Topsy turvy
Well, I finally took the plunge. Went out a registered a domain and am in the process of completely revamping my blog/website. I’m not exactly sure how long the whole process is going to take, but I hope to have everything up and running by the end of next week, so stay tuned. I also wanted to say a big thank you to Chris Frailey, who even got his wife involved in answering some questions I had, and also to Jason Hines and Chris Nitz, who also were able to help me. All three of these guys are fine photographers; please make sure to check out their sites if you haven’t already.
For today’s shot we head to Delaware Park in Buffalo, New York, where I was on Saturday afternoon for a friend’s wedding, just in attendance, not as the photographer. On a side note, they had four photographers at their wedding, which I had never seen before. Anyways, we had about two and half hours to kill between the ceremony and the reception and since it was a beautiful day, we opted to find a park to hang out at. This was the closest, so we made our way down there. We saw a bunch of different weddings come through, which was extremely interesting to see, as there were brides, grooms and bridal parties of all makes and models.
This is a five exposure HDR processed with Photomatix and then kicked over the CS5. I first did an overall curves adjustment, then opened it in onOne PhotoTools. I applied the WoW Landscape filter and then a slight Firenze filter, to give it the bit of a reddish hue. Next up was Color Efex, where I added a Pro Contrast filter and the vignette. Removed a few dust spots, flipped it on its head, and shipped it off to the blog. Enjoy.
Happy Wednesday everyone and thanks for stopping by.
It’s criminal
I know that a few posts ago I had a little rant about flickr in general and just touched on Explore quickly. I haven’t been checking Explore that much in the past year or so because of how frustrating some of the pictures I have seen on there have been. Yesterday I hit a bit of a breaking point though and just wanted to share some thoughts, get some opinions from some of you and maybe vent a little.
For those of you who are not familiar with Explore I’ll give you a quick overview. Explore is a collection of the top 500 pictures on any given day on flickr, judged by the flickr “interestingness”. Things that influence (or at least used to influence) getting into Explore were views, comments and faves in a short amount of time, not being in too many groups and not having all kinds of flashy rewards. Certain groups were also said to hurt or aid hitting Explore. Then in August of 2009 there was a monumental change to the algorithm that would ban certain users from getting on Explore. Apparently some folks even got messages from flickr saying that they had been “blacklisted” and other people “needed a chance” to get on Explore. While I never got that message, I haven’t had a photograph on Explore since then, and I used to hit it every day or so.
Now, I have a few problems with this. First, if Explore is supposed to be the most interesting, the cream of the crop on flickr, how can you purposefully ban photographers who you previously deemed to have the most interesting photos on flickr? It doesn’t make sense that everyone doesn’t get a fair shake at it. Second, and this is a more philosophical question, why are the editors of flickr deciding what is “interesting”? Wouldn’t it make more sense to get feedback from the flickr community (since flickr is a social network) to give a better overall representation of what people in flickrland find attractive in photography? I know that everyone has different tastes (and that’s what makes photography great) and it would make sense to incorporate that into the Explore area.
This leads into my third and, in my opinion, most important point. Let me first say that while I used to get annoyed that I was not hitting Explore anymore, I am completely over it. I have made some great contacts and friends on flickr that mean much more to me that having my picture be #247 in Explore. What I find completely ridiculous are some of the pictures that are currently on Explore. To call them interesting or some of the best is almost an embarrassment. I have five pictures as quick examples, and although I will not be posting them on here because they all are “All Rights Reserved” images, I will post the link to them.
- First off is Explore #4 for yesterday, March 28th. It’s a picture of someone’s retirement cake at work. Panda bear with green cupcakes taken with an iPhone.
- Next is a Front Page Explore of a rock holding a sign in different positions. Ok, fine, maybe it is remotely creative, but to be on the Front Page to say it is one of the most interesting pictures on flickr? Really??
- The next one is a picture of someone’s vintage cameras and their camera bag. The cameras may be interesting if you are actually using them, but a picture of them? And to be #4 on Explore?
- Next up is a group shot of people in a Lightroom workshop. Again, Front Page. Really embarrassing.
- Finally we have a Front Page from today that combines three pictures of someone’s eyes in a green glow. How is this interesting?
Again, I am not saying that these are not ok shots. Everyone has their own style and I can certainly respect that. What I have a slight problem with is these shots being paraded as some of the best on flickr. What I am not saying that these people are poor photographers. I did take the time to look through all of their streams and they all have some work that I like and am interested in. I’m also not saying that the shots above are bad shots…just curious as to why they made Explore and myself and others have not seen it for over a year and a half. Don’t get me wrong, there are TONS of great pictures on Explore; incredible landscapes, dramatic portraits, breathtaking views and so on. Those certainly deserve to be up there. It’s shots like the above ones that just have me scratching my head.
I know this has been a long post, so I’ll make this quick. Both shots from today’s post are from the Times Square Police Station in New York City. I didn’t get a chance to photograph it the last time we were there and didn’t want to miss the opportunity again. Both were processed with HDR Efex under the “Natural” setting. I had to do a fair bit of masking in both of them to get rid of the people and then added a Tonal Contrast filter in Color Efex.
Big game tonight for the Pens against the Flyers. We got this.
Cloudy flickr future
Yesterday I said I was inspired by Pete Talke of Places2Explore and his recent discussion on flickr and wanted to put my twp pennies in, for what it is worth. The shots from this post are clouds that I took from our honeymoon.
Back in 2008, right after I got my first dSLR, the Nikon D40X, I was looking up ideas on interesting pictures to take on the internet. I stumbled upon Trey’s blog on HDR, read his tutorial, started looking into other tutorials on HDR, and well, we know where that led to. So I had all these HDRs, and my friends and family were fun to show them to, but I wanted a way to share them with a lot more people. Just by searching “places to post pictures online” I came upon flickr. Looked cool, so I posted two pictures in September of 2008, then kind of forgot about it until March of 2009. I purchased my pro account (the first of three) and really started to get hooked.
I was posting into about 50 groups a day, leaving all kinds of awards and faves on peoples’ shots, Nikon Award, Heart Award, Peace Award, blah blah blah. I would comment and rate, and then see what people had to say about my work. I got some good feedback sometimes, but usually it was just the award that was left. Eventually I started to build up my contact list, and thought “This is awesome”, because I was getting all these comments and faves. After being on flickr for about a year, I got pretty bored with all the groups. It was an effort, and I didn’t even really like half the pictures I was awarding. So, I pared down the contact list from over 600 to around 350, stopped posting in groups, stopped worry about Explore and focused on some of the great flickr contacts that I had made. Which brings me to today.
