Happy Halloween

Michael jr rock scrambling

A cloud went over when we were out on the rocks Sunday. Looked back at my son and snap. Being six brings out the awkward smile a lot, so it generally takes some coaching. This is one of my favorite spontaneous images of him of the year. Toned in Lightroom.

Another shout out for Jason @ http://www.jasondmoore.com/blog/, He invited me to be profiled on his Photography & Photoshop blog today. I am humbled to be included with some of the big guns he has profiled at his site. His site continues to inspire me, and always is worth a look daily.

If you are stopping by for the first time, thank you for taking interest.

Great Falls 4 shot pano yesterday

After raining all week, yesterday was a great day to get out. Went for a quick trip to the falls to check the water levels. D70, handheld, JPEG. Opened all four from Lighroom into CS3 with no adjustments. Auto aligned and blended, small levels, curves adjustment. Did a quickmask curves adjustment to get a little more contrast on the rocks in the bottom left.

Thanks to Jason http://www.jasondmoore.com/blog/ for adding me to his weekly blogroll.

Smoke 2

Processed same was previous post. Enjoy the day!

First try at smoke art

There was a great link over at http://www.revellphotography.com/blog/ to Graham Jeffery's smoke art tutorial http://sensitivelight.com/smoke2/. Its been a rainy week all week here in the DC metro area. So what better way to kill a couple hours. So I set up with a ultra600 head at full power in a med. softbox and put a reflector on the other side, used D200 w/ 105 micro at f22 with a sync of 250th. It is imparitive that you use a shutter release because you have to manipulate the smoke (incense) while it is burning. I used a my hand to cup the smoke, or just blew it to clear the air and start new batch of smoke. After a lot of trial and error, the bottom line is just as it says on his tutorial, you need a lot of light, depth of field, and a bunch of smoke. The small thin incense sticks I were using gave me a couple results for me to take into CS3. After I found an image that I liked I opened it in camera raw, bumped the exoposure, blacks, and clarity. Opened in CS3, inverted, did 2 hue/sat layers, soft brush on vector mask to paint in color, also painted out any amoke I did not like for a final image. This was FUN I must say. With all this rain and winter approaching I am sure that I am going to go back to this project. I must get more smoke though.

Antietam Solder Reenactors

1 shot raw, saved -2,0,+2 from camera raw, merged and tonemapped, opened in camera raw, bumped clarity, pulled back on vibrance this time, opened in CS3, cropped, did antique color action and vignette action that came with class I spoke of earlier this week. Where is that easy button, actually would do some burning in on it if I were to print. I am posting the before (original raw) and after.

Lock Building

This building is on the path that follows the locks at Great Falls in MD. It is a 5 exposure HDR merged and tonemapped in Photomatix. Saved as a JPEG, opened in camera raw, adjusted clarity, vibrance. Opened in CS3, since the tonality was all over the place, I used curves for adjust contrast on certain selections using the quick mask tool. Used also the soft contrast action provided with tutorials. It was a great image to use for the tutorials I mentioned yesterday but that's about it. This one was more about the journey than the destination.

Great Falls HDR

With a little help from http://www.whereisben.com/ HDR tutorials at http://training.xtrain.com/serial/show/30, I started his class a couple weeks ago, the last chapter on what to do after you generate images in Photomatix for me were the most help full. This image is a 5 exposure shot, saved as JPEG, opened in camera raw, tweaks to almost all sliders in develop, biggest adjustments in clarity and vibrance. Cropped in camera raw, and opened in CS3, layer adjustment curves, marked lighted and darks in areas to boost contrast. A layer adjustment with Hue/Sat and removed some green and yellow. You can tell where by looking at the image posted under water levels a couple days ago. The green algae was incredibly bright after converting to HDR. The last step was a bit of sharpening and used his action for vignetting lowered opacity to around 35%. I am working on one more image from the great falls trip, I need to do some final adjustments to have ready for tomorrows post.

