Still as a Statue

I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to post for the travel theme statues at Where’s My Backpack? when I saw the original post on Friday.  But yesterday I was looking through some of my files when I came across some images that almost looked like statues.  So I chose one and set out to make it look more like a statue.  Here is what I created:

ISO 400 50mm 0ev f/4 1/125

This is a Cape Thick-knee who lives at the St. Louis Zoo.  I had shot this image using exposure bracketing, so I created an HDR image using Photomatix.  I ended up thinking that the Black and White artistic setting ended up looking the most like a statue.  In Photoshop then I cropped and sharpened the image.  Here is the original:

ISO 400 50mm 0ev f/4 1/125

It is a bird that blends in with it’s background, and it was sitting very still, so it would have been very easy to miss.  It has lovely colors, but what do you think of my stone version?

Cheers!

Travel Theme: Architecture

If you are ever in St. Paul Minnesota, stop by the state capitol and take the tour. Don’t forget your camera because, weather permitting, the tour goes out on the roof:

ISO 100 50mm 0ev f/8 1/125

The view of St. Paul is wonderful and you can take a photo of this gold leaf statue that is on the roof of the building.

When I was on the roof, I was pretty sure that I was going to want to do an HDR version of this image.  So, I bracketed my exposures.  So the image above is a combination of three images, set to (-1, 0, 1)  I did this because it was an overcast but bright day, so I was pretty sure that just a single image would be pretty washed out.  I’ll put the original image in at the bottom of the post so that you will see what I mean.  I used Photomatix to create the HDR, but what I really wanted was an image that looked like what you would actually see, so I stayed away from the color manipulation that is possible in photo editing.  I then sharpened the image in Photoshop and cropped it just a bit.  Here is the original image:

ISO 100 50mm 0ev f/8 1/125

In this case, I think the HDR gave the image the subtle boost I was looking for.  What do you think?

This post was written in response to the weekly travel theme challenge at Where’s my backpack?; architecture is the topic for this week.

Cheers!

Travel Theme: Ripples in Stone

One thing that I like to photograph in my travels, even if I’m not wandering far from home, is cemeteries and other religious spaces.  This particular image is HDR and I shot it at night:

ISO 320 50mm 0ev f/6.3 1/5

It was 7pm when I shot this, so the sky was not completely dark yet, but the sun was down.  It was the longer exposure time that helped bring out the blue color of the sky.  The lighting on the statue of Mary meant that I did have to be careful not to have too long of an exposure or I would risk too many blown out areas with no detail.  I put the f-stop to 6.3 because I did want to show the ripples in Mary’s robes, that is one of the reasons that I also chose to make an HDR of this scene.  HDR can be a very powerful tool to capture detail.  I used a tripod to keep my camera steady as I took three exposures.  I used Photomatix to create this image and then did some cropping and sharpening in Aperture.

Have you ever created an HDR image from photos taken at night? how did it go, what challenges did you face? Did you blog about it? if so feel free to leave a link in the comment section below  Other thoughts about night photography or HDR that you want to share? feel free to do so.

This post was written in response to the travel theme over at Where’s My backpack? this week featuring ripples.

Cheers!

Just here, trying to take a picture

I’m guessing that if you are reading this, you can relate to what I am going to say.  It’s a busy time of year.  For me recently that has meant I have fewer opportunities to take pictures and edit them.  Like everyone else, I do the best I can.  I take pictures as often as possible, which is what led to this photo.

ISO 2500 50mm 0ev f/1.8 1/200

I took this a few nights ago at a local park.  I just happened to be there for another event, and had my camera with me.  My thought was to do a bracketed exposure, but I didn’t set my camera correctly, and so I just had a single image.  In Aperture I created two other versions of this photo and changed the exposure value on them.  So then I had three photos each with a different exposure value, -1, 0, and 1.  Then I put the three into Photomatix to make an HDR image.  Of the different versions, I liked a color version best. So I exported that back into Aperture.  Then I changed my mind.  About the color that is.  I converted the image into sepia and the result is what you see above.

Cheers!

Landscape shot with a fountain

I took this last week while I was working on a landscape photography assignment:

ISO 200 f/22 1/100 28mm

I liked the view of the fountain against the detail of the statue.

Cheers!