Today I usually post one picture a day, and catch up on all my contacts’ work. I would say I have about 100-150 active contacts, those who are posting daily or multiple times a day, and I try to comment on all of them. It is about as much work as leaving Flickr Awards on peoples’ work, but I at least give better comments about photographers’ work that I actually appreciate. But that brings me to a point that Pete brought up. I comment on some people just because they comment on me, as that is what the flickr commenting community is all about (in my opinion): reciprocation. You comment on me, I’ll comment on you. But where does that get me? I have no problem being a nice guy and throwing a few comments back someone’s way who has taken time to look at my work, but what if I don’t like their work? I’m not saying that it is bad, just that it is not my style? I’ve tried to sift through and phase out those kind of contacts, because flickr is a lot of work, especially if you are leaving comments just for the sake of leaving comments. I’m not saying that this is the majority of my contacts, but it does make up a certain percentage.
I have made some great contacts through flickr, including Pete, and for that I am glad that I joined. I also made my first sales through flickr from people finding my work. But I think that it is fast losing its appeal to me. First off, I have a blog now, where I go into more details about my work and can post larger viewable images. I also have a website, where I have the vast majority (or will soon) of shots that I have on flickr on there as well. I enjoy spending time updating my website and writing these blog entries, but flickr just gets so tiresome a lot of the time.
Another thing about the actual flickr site is that it rarely updates. It looks basically the same since when I first signed up in 2008. For a photo sharing website, it certainly doesn’t make the pictures very appealing. The images are small, it usually manipulates the colors somehow or makes the image darker. The stats don’t really provide that much insight into your views, because a big chunk always seems to be “Unknown Source”, so I have no idea who is even looking at my uploads. This is important to me, because while I will usually let someone use a picture of mine on their blog for personal use, if they do not contact me and request permission first, I ask them to take it down. If I don’t know where the incoming links are coming from, how can I monitor who is using my images?
How about Explore. This is supposed to be the best of the best, the cream of the crop of flickr. Instead, flickr changes the algorithm so much that I haven’t made Explore in over a year and a half. Yet pictures of cats can. I mean, come on. Not saying I have the best work on flickr, but it’s better than a picture of a cat.
So will I stop using flickr? Probably not. Will I drastically reduce the time I will spend on the website? Yes. I will be reducing my contacts who only comment after I comment on one of their uploads, I will continue to not post in groups and generally spend less time on the site. I may start uploading more, because I won’t be as concerned with receiving comments and faves. I still think that flickr is a great medium to get yourself found, and I do get a fair number of incoming links to my blog from flickr. But other than pure traffic, I think that flickr may have run its course as a social/photosharing medium, especially with the rise of Facebook, Twitter and blogs.
So that’s my rant on flickr. I’d love to hear what you guys have to say about it.
For today’s post, we go back to New York. I’ve posted a shot of the West Side Story billboard at night, but I wanted to make sure that I posted one from during the day as well. This is a five handheld exposure HDR, processed with HDR Efex under the “Natural” setting. I had to do a lot of masking of the video sign, the sky and the people on the street. I also added a slight Tonal Contrast and Cooling filter, as it was a bit too warm for my taste.
Enjoy your Thursday, happy St. Patty’s.
Back on the wagon
Well, after a long weekend off from work and celebrating my little brother’s 21st birthday, I make a return to the blogging world. It was a fun weekend but I certainly needed yesterday of just sitting on my couch watching basketball to help recover. I think I’m starting to get a bit old.
As my Monday posts are typically a recap of my weekend uploads to flickr, I won’t stray too far from that path on this particular Monday. I actually won’t stray from it at all. Although one of my posts you have already seen on my blog (the panorama of our honeymoon resort), so I will not be posting that one. You are more than welcome to check out that post though if you are in some need some warm weather.
We’ll start with Friday’s post. This is one that I took a few months back at the end of November on a photowalk I did on Mt. Washington. Now I have photographed the city from that location a couple dozen times, but this was definitely a sight that I had not seen in any of those previous visits. I usually like to make the trip up there at night, as the Pittsburgh skyline from that high is just breathtaking. However on this particular trip the sky at a certain rainbow quality to it that was just awesome (that’s “awesome” as in full of awe, not awesome like in Wayne’s World). On Mt. Washington there are a handful of overlooks that stretch out from the main road that you can view the city from. I was a bit farther down than normal, and I had a great view along the river of the main part of Pittsburgh. Set up shot, bracketed and fired away.
Processed this one in HDR Efex under the “Subtle” method from 7 bracketed exposures. I masked in the entire -3 exposure, as it had the best color for that I was going for. Added a curves layer to enhance the red of the red and then a second blue layer to enhance the, well, blue. Did some selective coloring on the top of the PPG Building (the shiny one with spires on top) to bring out the golden tones of the sunset reflecting off of it. Finally, added a Tonal Contrast filter to the city as well as some high pass sharpening to the skyline.
Next up is another candid from our trip to New York in December of last year. I was walking around early Friday morning and caught some iPhone photographers trying to capture the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center. I’m always intrigued by pictures of people taking pictures, so I thought I would give it a go. I had dedicated this one on my flickr page to Kurt, aka Ian Sane, as he wrote me a very kind testimonial. Kurt is a master of candids and street photography, and like I said on my flickr page, if you haven’t visited his work, check it out. You won’t be disappointed.
Not too much to speak of processing wise here. Lowered the overall saturation in Camera Raw and increased the saturation of the reds and greens. Straightened the shot and applied a Tonal Contrast filter (very slight) and the pill box. Voila.
Today’s upload brings us back to that early morning photowalk I went on a few weeks back. Like I’ve said before, the one thing that I have not had much success capturing is the moon, and this is an example of that. I was walking between two hotels new the Point in Pittsburgh and saw the moon glowing over Mt. Washington. I set up the tripod and took the brackets, but wasn’t really happy with the result of the moon. I did however like the overall scene, with the warm glow from the hotel restaurant, the pastel colors in the sky and the motion blur from the tree branches, as it was incredibly wind, so I thought I would process it anyways.
This is a seven exposure HDR processed with HDR Efex under the “Natural” method. I had a bit of a tough time with the white balance, as I was getting incandescent light from the hotel, halogen from the street lights and the natural light from the moon. I had to do some heavy adjustments to the reds, as the whole shot was just too warm. I also increased the saturation of the sky to help bring out the pastels. I didn’t mask in the entire sky, because like I said, I really liked the motion blur from the trees, it gives to scene a sense of being there, in my opinion. Added a very slight Tonal Contrast filter and call it a day.
Thanks for sticking with me through this long post. I’ll catch everyone tomorrow.
A little bit of everything
Back and blogging after what seemed like too short of a weekend. Attended an ‘80s themed birthday party this weekend. Let’s just saying that it was…interesting. I did take a whole bunch of pictures, but I’m not sure I’ll be sharing them on here. People have reputations that they probably want to protect.
Today is going to be somewhat of a catch up day on HDR Exposed, as Mondays usually are. I have a variety of pictures you post, seeing that I unconsciously post more random pictures on the weekend that during the week. Actually, I’m not sure if it has something to do with having more time on the weekend to take a look through my “For Flickr” folder than I have on my hard drive and pick out an interesting one, compared to the weekday, where I’m a bit more rushed and more or less just pick a random one from there. The backlog of shots is getting a little low, so I may need to get out shooting sometime soon. I’d like to do some street candids in Pittsburgh on a Friday or Saturday night, but I think that it is still a little too cold out for that. We even got more snow yesterday. I’m about ready for spring to come around, when we can leave the doors and the windows open and you don’t feel so cramped and stuffy in your own house. Soon, very soon, spring is coming.
