After the Texas Ranger Hall, I went down to the Freedom Fountain.
Waco’s Freedom Fountain
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Category Archives: HDR Images
Texas Ranger Hall and Museum
One of the most popular spots in Waco is the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum. 
Icons of Waco
We had a meeting of the HOTPPG a week ago, and Doug Box took us outside to do some shooting. While doing that, I became interested in the refurbished Waco Hippodrome sign. I went back there on Thursday to see what kinds of angles might exits, and I found one that I could get both the sign and the ALICO building together.
McLennan County Courthouse
On Thursday I got a couple shots of the county courthouse.
Return to Dynamic Imagery
It has been a while since I did HDR imagery. I made a book of the Galveston Images and used some in a calendar for next year. I have been meaning to start some of locations in Waco. So, yesterday, I decided to get started on that project. I shot around the suspension bridge, the courthouse, and the hippodrome.
For this post, I want to post the shots from the suspension bridge/Indian Springs Park area.
Pier 21
An add in local Galveston publications features a picture of Pier 21 at dusk. It struck me as an interesting picture, but an HDR treatment might add to its effect. Debbie and I went to a concert Saturday night, and after it was over, we went down to Pier 21 and tried to get some pictures. I ended up with two versions, and I can’t quite decide which one I like better.
The statue on the left adds a strong foreground element to the composition of this version, but, I wonder if it is not also a distraction compared to the second version.
Cruise 2013 – Galveston before we left
We went on a cruise a couple weeks ago. Prior to departing, you sit on the boat and wait. While waiting, I did get a couple of interesting shots. Then, when we did sail away, I was able to get a couple more really good ones.
This is another HDR shot. I shot it from the deck of the ship and did my best to get a straight shot along 25th St. The deck I was on ended a little short of where I really wanted to be, but this worked pretty well. You can see from the harbor all the way to the Pleasure Pier.
As we were sailing away, I was able to get this HDR image of The Elissa.
Galveston Historic Houses
Galveston has a huge number of large historic houses. I have wanted to get HDR images of many of them to add to my Galveston images. A few months ago, I got some of the Bishop’s Palace and a house across from it on Broadway, but didn’t have time to get more of other places. I started today with the ones that the Galveston Historic Foundation lists on their web site.
This was the Samuel May Williams house.
This was the Michael B. Menard House. Note the bird on the porch. Those looked like herons. They were walking around the front lawn. I don’t know if they were in some way domesticated, but they didn’t seem very concerned with me taking pictures.
This was Ashton Villa.
This was Moody Mansion.
Landscape Contest
I am not sure where I found out about ViewBug, but it is a site that has photo contests. You can join for free, but that limits you to 10 uploads per week. Some of the contests are free to enter. Others cost. You can also have a paid membership. With that, you can upload as many photos as you want, and you do not have to pay for any of the contests.
I was looking at their contests, and one was a free contest for landscapes. It was sponsored by a weekly photography news web site. So, I entered two of my HDR photos. The idea is that anyone on the site can view the pictures and vote on them, and after the submission deadline, judges will decide the winner.
This is kind of like American Idol. I could have gone on Facebook and told everyone to go to the site and vote for my picture, but then it is no longer about photographic quality, it is about how many people you can get to vote for you.
The deadline for the contest was June 1. I was just notified that this picture was “ranked in the top 20 most voted percentile.” I am not exactly sure what that means. There were 8900 pictures entered in the contest. If mine received enough votes to be in the top 20%, then it was one of the 1800 best. So, it is kind of hard to get all that worked up, but all in all, I still think that was pretty good.
Galveston – The Elissa
I have been doing quite a bit of HDR imagery using Galveston locations. We were down there the weekend of the 8th. I didn’t really feel in the mood on Saturday morning but then remembered we joined the Galveston Historical Society. That meant we could get into The Elissa for free. So, I decided to go down to the harbor and shoot a little and go on The Elissa and shoot.
In looking at one of the magazines, I saw a picture take roughly in the same place as this. Only, it was a night photograph, and all the winds glowed brightly. It was an effective picture, and I would like to try a similar thing at some point, but this was just take from behind Willie G’s looking back at it.
While we were in the harbor, this fishing boat came in. It made an interesting subject for an HDR image. Then I noticed that a woman on the boat was quite busy dealing with the catch and got a nice picture of her.
We then went over to The Elissa and walked around the ship.
