Just another day in paradise
I try not to recap full Pens games, but I really have no choice today.
Whew. What a game. The Pens played the Detroit Red Wings last night at Joe Louis Arena in the Motor City and escaped with a 5-4, shootout win. They chose to make it as interesting as they possibly could though, having been staked to a 4-0 lead through almost two full periods with two goals from Pascal Dupuis (one a sneaky bag hander and one off of a gratuitous bounce off the boards), a nifty backhand by Tyler Kennedy over sprawling netminder Jimmy Howard and one off a sweet deke by Chris Kunitz.
The run ended with about two minutes to go in the second, when Henrik Zetterberg banked one off Kris Letang’s skate past Pittsburgh goalie Brent Johnson. Next thing you know the Red Wings are getting powerplay goals from Niklas Kronwall and ageless wonder Mike Modano, and one more from Valtteri Filppula, who shuffled one between the pads of Johnson that Johnson ended up kicking in his own net.
The Pens got some momentum back though, carrying it into overtime where they had chance after chance against Howard’s replacement Joey MacDonald. Into the shootout it went. Both goalies were brick walls until Penguin newcomer James Neal blistered a wristshot over the glove of MacDonald. Lights out, game over, the Pens earn a precious two points in the standings.
No, the shot above is not from that game, it is from a playoff game in 2008 between these two rivals, the same 2008 playoffs that saw the Red Wings hoist the Stanley Cup in the Igloo. Neither of the players depicted even played last night, as they are both out due to injuries. Sidney Crosby obviously has been dealing with a concussion since early January and Chris Osgood, the Red Wings goalie has been out for about a week with a sore groin. Although it’s not from the game, it is one of my favorite hockey shots that I have been lucky enough to get.
Today I’ll be wrapping up the Jamaican honeymoon shots. I’ve enjoyed doing this series on my blog over the last week and a half, as it has sort of allowed me to relive being there. I had not gone through all my shots from there in a few months, and it was nice to put myself there again.
Sunset was just an incredible time of day there, more so that in a lot of places. It was almost as if you waited with anticipation to see what kind of colors were going to appear, what the clouds were going to look like. These are two of my favorite shots I got right around dusk. One was taken with my S90, a bracket of three exposures, and the other with my D40X, an eleven exposure HDR. Both were processed in Photomatix, with some slight masking of the sky to get rid of some noise and colors.
I hope that you have enjoyed the Jamaican series. I’ll figure out another series to do next.
Thanks for stopping by.
Having the winter blues
I don’t want to scare anyone with the title, I’m not really sad. Well, just sad that I’m in rainy Pittsburgh right now instead of sunny Jamaica. There’s a saying “No one needs a vacation like the man who just got back from one” and I could not agree with that more. Even though I didn’t just get back from vacation I had a day off on Friday, and coming back to work can be so difficult after a long weekend.
I will probably be wrapping up the Jamaican pictures sometime this week, but today I wanted to post a few shots that focused on the actual beach. It was so incredible to just sit and lounge around in the sand all day, as it was one of the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen. The sand was golden and soft and not so hot that you couldn’t walk on it, the water was crisp and clear for a vibrant shade of aqua and the sky was just a shining blue all the time (well, except for the one hour it rained). Usually you are lucky enough to get one of these beach attributes, but the fact that Jamaica had all three was perfect.
What made it even more picturesque were the banks of clouds that would continually roll through during the day. Don’t get me wrong, there is little that I like more on vacation than a clear blue sky, because at least then you know it’s not going to rain. But it was kind of just the icing on the cake that made Couples Sans Souci the most relaxing place we have ever been. I think it is the only place where we have said that we may go back one day; we usually like to vacation in different cities and countries, to make sure we experience as much as we can. But Jamaica sure had a compelling argument to lure us back.
From the warm beaches of Jamaica to the cold highways of Pittsburgh. This is one of the last few shots from my early morning photowalk back in February. What I’ve come to realize is, that I REALLY need to get out shooting soon. I mean, I have a ton of shots in my archive, but I’m not thrilled with all of them. Maybe I need to create a second flickr stream so that I can most my not-top-quality work. Because let’s face it. Not every picture you take is going to be your best, but that doesn’t mean you don’t want to display it. We’ll see. Anyways, this is a view down the parkway along the Allegheny River. You can see PNC Park on the right, as well as Heinz Field in the distance, as well as the moon, which I just have a terrible time with.
For the processing, this is a seven exposure HDR processed with HDR Efex under the “Subtle” method. I ended up masking in the whole sky, but instead of using the exposure that had the trees frozen, I used the +1 exposure to give them that waving feeling. I also had to do some work on the reds, as the street lamps were really glaring through the shot on the left had side of the scene. Boosted the yellow on the railing that serves as the leading line, added a blue curves layer for the sky and water and applied a very slight Tonal Contrast filter to the entire image.
Check back tomorrow for a discussion on flickr. Pete Talke of Places2Explore recently did a post on this and I felt inspired to do the same.
Reflections of the times
Picking up where we left off last week with some more shots from Couples Sans Souci in Ocho Rios, Jamaica, where we spent our honeymoon.