On to the shots. The first shot is a candid that I took while we were in New York, on Friday morning during the AM rush hour. Speaking of it being cold, it was absolutely FREEZING that morning, but I think at the time I took this shot my fingers hadn’t frozen yet. I was getting ready to cross the street in front of Radio City Music Hall when I saw this lady crossing the street. I captured her right when she was kind of making this goofy expression which just added to the shot. The only thing I didn’t capture was a perfectly crisp shot. Since it was so early and my first couple shots had been with a tripod, I hadn’t adjusted my ISO yet, so there was a little motion blur. I touched that up with Topaz InFocus then ran it through my typical cinematic processing steps, or at least my version of it. Decreased overall saturation, did a selective coloring adjustment on the red in her coat and the greens in the sign and bush. Added a Tonal Contrast Filter in Color Efex and the pillbox to finish it up.
Next is my post from yesterday. This is another early morning shot, except this one is from the Steel City (Pittsburgh, just in case) a few Saturdays ago. Equally as cold but with the element of wind too. Fun stuff. Took this one soon after I arrived downtown, and my initial plan was the head over the Clemente Bridge. Well, I made it about this far, took the shot, then turned around, because the wind was really whipping across the water. So I took my seven bracketed shots and moved on. This is a view from the Clemente Bridge looking down the Allegheny River towards the Rachel Carson Bridge and Convention Center, which you can just see the first light of day starting to come up behind.
For the processing, pretty standard to all the rest of the shots in this series. A seven shot HDR processed in HDR Efex under the “Natural” method. Adjusted sliders accordingly, then kicked it over the Photoshop and Color Efex. I masked in the enter sky of the -2 exposure, with some minor adjusting to the original shot. Desaturated the reds in the roads and from the lamps, as the D700 has a bit of problem sometimes with white balance. Masked out a corner of a piece of the bridge in the upper left and finally added a Low Key filter to the entire shot from Color Efex.
On to today’s shot, which I will be posting a little later today on flickr. This is a panorama that I took last Wednesday on the far end of Mt. Washington in the late afternoon. I had some time to kill before heading to friend’s for the Penguin game. I had actually seen this exact shot, as someone in my office had it hanging in their office, so I think I would give it a try. I would have liked to do the panorama with my 70-200 zoom, but all I had was the 16-35 with me, so I took it at 35mm. On the right you can see the Point and the city of Pittsburgh and how high the water is. We got a lot of rain early last week, which caused all three rivers to rise, shutting down parking lots and some areas of the North Shore and the Point. I really like this vantage point too, because you can see the Monongahela River on the right, the Allegheny on the left, and where they converge to form the Ohio. Pretty cool stuff. On the left you can see Heinz Field, home of the Pittsburgh Steelers.
On to the processing. This is a panorama of three 5 exposure HDRs, stitched together in CS5. The HDRs were created under in HDR Efex under the “Subtle” HDR method, as I didn’t want to go too heavy handed on the HDR since I was making a panorama. I didn’t like the way the sky looked, so I masked in the entire sky on all three HDRs. Adjusted the yellows of the bridges and Heinz Field to make them stand out and desaturated the browns of the lifeless trees to make them not to distracting. Lastly I corrected the skyline and gave the overall shot some definition in iPhoto.
Whew. I’m exhausted. But today you got a little bit of everything, candids, regular HDRs and panorama HDRs. What more could you want?
Turning the page
Even though it is so bitterly cold out still, we have eight inches of snow on the ground and more wicked weather seems to be coming, we are certainly drawing closer to the end of winter. Spring is almost here, flowers will bloom, jackets will go in the closet, windows rolled down, baseball season starts and everything seems to come alive again. To me, THIS is the time to make your New Year’s resolutions (you did make them, right?) I realize that we just had New Year’s last month, but it’s difficult to distinguish one year from the next in the middle of winter, especially when winters here in Pennsylvania last from November until March. But when the seasons change, and new life is breathed into everything around us, it seems like an appropriate time to make those changes in yourself as well.
Now I’m not saying you have to make resolutions. Especially since they are so difficult to keep. It’s not that we make way over the top, unachievable goals that we want to reach in the new year. For me, and I don’t want to speak for everyone, they just kind of get forgotten about, unless you make a conscience effort to drive towards them. I read an article (and I can’t remember where now) that said that if we share our resolutions and goals that we are less likely to achieve them. I think I agree with this (I think). At a previous employer, we had to write goals out, read them in front of the office, hang them on our wall and review them every two weeks. That’s a lot of pressure to achieve them, and it’s not the kind of pressure that really motivates you. It’s the kind that says, “Wow, everyone knows what I have to achieve, and if I don’t, I’ll look bad to everyone”, which has the potential to put you in a bit of desperation mode. Keeping them to yourself can give you that self empowering, self motivating attitude that can get you to where you want to be and achieve what you want to achieve. So I look at spring to a fresh start to the year, a time to take one more look at those New Year’s resolutions and make them happen. I know I will.
Today’s post is my last from the New York Public Library. I couldn’t go there and not get a shot from the one of the reading rooms. This is the Rose Reading Room, and I wish I could have gotten more pictures of it, but my wife was a little embarrassed at how loud the five exposures were, so I just got this one shot and moved on. I will say that they did kind of echo throughout the room, and you can see the look I got from someone on the left side of the screen. This shot is one reason I love HDR. You are able to see the outside skyline as well as all the intricate details in the ceiling.
The processing wasn’t too difficult, just a bit time consuming. Like I said, it is a five exposure handheld HDR processed in HDR Efex. I obviously had to mask in all the people, the lights because they were a bit blown out, as well as outside the windows. For the outside, I opened up the -2 exposure, recovered the highlights, reduced the exposure, and then masked in just the windows. Boosted the color a bit to make the blue pop. No Color Efex to this one, just added a High Pass Sharpening filter to it. I think that this is my favorite of the library series.
Pens are playing the Sharks tonight, and we will see the Penguins debut of James Neal and Matt Niskanen. I’ll be there cheering them on. Let’s Go Pens.
A bitter night
One of the great things about living in western Pennsylvania is that we have four very distinct seasons. Unlike a lot of the northern or southern states where it either states cold or warm for most of the year, we see a gradual transition from winter to spring to summer to fall. We get to experience a white Christmas, flowers blooming, barbeques and fireworks and beautiful fall foliage that is painted throughout the region. However, one of the worst things about living in western Pennsylvania is that we have four very distinct seasons. Summer and fall I’m more or less okay with, it’s just the end of winter/beginning of spring that really get me. Don’t get me wrong, I love snow as much as the next guy, but when it dumps eight inches during rush hour on a Monday night in late February, that I can do without. It’s not so much all the snow we got, but the fact that yesterday morning it started out as a torrential downpour of rain. Then, eleven hours later, we have a little blizzard that locks up most of the city.
