nature Archives - Page 2 of 4

Skyway

I’m beginning to play with HDR. My goal is not to create images that LOOK like they are HDR, but that have a nice range of tone that is visible to the human eye. Because current camera technology is limited, the only way to do this is to combine several images into one. This can produce some very crazy results. This image looks closer to normal than it started out. Surprisingly, it takes a lot more work to get a natural looking image using HDR processes, rather than a crazy psychedelic scene. This little view is just outside my driveway here in Idaho. It is one of my first attempts at capturing and processing HDR and I hope it is a pleasing skyway view.

Concrete Moon

Yesterday I went into town to do a little architecture shooting. I did a few things and came away with a shot or two that I like, but nothing stellar. However, on my way out of the city the moon was setting in this gorgeous soft hued sky and I was dying to find a place to shoot it. Being in the residential part of the city there really wasn’t anything striking to shoot with this fantastic sky. As I was just on the outskirts of town I decided that it would be best if I just hurried along up into the mountains and grabbed a landscape from there, though I didn’t have a clue where that would be. Suddenly I came upon this giant concrete plant and I instantly knew that this was the shot for me. I had to double back a take a couple mile circuit to return to where I saw the scene, but I was able to get there in time. The biggest challenge of capturing this scene was that I had to shoot across a very busy highway, so timing was difficult. I was shooting with HDR as my end goal using 3 exposures. This meant that I had to time each shot precisely so that no cars were passing in front of me. Add to that the extended wait time between shots for long exposure noise reduction and I had quite a task to accomplish. But, I did finally manage to get it done. And here is the end result of shooting a concrete moon.

Fish Cloud Swimming in the Deep Blue Sky

This part of Idaho is dry in the summer. VERY dry. Like, we haven’t had rain for 65 days kind of dry. So I was a little surprised to see this odd fish cloud lounging above town a few weeks ago. That was the only one. Not a single other cloud could be seen. It struck me as strange, unique and interesting all at once. I wanted to capture the ‘above town’ part of it, but that part of town just wasn’t deserving of being in a photograph. It wasn’t until I started to work on the image that the shape of a fish stuck it’s head out at me. What do you think: fishy or not?

Senj Sky

On the day I was visiting friends in Senj, there were two storms that started to pound on us at almost the same time. This is just a little shot I got when Irma stopped on the side of the road for Jonny and I take a few snaps. It was pretty dark, very windy and I had no tripod. I did my best. I hope you enjoy the Senj Sky as much as I enjoyed seeing it in person along the Adriatic coast of Croatia.

Two Stones Flow

I’ve taken a new approach to photography recently: I always take my camera with me. For a while I was quite burned out on using camera’s for much of anything but I’m starting to get the joy back. And with better and better image processing options I have the ability to make shots I’m proud of without spending all day in Photoshop. This image didn’t even see Photoshop once. I only used Lightroom 2 and Topaz Adjust 5.

This is my very first image processed using a fantastic little plugin called Topaz Adjust. I’m just on the 30 free trial right now, but I’m LOVING it so far.

This is along the Payette River between Banks and Crouch, Idaho. It’s a tough place to shoot because the road is on the north side of the river and the hill opposite is VERY steep and facing north, so it almost never gets good light on it. Plus, it has a strongly lit sky behind. But that all makes for a good photography challenge. These two stones seemed to go nicely with each other even though I’m clearly breaking some rules of composition. I don’t care. Sometimes you just have to shoot be it good or bad.

South Mineral Creek Sunrise

While on my latest vacation with my family, I decided to stop being so lazy and actually take some pictures in the morning when the light was optimal. The next thing I did was shoot straight into the sun. Ugh. Well, I think I like this image anyhow. It was just too beautiful to pass up at least attempting to capture the scene. I did take the necessary bracketed exposures for and HDR process, but haven’t gotten to that part quite yet.

The morning was cool and clear until the sun came up. Then all of these awesome puffs of clouds started to rise up out of the valleys and skitter across the sky in assorted patterns. It was actually a great time to be making images of the surrounding cliffs and peaks and I made the most of it while I could. Now I have to do the actual work part of the shots – post processing. Well, that is a story for another time. Back to the setting.

With the high mountains surrounding, jutting up to 13,000 ft, and the dark foliage of the trees I really had my challenges. I was also down in a deep canyon shooting waterfalls and rocks and sunbeams, and those images truly do need HDR processing to look nice.

Just imagine being there in the still morning air, bundled up in cozy gear against the chilly 38 degrees and the dew on the grass. It’s really a picture of peacefulness.

Senj Lightning

These images were captured quite unexpectedly and came in the middle of two unlikely and unexpected weather events that just happened to slam into each other: a lightning storm and a thing called the “Bura” (more on that later).

