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.

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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.

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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.

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We then went over to The Elissa and walked around the ship.

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HDR Landscapes – Hwy 36

The TMCA Spring Workshop was in Abilene.  So, we took Hwy 36 up through Hamilton.  Along the way, we stopped a couple places and got some nice images.

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I am getting a little more comfortable with doing these HDR images, but I would really like a better understanding of the various adjustments in Photomatix. These had very mild HDR effects applied to them.

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HDR Images

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High Dynamic Range photography is a process that combines elements from several images and produces a single picture that has increased detail in both the shadows and highlights.  I was impressed by a picture that someone else took, and asked him about it.  He told me how he did it, and I have been investigating the process.

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In some cases, the resulting picture is not too different from a regular one, it just has more detail.  The picture above was generated from a picture I took of Galveston Bay a couple weeks ago. It looks pretty much like a normal picture, only a little more detail and more vibrant.

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By modifying some of the parameters of the photograph, the resulting image has a somewhat more abstract or artistic characteristic. This picture has some characteristics that make it look more like a painting.

Vision

I just came back upon Don Giannatti’s “Project 52” web site.  I had seen the site several months ago, but it slipped from my memory.  I have been a member of the flickr group for a long time, but, I can’t remember the last time I actually visited the group page.  On this site, there is a weekly photography assignment. The assignments for this year start on February 1.  So, I looked at the 2012 assignments.

The first assignment is to create a Vision Statement.  This is basically a statement describing why it is that I take pictures.  As described on the web site, “Tell us with a single paragraph what you want to be able to do with your images. Tell us what you do without telling us you are a photographer. Accompany that message with a single image taken around your home.”

To me, the reason I enjoy photography is it differs from other modes of expression, and there is something that is transcendently stimulating when I see a really great image I have taken. In 2012, my Aperture Library has over 7700 images.  Every once in a while, as the image would come up on the screen, there was a moment of awe.  Kind of, “Oh boy.  That is good!”

It is becoming easier to take technically perfect images – those with proper exposure, composition, lighting, whatever.  I can look at those and think, “That’s a good image.”  But there is the added, intangible element that is included in an image that is really great.  I take photographs because I enjoy that feeling of producing a picture that is really great.

Now, what kind of image around the house can I make that illustrates that?

Galveston Pleasure Pier

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We went to Galveston for New Years.  The weather was pretty bad – cold and wet for most of the time.  Monday night, we decided to go the The Pleasure Pier for dinner.  I took my camera, and got a couple of pretty good night images of the pier.

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Both of these images were taken in the early evening.  I actually ended up underexposing with exposure compensation because the camera meter wanted to make the pictures brighter than it really was.

Iowa Snow

SONY DSCWe went to Des Moines for Christmas.  They got about a foot of snow a few days before we got there, and I really thought it would less evident.  I didn’t think it would be gone, but the snow still adhered to trees and things more than I expected. That allowed me to get some good pics.

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OK. now full disclosure:  Both of these are after some serious photoshop manipulations.  For the first one, I created two layers.  The exposure on the bottom layer was about -2, and the exposure on the top layer was about +1.5.  I then masked the top layer and brushed out everything above the buildings.  For the second picture, I did a similar thing, only I made a gradient mask for the top layer going through about the center of the picture.

Trip to Atlantic City

I just returned from a trip to Atlantic City for a meeting.  I was supposed to fly out of Waco, but the flight was cancelled due to fog in Dallas.  So, I had to drive to Dallas to get the plane to Philadelphia.

Atlantic City does not have good air service.  So, from the Philadelphia airport I had to take a commuter train to the downtown AMTRAK station, and from there take an AMTRAK train to Atlantic City.  In the 30th St Station, there is a memorial to workers who died building the railroad.

The train took about an hour and a half to get to Atlantic City. So, I got there rather late in the evening.  I stayed in the Trump Taj Mahal.  Thursday morning, I went out for a walk. About a block away was this building.  Pigeons were roosting along the fire escape and on the roof.  At one point, one of the tenants opened a window and threw some food out.  Pigeons from all over flocked to the ground to fight over the food.

Later, I took a walk on the boardwalk.  Looking up from the boardwalk at the Taj Mahal, I took this picture.