There is something eerily calm about the snow. I spent the better part of two hours last night unburying both my driveway and a few of my neighbors and when the wind died down it was a very serene mood. The street lamps were glowing warm light that was being diffused by the falling snow, there wasn’t anyone on the road and it was just quiet. You could not tell where one person’s yard ended and another began. You couldn’t even tell where the yard ended and the street began. A plow truck hadn’t been through in over an hour, so the road was completely covered again. I found myself just standing there, with ice forwards on my hair and gloves, taking it all in. And for as much as I do not really like to spent until midnight shoveling and being freezing cold, it was oddly peaceful.
Some shots from the storm, all taken with the S95.
View down my street
Before shoveling
Front walkway
Shoveled path in HDR
Now to completely switch gears. Yesterday’s post was all about the Winter Classic and the matchup between the Penguins and the Capitals. Well, the Pens lost (title reference #2), in a hard fought, 1-0 game. I can’t be too upset, as the goalie for the Capitals, Michal Neuvirth, played an outstanding game. Since I talked hockey, I didn’t get a chance to post my picture from flickr. I’ll make up for that today, since they are the same subject. Heading back to New York. On the Friday we were we spent a lot of time doing some of the touristy things, like Grand Central, Central Park, FAO Schwartz and the New York Public Library. I hadn’t planned on stopping at the library, but since we were so close and we hadn’t been there before, I thought that it would be worth a quick peak. We made one lap around and then headed on our way.
The first shot is the front of the library. It was a bit of a pain to process because of all the people walking around in front. I just wish for one second I could get everyone to stand still so I could take the picture. I think for all the HDR photographers out there, we should be given a remote to stop people as we please. Just a thought. Anyways, it is a five shot handheld HDR, and HDR Efex did a decent job of cutting down the ghosting. I had to tonemap the +1 image to mask in all the people, and I also did a 100% mask of the -2 exposure for the sky. Desaturated the reds a bit, added a blue curves layer to the sky and applied a Tonal Contrast filter in Color Efex. Lastly did some high pass sharpening.
For today’s flickr post, we have one of the hall ways inside the library. Same issue with the ghosts here. Five exposure handheld, tonemapped the the +2 image for the people and masked them in. Then I tonemapped the -2 and masked in the window at the back of the scene, as I was metered on the shadows and the window was very blown out. Added a slight blur around the edge of the frame to put the focus on the center and finally added a Tonal Contrast filter.
That’s all for today my friends. See you tomorrow.
One more time
It’s so difficult when you go to a place that’s been photographed as much as New York has been to find some way to make it your own. Not just by the random guy with a P&S that he’s had for five years snapping away either. Obviously you have professionals, professional amateurs, regular amateurs, artists, everyone you can think of. And really, it’s not just New York, it’s any place you go, even Pittsburgh. I’ve fallen into the trap myself of taking the “obligatory” shot of the Pittsburgh skyline (ok, I’ve down this many times), and the shot in the middle of Times Square, and the Brooklyn Bridge at night. It’s equally as difficult both when you live in a place and when you are visiting it. I live in Pittsburgh, so I am constantly shooting in and around the city. Like I said in yesterday’s post, I feel like I need to take a fresh look at the city, and I do have a few ideas for the next couples weeks. As for when you visit somewhere, like New York or Boston or Chicago or LA, you want to make sure you get THE shot: the Brooklyn Bridge in NY, Fenway in Boston, Navy Pier in Chicago, the Hollywood sign in LA. The question is, once you get that picture, now what?
For me, I didn’t want to leave New York without putting my spin on at least a few of the typical shots. So I scoured flickr for hours looking at hundreds (eh, probably thousands) of shots from around the city in places that I knew we were going to be going, especially the aforementioned Brooklyn Bridge. I wanted to make sure that we were there in the afternoon, because I knew I wanted to incorporate the sun in the shot. There are surprisingly few pictures of sun flares and the bridge, so I knew I had it. It was a sunny day on the day we were heading there, so I thought I was in luck. I got “the shot”, standing right in the middle of the bridge then kind of climbed onto the railing. I couldn’t just lean over, because the way the bridge was bouncing from the cars I wouldn’t have got five clean exposures. Unfortunately, clouds had moved in by this time, and I didn’t have a crisp shot of the sun, as the clouds were diffusing all the rays, preventing me from getting the sunflare I wanted. I still like how it turned out.
I think it is very important to do some research on where you are going before you get there. You don’t have to spend hours looking at pictures, but take a look at a few, that way, when you get there you aren’t surprised at what you find. You will have an idea of where you need to be and what will work for your photography style.
Technical time for the shot above. We know it’s five shots and handheld and it was processed with HDR Efex. I needed to mask in the cars, the people walking and just tiny halo around the bridge. I added a Tonal Contrast filter in Color Efex, just to the bridge and the road, to give it more of a gritty feel. I also selectively adjusted the reds to give them more of an orange look. Added an S curve to give it some contrast finally, but certainly not least, a high pass sharpening.
Until next time.
Together
I think that I may have jinxed the Pens with my post on Friday. It was an ugly weekend for them, losing both games by a combined 14-6, and two of the most painful games I’ve watched in a while. I don’t even really want to talk about it, so I won’t. Just wanted to mention it.
Something that I need to do soon is get out shooting. I feel like I’ve been a bit lazy lately because I had so many shot from New York that I knew I wouldn’t need to get out and shoot much. Other than Penguin games, I really haven’t been out at all this year with my camera. I may actually go out one day this week after work. It’s not that I am unmotivated; I’ve been there in the past, and it’s kind of a tough feeling. It’s not like I don’t have anything to post when I go through one of those funks. It’s just that I don’t think that anything is good. Then all of a sudden you look at the same pictures a few weeks later, and you start processing away. Not really sure why, but sometimes, that’s just how it works. I guess that I just feel I need to get out of my comfort zone. I have photographed Pittsburgh from so many different angles, at so many different times of day and times of year that I just think I need to get out of Pittsburgh and shoot something different. Maybe go hiking, or a little road trip to another city. Or maybe it’s as simple as just taking out the 70-200 and shooting some candids instead of wide angle HDRs. Everything in moderation after all.
Anyways, on to today’s shot. And yesterday’s shot.
First, yesterday. Another one from Times Square. I mean, I don’t think I could ever get enough of that place, as there are always going to be different people and things there and therefore different stuff to photograph. I’m sure I would get sick of it eventually if I lived there, but seeing as I don’t, I could take pictures of it all the time. Then again I’d have to live there to do that. Touche, catch 22. I took this one form the top of the grandstand in the middle of Times Square, looking towards the corner of 47th and 7th. I really like this view because it shows so much that is New York: the theatre, taxis, limos, people in suits, tourists, people selling you stuff on street corners, chain restaurants. To me, the whole scene is still moving.