While visiting with some friends in the city of Senj, Croatia we went up into the mountains for a breathtaking look down on the Adriatic Sea. While we were up there, our friend kept watching the weather and encouraging us to make our way back to the cars and go down the mountain. I was pretty much ignoring him because it was just one of those misty, foggy, mushy types of clouds that were very slowly creeping their way toward us. When we finally did wrap up our little hike and head down the mountain all still seemed just fine. We got back to the town of Senj and they were showing me a castle when all of a sudden, like a fan was switched on, wind just started hammering us. Bura. The car (Prius) was being rocked back and forth like a toy. Well, silly me wanted to get out to take pictures of the castle. Smart Jonny had Irma (driving) point the car into the wind so that it wouldn’t rip the door off. Well, good thing he did. After the car was positioned I made my move. Or, tried to. I pushed and strained with all of my might, arms and legs at the end of their power, but I couldn’t get the door open enough against the wind to get out. Even if I had managed to make a gap wide enough, I would not have been able to push with arms and legs and also magically get out at the same time.

I did manage to get a picture, though it isn’t very striking. Cancel the castle and head home.

When we arrived at the house, the wind had lessened to a manageable intensity to at least get out of the car, but at the same time unexpected event number two was knocking at the door.

For those not familiar with the geography of where I am describing, it is sunny and semi-arid. There isn’t much greenery around at all and it is VERY rocky. Everything is stone, though that doesn’t have much impact on the weather. It just doesn’t rain much along the eastern side of the Adriatic during the summer. First the wind surprised us, and then the rain. And they didn’t come from the same directions. Quite a fancy trick.

When the rain began it was beautiful to see the sun glowing through the storm and the rain falling into the white capped vivid blue sea. A rare treat for this American boy! Then the lightning started with a BOOM to alert us. Jonny decided to get out his camera and tripod to do a little lightning shooting. Their home is up on the hillside facing the sea with the city and harbor below and to the left. He already has an AMAZING image of fireworks at the harbor and lightning striking the lighthouse. Too bad he isn’t interested in showing it to the world or I would link to it. Back to the story.

Jonny is all set up and, knowing I am a photographer, is trying to get me to take out my gear and shoot. I had no tripod. Problem. I have no intervalometer. Another problem. I have no experience shooting lightning. Further problem, but with a solution. My gracious host not only encouraged me to try it but taught me how. I did experience a lot of non-ideal challenges while shooting. I had to set my camera on the (covered) balcony railing since I had no tripod, in the rain. I had to manually trigger each 10 sec exposure. The worst issue, as you’ll see in the images below, is that because of the lack of tripod, I had to set up where there was a giant power pole right in the middle of my frame. UGH! Even more frustrating was that the lightning shots I did get were always directly behind the pole. I was hoping to avoid that by shooting with a wide lens. And since my camera was in the rain I was also getting water spots on the lens. Out of a couple hundred exposures I got a few shots with fire in the sky, and I present my favorite to you below. Please note that there are two versions of the same image. One before correction and one after.

Enjoy the lightning!

Inspiration at the Headgate

As a professional photographer I think it is very important to keep moving forward, growing your skill, your craft and your passion. But, when those things are connected to a paycheck, somehow the fire seems to dim. Well today I got a little fuel added to my fire by Trey Ratcliff (see StuckInCustoms.com for his work). He has a series of tutorial videos for anybody interested in getting into photography, and the first one is free to watch so I watched it while I was eating lunch. As I was listening to him teach the very basics (and smugly thinking “I know that already”) it occurred to me that I wasn’t actually doing the entire process of photography, but am generally just pushing the button on the camera and if it isn’t Polaroid success then I just move on. Well, that seems to be the wrong approach, eh? You might say it is severely lacking inspiration.

So I decided to go outside in my own yard and poke around. I did my very own, solo photo walk. There are a bunch of side-by-side comparisons of the raw file before I did any processing, and then there is the way I have decided to finalize the images, at least for now. It is not unusual for me to revisit images a few months later for a fresh perspective.

The images following are the result of inspiration to do a particular thing, and that is take advantage of the depth of the raw file as much as possible, just using Lightroom. Because of that I ended up exploring the same subject from multiple points of view, and with a lens change as well. I was shooting with my Tamron 10-24 f3.5-4.5 at first, and later on switched to my Canon 28-135 f3.5-5.6.

In this instance I was using Trey as inspiration, but also trying to learn a little bit about how he thinks so that I can apply some of his techniques in my own process. I have to admit here that I have been too down on myself because of my aged equipment, which is no excuse. (For those interested, I’m shooting a Canon 30d and post with Lightroom 2 and Photoshop CS3.) So take the images for what you will, and please ask any questions in the comments.

Pink Chandelier Flowers

The Oregon coast is very rainy. While there this past week I was hoping to see some whales, or maybe even see the ocean. Nope. It was just very foggy and drizzling. But it made some very pretty water drops on lots of things. These flowers were just about perfect for shooting in the rain.

Teasel

If you don’t know what a Teasel is don’t worry, neither did I. It is the odd plant in this picture. If memory serves the prickly cone part is about 2-3 inches tall, so this is a fairly large plant. There were so many of them out there that I didn’t even pay much attention to them, but upon closer inspection I noticed just how beautiful they are. The ones shown here must be from last year as they are completely dried. It doesn’t take a keen eye to see this plant is very ‘pokey’, but at the same time is quite elegant with it’s long fingers wrapping gracefully up and around, embracing such an abrasive heart. Maybe that is how we humans are; we are mean-hearted and unkind but we cherish our sinful behavior by giving way to it and helping it to grow. But out of ugliness can come beauty as we see in this plant, and in what God can do in our lives if we only let Jesus in and let Him work.
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