My Chimney

I stopped by http://www.whereisben.com/ and saw a interesting image he did with a tree by shooting it looking up and creating a effect in photoshop. So later in the day I was on the phone in the backyard and I looked up, I grabbed the camera put on the 10.5 and took a bracketed series of seven exposures. This image is the result of merging and tonemapping in Photomatix, saved a JPEG, opened in camera raw, boosted clarity and vibrance , did some creative cropping, made a copy of layer, flipped, expanded canvas size and this is the final image. The cross was unintentional.

Sunrise at Great Falls

HDR, 3 shots, Merged and tonemapped in Photomatix, did a curve adjustment in CS3. The sun was just coming up over the trees and was hitting the bridge. HDR really helped this image with the sky and reflection in the water. A little to to much glowing where the sun is coming up, maybe should have done 5-7 shots.

Bay Bridge Pano

5 shot pano from San Francisco taken a couple years ago. Stacked layers in CS3, auto blended and auto merged layers.

Go Saints!

Michael started football today. Tons of fun for the boys and dads.

Water Levels

This is from yesterday.

This is from June this year. It will be interesting to get some shots of the falls after we have had some significant rain fall.

3 Shot Pano from this morning.

I have never seen the water so low in the Potomac. Great Falls is definitely not raging at the moment. I did get out early this morning and grabbed a few shots. Shot this 3 exposure pano on the first bridge going to the falls, I like the bit of early morning fog in the background. The park authority has been busy lately, alot of clean up on the tow path and a new bridge. Fall colors are not peaking yet.

Macro Tulip

This is probably my favorite macro flower image I have taken to date, used a single starlite, with a white reflector. Hopefully will shot something new today to post later.

Happy Train

HDR technique as explained at http://www.revellphotography.com/blog/.

Stamp

Used stamps as background, used toothpick to mount japanese stamp higher.

Leaf Collecting

Since this is our first fall in 4 years, I took the kids out leaf collecting. They had a blast finding leaf treasures up and down the street. We took all of the bounty and glued them to a poster board.

Macro Wine Cork

With fall now in full swing, looking forward to getting some new macro images done this winter.

Lake Worth Pier at Sunrise

This was taken last year about this time in Lake Worth Florida. The Hurricane the year before took out the front section of the Pier,

14th Street @ night

I took this image while doing a night shoot in DC this summer. I guess on busy days, I am going to pull a random image to share that I have not posted somewhere before. Have a good weekend.

Crystal Pool at Glen Echo

Another image from the trip to Glen Echo yesterday. 5 esposure HDR merged and tonemapped in photomatix (becoming a common theme around here), bumped up contrast in CS3.

Border Effects

When visiting http://www.photoshopkillertips.com/ yesterday, I saw a cool little technique for creating border edge effects. I could probably spends hours perfecting this one, here is my first shot at it.

Images from Glen Echo

Shot a couple of gigs worth today at the park, Here are a few to start with - I find myself shooting for HDR more often during the day now, I am pleased with my final results, I am noticing some discrepancy in color saturation when I merge and tone map in photomatix and then bring to CS3 for tone curve, sharpening and vignette. Something more to fiddle with I guess.

Inspired to go shoot something...

So I log onto my daily dose of photography blogs, and its there, Jeff Revell of http://www.revellphotography.com/blog/ posted some great shots from a Manassas fall festival last night. (Thanks for the shout out also Jeff) , what Jeff did with the ordinary is extra ordinary. His use of composition, color and texture are incredible. This is why I started this blog, So with some new inspiration, I am grabbing the camera and heading to Glen Echo Park this morning with some purpose. Check back later-----

Halloween Costume Fitting Day

Brandon d'Leo New Site

Brandon d"Leo has updated his website and has used two of my images on his new site. His site is at http://www.brandondleo.com/.

Olivia & Julia at MD Ren Festival

HDR technique, 1 shot, used bridge to epose -2,0,+2, tone mapped in Photomatix

Seneca School House

HDR, 5 shots, tone mapped in Photomatix