This is a five handheld HDR processed with HDR Efex. Had to mask in a lot of the street for all the moving people and cars, and also that tiny bit of sky you see, as it was a bit blown out, then moved it over the Color Efex and added a Tonal Contrast filter. Desaturated the whole scene, then did selective coloring to enhance the reds. Added a warming filter to cool off the blue tones just a bit, and finally added some High Pass Sharpening.
Seeing as today is Valentine’s Day, I thought I would post something somewhat related to the sentiment that today is all about. Looking through the archives I wasn’t quite sure what I was going to use. Then I stumbled across this one from our trip to New York, one I took during one of the five total minutes that I had the zoom lens on instead of the wide angle. This is from the Brooklyn Bridge during our last day there. I wasn’t really thinking too much about this shot when I took, but now I’m glad that I took it.
For the processing, I edited the RAW in Camera RAW in CS5. Decreased the Saturation, increased the vibrance, and warmed up the white balance a bit. Recovered some of the highlights, lowered the exposure and the contrast, and gave it a bit more clarity. Moved it over the Color Efex where I added a slight Low Key filter, at 15% Effect Strength and 90% glow. Gave it a quick crop, and here you go.
Here’s to wishing you and yours a Happy Valentine’s Day!
In retrospect
One of the best things about being a photographer is that every single time you go out shooting, you can learn something new, which is a bit unique in my opinion. Take another hobby, like music. Now, I have great respect for all musicians, because the limits of my musical inclination ends at the piano. However if your hobby is, say, playing the piano, you can play for hour and hours, and while you undoubtedly will get better, you may not learn anything new. Same with writing. Or painting. You will continue to progress in your skill, but you may not learn anything new. When I am out shooting, especially if I am with another photographer, I find that I always come back, not just a better photographer, but more equipped to handle a wider variety of photographic situations.
It doesn’t even have to be limited to what you can learn physically about the camera itself. It can be a different angle to shoot at, or the time of day to be in a certain part of the city, or a certain location. I’ve been photographing downtown Pittsburgh for three years now and have spent many an hour on the North Shore of Pittsburgh shooting in and around PNC Park, home of the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team. However, on a recent photowalk with fellow Pittsburgh photographer Brad Truxell I found a great new location not 200 yards from where I spent countless hours shooting that offers a fantastic and unique view of the city. Now I can’t wait to get back there to shoot it again, as it was a bit cloudy the last time we were there.
The other great thing about photography is that you can instantly learn from any mistakes you made (see my last post). Just about every time I got shooting, I will be looking at my pictures when I get home and instantly wish I would have moved my tripod 2 inches to the left and used f11 instead of f4. Next time I’m out shooting, I will do just that. It’s not just about getting better with the settings of the camera, it’s being able to see a scene and know the best angle to capture it from, knowing what time of day to be there. These are things that aren’t always evident at the time of the original shot, but can be instantly corrected.
To go along with the theme of looking back today, my shot has a bit of a vintage feel. This is one from the 42nd Street Subway station in New York, which we saw a lot of when we were there (the subway in general not just this station). The last time we were there, I had taken a few shots of the subway that I really liked, but I wanted to try to take a different approach to the panning/motion blur that I did last time. I also wanted to try to incorporate someone standing in the subway station. I was pretty happy with the way that this one turned out, and knew I was going to post it as soon as I looked at it. That is after I processed it of course.
In honor of the Kodachrome being officially phased out I gave this one a Kodachrome filter in Color Efex. I’ve never shot with the film (thought my first camera was a Pentax film camera of some kind) and only know what I’ve seen of it in pictures, so I’m not sure how accurate it is. I still liked it though, and it gave me the old vintage feel that I was looking for in this shot, where it could have been taken anytime in the last thirty years. I added a bit of grain as well as the pillbox border.
Two days with no HDRs, I know, I know. But if you look carefully, you will the blog is called HDR Exposed – Photography and More by Dave DiCello. So consider this some of the more, and we’ll be back to the HDRs tomorrow!
Fuzzy concept
If you are a photographer, you’ve been there before. You’re walking down the street (or through a field or up a cliff or through your living room following your cat to get picture #1,493 of it this week) and you see the perfect shot developing. You have the right lens on the camera, the settings are perfect, all you have to do is get in the best position and click the shutter. The mirror (if you have an SLR) will go up, the sensor will capture all those billions of photons of light on the million pixels it encases and you will have the shot. And not just a shot. THE shot. It may not be your single greatest shot ever, but the stars have aligned for you to capture it. You can’t possibly believe your good fortune. All of a sudden…
If you’re in a field, a flock of birds suddenly take flight, scaring both you and the two deer grazing peacefully. If you’re walking up that cliff, your foot slips just as you press the shutter and you have a picture of a blurry sky. If you’re chasing your cat…I don’t know, what happens when you are chasing your cat?…oh you probably trip over one of the other twenty-five cats you have. Next thing you know, you don’t have the shot, the world that just seemed so perfect now seems so cruel, and you are cursing everything from the birds to the rocks to the other cats to that guy this morning who cut you off and made you three seconds getting here or else you would have had the shot. And you spend the next couple hours trying to get that shot again. But, you are worried it may have been a once in a lifetime thing.
Well, for me, this was the case on our New York trip. Early on Friday morning with the wife still sleeping from our flight in the night before, I braved the cold to head out and get some New York morning rush hour traffic, both vehicle and pedestrian. I thought, I’m going to start out and shoot some candids, something that I don’t do a whole lot of. The 70-200mm f2.8 goes on, 16-35mm f4 goes in the bag, and off I go. I get a few shots of people waiting for the bus and taxi, a business man running across the street, and a lady in a red hat making a phone call. Interesting, but kind of “Eh”. I turn back towards Times Square and I see them. Four guys. Walking down the sidewalk. Almost equidistance from one another. The first, second and fourth guy are all in stride, with the third being on an opposite step. I see a crosswalk coming up. A legendary rock band’s album pops into my head with the exact same set up, even with the third person being on an opposite stride. ( I feel compelled to mention this is the Beatles and the Abbey Road album for those not picking up the reference). Oh, I got this. I am ready. I have about half a block until they reach the cross walk to get in the best shooting position, which is, yep, right where I was already standing. Perfect.
Check the settings. Ok, ISO? 200. Aperture? 2.8. Shutter speed? 1/150? Too dark. 1/100? Not quite. 1/80? There it is. Focal length at about 100mm. Spot focusing on the third guy. They’ve spaced out from each other a bit from their original positions, but that’s ok, I can live with that. First guy in the crosswalk…second…third…fourth…just a few more steps…and…
“Oops, sorry man, didn’t see you were taking a picture.”