One of the really interesting things about the resort was how it was laid out. Part of Couples Sans Souci used to be apartments that were converted into hotel rooms at some point and this made the entire grounds seem like more of a little village than a resort. There were winding staircases, hidden staircases, so many levels and different areas to explore, which means that you could walk to the same place five different ways, instead of just walking by the pool to get to the restaurant. You could walk up a staircase, around a bank of rooms, by the mineral pool, through the hammock area, or up an entirely different staircase, around two other restaurants, through the lobby and end up at the same place. One of the little hidden treasures of the CSS was the Mineral Pool (pictured above), which was kept at a certain balance of natural minerals to give you a relaxing swim. You had to shower before you even got in it, and there were strict rules about what you could and could not do it. I’ll just leave it at that.
There was also another pool (non mineral, just regular) attached to one of the bars at the resort called the Balloon Bar. The only person I saw swimming in it the entire time we were there was a big tattooed guy who had one too many Red Stripes. During a show that was going on directly next to it. I’m pretty sure that that was also the only time where “No problem mon” turned into “We have a problem mon”. At the Balloon Bar they had nightly shows where the performers were right on the little patio area that you see the above picture. Guest interaction was highly encouraged and by the end of the performance you were almost always up dancing with them. On a side note, this was also the only place on the entire resort that served Guiness, and it was only on the weekends, and they usually were out of it in a few hours after they got the shipment in.
So today’s shot. I said yesterday on flickr that I am going to try to do some more street photography and candids. The only problem is actually getting out and taking them. I also want to have my wide angle out to give a better sense of the beauty of our city of Pittsburgh, but this week I am going to make an effort to go out shooting with just the 70-200. Not taking the tripod, not taking the 16-35, just the 70-200 and see what I can do. I have a few candids I will be posting from the archives and this is one of them
I was meeting up with my wife and some friends last fall for a happy hour and decided to get some shots before I had to be there. This is one that I captured in South Side Works in the South Side (obviously) of Pittsburgh. There is a little area right in front of the Cheesecake Factory and movies theatre that has a fountain and some benches that people just sort of mill around in. I saw this guy poking away on his phone and couldn’t help but get a shot. As in my shot from a few days ago I think he has an iPhone, which I thought was great, because you don’t see a lot of people his age with iPhones. Definitely a reflection of our times. (Sorry, had to do it).
I think I’ve found my groove in terms of processing these. Opened in up in Camera Raw, reduced the overall saturation, added a standard S Curve to bring out some contrast, and finally added a slight Tonal Contrast filter in Color Efex. Pretty happy with the result.
I really appreciate the visit everyone. See you tomorrow.
Getting warmer
Ok, ok, so I know that it isn’t getting that much warmer around here, but we are supposed to have three straight days of 50+ degree weather, which is pretty excited. Granted, there is the western Pennsylvania spring rain that will come along with it, but I’ll take what I can get.
Since we are about to have a bit of a warm spell, I thought that I would warm up HDR Exposed with a shot from Jamaica, another panorama. I won’t be posting this one to flickr (at least not right now), but I still think it is a pretty cool shot.
Like I’ve mentioned a few times before, we stayed at the Couples Sans Souci in Ocho Rios Jamaica and could not have been happier with our choice. The last couple tropical vacations we took to Punta Cana and Cancun, we certainly more of a party atmosphere. After planning a wedding for almost two years, especially dealing with the last couple months before the wedding, we were just looking for someone nice and quiet to relax and take some time off. That’s exactly what we found at Couples Sans Souci. Sure there was some partying at night, but with no kids running around and the average age of the other people at the resort a good ten years older than us, we found a nice mix of fun, sun and relaxation.
I’ll be posting a few shots from our trip everyday this week to try to encourage the warm weather to get here faster. Who knows, maybe it will work. As for the processing on the panorama, it is a twelve shot pano/vertorama, with six shots for the top and six for the bottom. Photoshop CS5 did a great job of blending the sky, so I just had to do some minor shadow adjustment. This is the view of the entire resort, so you can see how small and secluded it is. It doesn’t share beaches with other resorts, so you didn’t get the peddlers or random people walking through what you were trying to lay on the beach. Very nice.
Today’s “official” upload is a far cry from the beaches in Jamaica. This is the Portal Bridge, a pedestrian bridge that is near the Point in downtown Pittsburgh. I took this the day I took most of my previous uploads, on that Saturday morning that was cold and windy. I’ve been wanting to capture this bridge for a while, but all of the construction that they’ve been doing around the Point has made it a bit difficult, and I even had to move some signage and construction barrels out of the way for this shot. It was built in 1961 and connects the tip of downtown Pittsburgh to Point State Park.
On to the processing. This is a seven exposure HDR processed with HDR Efex under the “Clean” Method. The lighting was a bit tricky to handle, as, like I’ve said before, the D700 gets a little confused sometimes with white balance from different light sources. I had to tone down the warm lights coming from the side of the bridge and added an overall desaturation layer. Applied a Tonal Contrast filter, added some definition in iPhoto and shipped it off to the blog.
Thanks for your visits everyone, they are much appreciated.