was Gus smiling at me.  I introduced myself and we chatted for a few minutes.  I found Gus to be about as warm a person as you could ever meet.

I took a few shots and then I told him to give me his “Mr. Sourpuss look.”  This is his Mr. Sourpuss look!

I wanted the photo to be all about Gus’ expression.  I thought about converting it to black and white, but for some reason that really did not work for me.  My final image uses a black and white layer at 35% opacity to de-saturate the colors.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon F3, 70-200mm f/2.8 at 200mm, shot at ISO 800, f/11 and 1/250^th of a second with flash at -2.0EV and pointed between Gus and the tree.

Post Processing:

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

Photoshop—used nik Silver Efex Pro to convert to black and white and combined with base layer at 35% opacity to de-saturate the colors. 

Friendswood Car Show #5

Just as I was leaving the car show, a great storm rolled-in over the park.  The sky turned dark, except for flashes of lightning.  At that exact moment, a green Lamborghini rolled out of the park and headed towards the storm.  I quickly moved my camera to my eye and fired as many shots as I could before the Lamborghini roared off into the storm.

OK, that is the story that I wished was attached to this photo.  The real story is that I had a non-descript photo of a cool car.  I shot the photo low so that I could get the shapes of the Lamborghini.   I really did not care whether people would be able to determine that it was a car--I wanted the shapes.  

I replaced the background with one from my files and then ran a few filters on the car and the background to try to give the whole photo a surreal look.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D700, 28-70mm f/11 at 60mm, shot at ISO 200, f/11 and 1/180^th of a second.

Post Processing:

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

Photoshop—Replaced background with the sky with lightning and then ran Kubuto’s Lord of Rings filter and increased the overall contrast on the car. 

Friendswood Car Show #4

Nothing says “classic car” better than a 1957 Chevy BelAir, especially a red one with a white top.

I wanted this photo to be slightly abstracted, so I selected f/2.8 as my f-stop and focused my lens as close to the Chevy symbol as I could.  I wanted only the Chevy symbol to be in focus.  I would have liked to had my 50mm f/1.4 to use on this one, but it was home resting.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D700, 28-70mm f/2.8 at 70mm, shot at ISO 200, f/2.8 and 1/1,000^th of a second.

Post Processing:

Lightroom—Set white and black points, added mid-tone contrast, vibrance and darken the red in selective color.