CLICK
Just as I’m about to press the shutter, I get bumped, ever so slightly, by someone who didn’t see me standing with a D700 and monster of a 70-200mm 2.8 elsn up to my face. The Active VRII lens worked great and doesn’t allow the whole image to blur, and the bump was ever so slight, that the focal point ended up just to the right of the third guy, on someone way in the back of the scene. The four crosswalk guys? Totally out of focus. I think, “I’ll catch them at the next crosswalk”. Great idea. Oh, except for one of them turns left at the street corner, walking down the street. I couldn’t believe it. I even had the third guy on his right step, just like Paul McCartney in the album cover, with the other three being on their left step. I mill around for a few minutes or so to see if I can recreate the moment, but no such luck.
I know, I know, there are things I could have done better. A higher aperture to keep more of the scene in focus and not give such a shallow depth of field. Switched to manual focus so I wouldn’t have autofocused to the point behind them. Looked around to make sure there was no one coming. I thought I had all my bases covered. Not this time. But, I thought , I still really like the shot so I decided, against my better judgment, post a picture that is technically not that great. For the processing, I tried to give it a cinematic feel. Lowered overall saturation, added a vibrance layer, added an S curve to give it a bit more pop, gave it just a bit of grain and put it in a pillbox.
I know it’s weird for a photographer to post a picture that he obviously, for lack of a better term, messed up on, but at least for today, that’s ok by me.
A different perspective
Back after a bit of break from the blogging world. I hope that everyone had a great weekend, as I know I did! Watched the Pens come back and win on Friday, celebrated the wife’s birthday and Saturday then watched the Steelers play a pathetic game and lose the Super Bowl Sunday. I was probably one of only people in the city who was absolutely ecstatic over the Steeler loss. We were at a good friend’s house for the game who is a die hard Steelers fan, and it was everything I could do to not be jumping up and down and screaming. But, I have been harassed my entire life for being a Cowboys fan, so I thought I would just enjoy that moment in silence. I couldn’t wait to get in the car to leave and start cheering! All in all a good time. I was a bit under the weather yesterday morning and was also pretty busy at work so I wasn’t able to post anything. Don’t worry though. No more months at a time between posts. Like I’ve said before, I’m kind of digging this posting everyday!
Today will be more strictly about photography that my normal rantings and ravings about who knows what. Part of it is the fact that I am still pretty busy at work and trying to play a bit of catch up today, and the other piece is because I am a day behind in my posts! We’ll start with a shot that I posted yesterday but took a few weeks back on my way home from work. It was during one of those really heavy, afternoon snowfalls that coincided perfectly with my drive home. I take the same route home everyday, and I almost look forward to when it snows and I’m driving, because it gives me the chance to get shots like this. I really liked how the end of the road just vanished into the snow and how you can see the snow actually coming down. It almost has a cinematic feel to it.
The processing for this one was actually pretty easy. It was a five handheld exposure HDR that I processed with HDR Efex. I moved it over the CS5, desaturated it a bit (not that I needed to), added a bit more green to the street signs, threw on a quick S Curve, and there you have it. I didn’t do a Tonal Contrast filter or noise reduction because frankly I don’t think it needed either one!
For my next shot (doesn’t that remind you of those cheesy magicians from TV?), we are heading back to New York. I just can’t get enough of that city, I just find myself going back to my pictures again and again and I keep find more pictures I want to process. This is one of those. I took this on our last day there right after we got off the Chambers St. subway stop. I’m not going to lie, it took me about five minutes to figure out what this building was, because at first I wasn’t sure what stop we got off. I had to pull up Google maps and literally drive down the street in Street View to see which building it was, and finally I found that it is the Public Advocates Office of New York (just in case you were wondering). All the angles and architecture made for a great photograph.
I spent a bit more time processing this one. Similar to the last one, this is a five exposure handheld HDR put through the HDR Efex process. However, since I used the HDR Method “Dark Soft” the sky was a bit darker than I liked and there was some noticeable haloing around the arches and pillars. I brought in the -2 exposure (since I was metered on the building, the sky was very blown out in all the other exposures), tonemapped it, and then masked in almost the entire sky. I then dodged the top of some of the pillars and adjusted the shadows. Added both a Tonal Contrast filter and High Pass Sharpening filter to the overall shot, as well as decreased overall saturation. Straightened the shot and presented it to you, in full HDR glory.
That’s all for today folks, make sure you check back tomorrow!
Policing the ice
So my goal of this blog was not to become a Penguins centric blog, as there are already multiple Pens’ blogs out there. The original goal was to post some pictures and talk a little more in depth about the shot than I do on flickr. However, as I am trying to blog everyday (well, every weekday), it can get a bit boring and repetitive if I am just saying “Here’s this shot, this is how I took it” and so on, and that it is. That being said, I’ve tried to add a bit more commentary to my posts to hopefully keep those of your who make the daily (or weekly or monthly) trek to my blog a bit more enjoyable, because if it was just the same pictures I posted on flickr, then you wouldn’t have any reason to come here. I will say this. I have a ton of respect now for newspaper columnists, who have to write every day, though it is a bit easier for them, as the majority of the time they are reporting on news. They are still writing everyday for their job. I do it just for fun. Which I think makes it a bit easier.
Anyways, moving on to more exciting topics: Geno (Evgeni Malkin) is back tonight for the Pens. Oh wait. I realized I never finished my though on the Pens’ blog thing. See that’s what happens to me when I write these. I get off on one tangent and forgot where I parked the firs tangent to get back in and keep going. I think that if you are going to write every day about something, it should be something you are passionate about, because otherwise it won’t be interesting. I am passionate about the Penguins and my photography, so it is very easy for me to write semi creatively about these two things. So while you won’t see Pens’ stuff up every day on here, you will see it. Like yesterday and today.
So Geno’s back, but our stellar rookie center, Mark Letestu, is out four to six weeks for a damaged meniscus from catching an edge on the ice at Madison Square Garden in New York before the Ranger’s game on Tuesday. With Sid the Kid still out recovering from a concussion, it’s great to see Malkin back out there policing the ice (reference to title #1). It means that the opponent has to plan for a superstar and match their lines up accordingly, and just makes it more difficult to get the matchups they want. I’m not saying this demean anything else any of the Pens have done, quite the contrary actually. The depth that we have is some of, if not THE best in the NHL, which has allowed us to gain points in the standing even without the “two headed monster” (Sid and Geno) in the line up. One quick note on the aforementioned phrase. HDR Exposed (aka me) does not condone the use of this saying…actually it is quite discouraged. Just wanted to use it once, get it out of the way, and never use it again. ‘Nough said.
Even though I foster incredible disdain for the Steelers, I would remiss in my blogging duties if I did not at least MENTION the Super Bowl in a few days. Packers vs. Steelers, NFC vs. AFC, the game of all games, the big game, Super Sunday, and all that jazz. I will be attending a party with a whole lot of Steeler faithful. I will also be wearing a Dallas Cowboy jersey. Probably Tony Romo…maybe Miles Austin. Not sure yet. But I will say this. Steeler fans are in for a rude awakening. Their beloved defense (which is incredible) is going to fall hard. Prediction: Packers 31, Steelers 10, Aaron Rodgers throws for 320 yards and is MVP. Ben Roethlisberger throws two picks and fumbles, and the Packers defense lives up to its billing. Let’s go Pack. Now, where is my cheesehead?
Almost forgot about today’s shot with all my other rambling. More from NYC. Another one taken on our last day there, which I think I got my most shots from. I had been trying to get a shot of Bryant Park that I liked; I was trying to use the reflections in the buildings and had tried three other times and got nothing. This was my final attempt, and as we were walking across the street, I stopped to grab this five exposure HDR. Of course, the light turned green right when I stopped and this cop car was right in the middle of the road (reference to title #2). I just said ok, forget, I got a ton of other shots. But…
…then I got home and processed it. Did my usual settings in HDR Efex, and thought to myself, “This isn’t too bad”. Took it back into CS5, masked in the moving people and the police car, applied a Tonal Contrast filter in Color Efex, burned the sky right about the horizon to give it that orange glow, boosted the blues to make the police car stand out, and while it isn’t one of my best, in the end, I like it!
That’s all for this week guys! I hope you all have a great weekend!
Did I mention Go Packers yet? I did? Ok, well, GO PACKERS!!!!!!! Yes, I’m done now.
Theatre like no other
I know not everyone who reads this blog this is a hockey fan, but I just have to take a second to talk about the Pittsburgh Penguins game last night. First off, we won, which is always positive, a 3-0 shutout of the lowly New York Islanders (sorry NY fans). It was a bit of a scrappy game from the start, and it just so happened that our scrappy guys got our goals. Tyler Kennedy opened the scoring in the first on a great power play goal from a sharp angle, Chris Kunitz banked one in off Rick DiPietro on a 2-1 with Pascal Dupuis. DiPietro got caught cheating back to Dupuis’ side and Kunitz made him pay.
No scoring in the second, but things got a bit scrappy. Mike Rupp won a fight, there were hard hits all around, with Matt Cooke and Max Talbot really flying around the ice. Max, who was on a 25 game scoring drought, hit two goalposts, got robbed on a seemingly open net, and just couldn’t seem to buy a goal. That was until 40 seconds left when Max, with the Islanders having vacated their net for a sixth attacker, took a backhand pass from Craig Adams and buried a 70 footer. 3-0, Pens up, game in the bag.
But, this piece is called “Theatre like no other” for a reason. Well, two actually. The first reason is what happened next. With 20 seconds left, Cooke raced down to try to beat an icing call. Skating past the net, DiPietro, who had taken some hard shots from Cooke in the last meeting between these two teams, stepped out of his crease and through a blocker to Cooke’s face. A scrum ensued in the corner, when all of a sudden, the coolest, most awesome, rarest, exciting things that can happen in a hockey game, happened. Out of the corner of the screen you see DiPietro start skating away from the pile towards center ice. Then you see a referee skate at full tilt after him. Brent Johnson (pictured above), the backup for goalie Mar Andre Fleury, was at the Islanders blue line, gloves off, helmet off, ready to take on DiPietro. The referee did everything he could to stop Johnson, but he was on a mission to repay the Islanders netminder for the cheap shot he had just delivered. Both goalies grabbed the other one’s jersey, and Johnson, who is right handed, landed a left hook to DiPietro’s jaw, sending him to the ice in a heap. Brent then knelt over to pof him, one had holding him down, the other raised in a fist, not ready to punch, just showing his vanquished foe that these Penguins are not who you want to mess with.
You don’t seen goalie fights hardly ever anymore, especially now since Patrick Roy is out of the league, who was famous for fights with both Chris Osgood and Dominik Hasek. But to see the soft spoken Brent Johnson, drop the gloves against some like DiPietro, who deserved everything he got from Johnnie, it was just a sight to see. I may have to get a Brent Johnson jersey.
Sorry for the recap, but it was just too awesome not to talk about! Today we go back to New York and take a look at the Lunt Fontanne Theatre on West 46th Street, right outside of Times Square. This theatre was right next to our hotel, the Marriott Marquis, and I knew I had to get a picture of it at night. The first night I took my five handheld brackets, but the last two were a bit blurry, something I discovered back in the room. I didn’t want to lug my drop out for a night on the town, so I bumped up the ISO the next night and gave it another shot. This time I got five crisp exposures. Perfect! We actually debated about maybe going to see the Addams Family, which you can see was playing there. Maybe next time.
On to the processing. Like I said, this is a five handheld bracketed shot that I processed with HDR Efex. The lights on the front of the building were kind of throwing me off, as they make the front of the building different colors with different light sources. I ended up just decreasing the saturation the oranges, and that did the trick! I had to mask back in the people on the street and a bit of the blown out highlights from the Times Square signs as well. Added a Tonal Contrast filter to everything but the sky and recovered some of the dark shadows, added a bit more color to the blue sky, saved, uploaded!
See you tomorrow!
Distorted Times
Well after a little over a month of posting shots from New York, I think that I am going to be wrapping them up pretty shortly. Which makes me a bit sad, because I really enjoyed processing them, posting them, giving you all the back story behind the shot. Don’t get me wrong, I still have literally over a thousand that I haven’t touched, but it terms of the cream of the crop, I think that’s it for now. I’ll probably shuffle through the folder in a few weeks and find one that I didn’t process that I really like and post it.
I actually find that kind of weird. So, you take a shot, whether you love it in the camera or not is always difficult to tell. But then you get home, through it on your computer, and think, “Why did I take this shot? I don’t even like it!” Then, a few months later, you accidentally open up that folder instead of the one you meant to, see it, and love it. Happens to me all time! Well, not all the time, but it does happen. For instance, I posted a whole bunch of shots from Punta Cana early in my flickr career. Then, almost a year later, I ended up posting about twenty more, and they are some of my favorites. I think that processing has something to do with it. As better and cooler processing techniques and programs come out, it can make that “It’s okay” picture to “I need to print this out right now and hang it on my wall” picture. But the whole processing vs. SOOC discussion is for another day. Maybe tomorrow. We’ll see.
As for today, we have another shot of Times Square. I know, I know, I may have taken too many shots of this place. But how could you not? You have so much going on, so many different things to see, all in one place! Restaurants, Broadway shows, a police station, a Walgreens, tourists, New Yorkers, cars, taxis, buses, street performers, musicians, the subway, clothing stores, an M&M store, I mean I go could on. And that’s all in a two block stretch on one street! I took this one on our last walk back through Times Square back to our hotel. I knew that I hadn’t gotten a shot yet in portrait orientation of Times Square and I wanted to get that cool distorted look to the buildings.
If you were just thinking to yourself, “Dave, I’d like to know how you processed this shot”, then you are in luck my friend. I started with five handheld images, shipped them to CS5 and ran them through HDR Efex (tutorial in the works, I promise). Played around with the sliders until I got something I liked, then shipped it off to CS4, because for some reason Color Efex won’t work in CS5 for me. Opened up the zero exposure compensation shot, tonemapped it and masked in all the moving people/car. Then applied a Tonal Contrast Filter, Pro Contrast Filter and a Low Key Filter, adjust the curves, toned down the saturation, straightened it out a bit (it was reasonably crooked to begin with) and shared it with you all! Enjoy!
Make sure to check back tomorrow for…I haven’t decided yet. Guess you’ll just have to check back then!
Meet and greet
So yesterday I had the chance to meet some of the Pittsburgh Penguins at an autograph session at one of our local malls. You donate to charity and then get to stand in line for a few hours to get some autographs. It’s the third year that I’ve done it, but it is still pretty cool! I know I’m not a little kid, but it’s hard still not to be a little star struck around these guys. I mean here there are, world class, Stanley Cup champion athletes, sitting right in front of you! You see people getting jerseys, pennants, flags, shirts, hats, pucks signed, which is all well and good, but for me, one of the most exciting parts is having them sign a picture that I took. Then I know that no one else has an autograph like mine! Just wanted to say thanks to the Pittsburgh Penguins for putting the event on and of course Pascal Dupuis, Eric Godard and Tyler Kennedy for taking the time out of their day to sit down and sign autographs for their fans!
Today’s shot is a bit different than my last couple weeks worth of posts, because it is not an HDR and it is not a busy New York scene (though it kinda still is); it’s me! This is a shot that my wife too on our last day in the city when we were on the Brooklyn Bridge. She has a nice eye for taking pictures and I keep trying to get her to come out shooting with me, but she won’t! One of these days I’ll get her out! Anyways, every once and a while she will ask for my S95 and say “Let me get a picture of you.” On this occasion I thought sure, why not, struck my best action pose, and this is what she got!
Now, just because she takes good pictures doesn’t mean she edits them. I wanted to do something a bit different with this one and not just a tonemapped single exposure HDR. So, I plopped it in Photoshop and the first thing I did was recover some of the blown out sky. And this point in the day it was a bit overcast, so the sky was a little “Eh”. Then I thought, “Why don’t I just do the whole thing in B&W?” So I did! Ran it through Nik’s Silver Efex, used a veryyyyyyyyyyyyy slight sepia color filter, a bit more structure and the vignette and was feeling pretty good about it! Back to CS5, blurred the background a bit as I was taking a movie before this shot and forgot to switch back to Aperture Priority and f2 (I think she just used Auto) to give a nice depth of field. Added a bit of grain for a film effect too. So there ya go! That’s me!
Look at that, you got to meet three professional hockey players and a very amateur photographer today…we’ll work on the greet another time!
In the thick of it…
Back after a couple days off of posting over the weekend! I guess for the city of Pittsburgh it was a great weekend, at least in regards to our professional sports teams. I can only take joy in one of those wins and that is obviously the Penguins. The Steelers (somehow) managed to win the AFC Championship game, even after they tried so desperately hard to lose it in the second half. Of course, when you have that pathetic of a first half as the Jets did, you don’t really deserve to win. Give Mark Sanchez some credit though. He was able to bounce back and at least semi-make a game out of it. It seems that every team I root for this postseason loses, but I’m gonna say it anyways…Let’s go Packers in the Super Bowl!
Today’s shot. Well, yesterday’s shot, but I like it so I am going to post it today. This is one of the last HDRs that I took while we were in New York on Sunday on our way back to our hotel. I was actually surprised at how busy it was for a Sunday evening there. I would have thought that most of the people (like us!) were getting ready to pack up and leave. That being said, we were getting ready to leave and we still were out and about. Don’t you love it when you think of the perfect example of something that just completely destroys the argument you just made? Anyways, I wanted to get this shot of the West Side Story billboard as that is the musical we went to see and it was the first one I had ever been to, which is reasonably exciting. It was a great shot and next time we are in New York we will definitely be going back (not to West Side Story, but some kind of show).
Technical time. This particular HDR is a 5 exposure handheld one at ISO 500 and f4. I went 16mm on this to make sure that I captured the whole scene, from the signs on the buildings to the guy taking a picture in front. Put it through HDR Efex (which a “Bright Soft” HDR Method for those may ask) then over the Photoshop. Decreased overall saturation then bumped up the red in the signs a bit. Masked in pretty much the bottom ¼ of the scene with the 0 exposure compensation shot to get rid of the myriad of ghosts that had invaded this picture. Added a Tonal Contrast Filter in Color Efex and last, but certainly not least, a high pass filter for a bit of sharpening, and there ya go!
Pretty excited about tonight by the way! There is a Penguins autograph session at one of local malls that I signed up for. This is the third one that I will be going to, and it’s always cool to meet some of the guys!
I hope that you all have a great week!
Fast food at its finest
Like I said a few days ago, it’s time to head back to New York! I haven’t posted some of my better shots from our trip on the blog yet, but don’t worry, I’ll put together a little gallery of our trip. In the meantime (in between times) you can check out the whole set on flickr or the new website. (My apologies for the “Welcome to Atlanta” by Ludacris reference. Anytime I say/hear/read “In the meantime” I can’t help but bust into song).
Have I mentioned yet that I really like this new theme? I was going crazy trying to figure out how to post bigger pictures than just though little thumbnail ones you see below and on all my other posts, just browsing new themes and saw this one. Liked the way it looked and went with it, not realizing how serendipitous it would turn out to be. Ok, enough rambling, on to the shot.
This is one that I took on the Friday we were in New York. I had gotten up early (7:00, which isn’t early for me, but early for vacation) and headed out to brave the cold and NYC morning commute. We were staying in Times Square, so I was able to be in the thick of it right away. Walked around for a few hours, saw Kevin Spacey, bought a coffee at McDonald’s (which before that times I had NEVER done) just to keep warm, swung by to pick up the wife at around 9:30, then it was off to enjoy our day. We hit up the Plaza Hotel from Home Alone 2, Central Park, FAO Schwartz and Ray’s Pizza (awesomeness) before walking back along 5th Avenue, which is where I got this shot. I did not buy anything from this particular vendor, however the pretzel guy outside our hotel sure was glad to see me…I think I bought 5 pretzels from him in the 4 days we were there. They weren’t even that great, but for some reason, I just had to have them. Weird, I know.
Technical stuff about the shot. This is a 5 exposure handheld HDR, processed with HDR Efex for CS5 then applied some filters in Color Efex. It was a little difficult to manage the sky, as I was metered on the stand itself, so the sky was fairly blown out. Shooting in RAW I was able to edit the most underexposed file (-2) to help recover some of the lost highlights. I also took the 0 exposure compensation and masked in all the people. Don’t you wish that people would understand you are taking a picture and just stay still? That has always bothered me. Anyways, after masking in the moving people and the portion of the sky, I added a Tonal Contrast Filter in Color Efex as well as a Pro Contrast Filter. In CS5 I bumped up the Saturation (which I don’t normally do, but wanted to cart to pop), adjusted the shadows, applied a crop and last, but certainly not least, high pass filter, just to sharpen it up a tinnnnnnnnny bit more. And viola! Here it is!
One more day til Friday!
HDR Exposed 