The image above shows the new C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital on the medical campus of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. I was in the area to visit the “Grand Reopening” of my old dorm so I was prepared to take some architectural shots with my wide angle lens. As I walked by the hospital I looked up and thought this would make for an interesting shot. I lucked out with the clouds. I’ve shot this building several times but it always seems I want to shoot it when the sky is clear. A clear sky can be dramatic, especially when converted to black and white, but sometimes it’s nice to have some texture in the sky.

We had some nice weather last week and all around I saw trees flowering and leafing out. I decided to take a quick drive around the campus of the University of Michigan to see where there might be a good combination of architecture and flowering landscape. The shot above shows the Intramural Building with a nice line of flowering trees. Not sure what kind of trees they are, but they looked nice.

After posting yesterday’s image, I took another look at the raw shot and thought that there were some things that I could do with the original orientation that would also make for a more interesting shot. The horizontal shot I posted yesterday is more focused on the person, whereas the taller shot I think does a better job of showing the person in the context of the surrounding architecture. I used Silver Efex Pro2 to convert to black and white and to add a vignette and sepia tone. I think the vignette helps draw the eye to the person, while still being able to see a larger context.

ometimes a crop can make all the difference in an image. The image you see above was taken in the new wing of the University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA). I was trying to capture the classic ‘musuem’ shot which shows someone contemplating some piece of art. As I walked through the gallery, I noticed this gentleman standing and looking at something and I liked the way he was framed by the walls of the museum. For some reason I decided to shoot this vertically. I think I was captivated by all the angles and lines which were captured by the wide angle lens. However, the vertical nature of the shot was more about architecture than the person. As I looked at the image, I wondered what it might look like if I had shot it horizontal, so I tried a relatively severe crop to convert from vertical to horizontal. I liked what I saw so I did a fairly simple conversion to black and white and the result is what you see above.

his picture was taken during a recent walk around Ann Arbor, Michigan. We were having a period of heavy snow and I wanted to go out and see what kind of pictures I could get. This shot shows the gate of a local fraternity building known as the Shant. I shot this with my 50mm with the intention of getting a closeup with some hopefully nice blurring in the background. I deliberately selected a portion of the gate that I thought captured some interesting shapes.

This past weekend we had a brief but intense snowstorm. I thought it might be fun to go shoot in the snow so I packed up my camera and drove into Ann Arbor. I ended up parking the car right in front of this store. Actually the Red Shoes store is really out of frame and what you are seeing in the background is Lexi’s Toy Box, a local toy store. I’ve always liked the exteriors of these two stores and I liked the way they looked in the snow so I grabbed a quick shot before walking around town to get some more pictures.

I’ve been posting a lot of grungy, dark images the past few days and I decided it was time to do something a little more colorful. I took this shot in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 2009 and its been sitting in my ‘blog possibilities’ collection for a while so I decided to trot it out. The image shows the Acme Mercantile store on Liberty Street. The store has all sorts of interesting items for sale. I took this shot on a walk I took around town focusing primarily on using my ultra-wide angle lens (7-14 Digital Zuiko 2x crop factor). The image was produced as an HDR from 5 exposures, with some additional processing.

We had another nice late fall day here in Michigan, so I spent some of it wandering around Ann Arbor and on the campus of the University of Michigan. I was primarily using a 70-200 f2.8 lens that I had rented to play around with. The area I took this picture in is known as ‘The Diag’ since it is a large square area where several diagonal paths intersect. The shot was taken mid-afternoon, and with the recent switch to Standard time, the sun was coming in at low angle. With all the trees in the area, the sun made interested areas of light and shade. I had been primarily shooting campus architecture, but I saw these two people sitting next to the tree in the sunlight and I knew I had to take a shot.

One of the amazing things about the 16mm fisheye on my D700 is just how wide an image you can get. The D700 viewfinder does not show a 100% view and I was surprised when I was looking at my fisheye shots at just how much more information I had on the edges that what I saw in the frame. In the shot above, however, this wasn’t the case. The main subject of this shot is a mural painted on the wall of a building in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The mural was originally done in 1984 and the original artist was just in town to touch it up. Originally there was a bookstore located in the space above the mural, but has since moved to a different location. The mural depicts Woody Allen, Edgar Allen Poe, Herman Hesse, Franz Kafka, and Anaïs Nin.

The picture above shows Newberry Hall on the campus of the University of Michigan. The Richardsonian Romanesque building was originally built as a home for the Students Christian Association. It is one of the oldest buildings on the U of M campus, with construction beginning in 1888 and completion in 1891. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Currently the building houses the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology which recently added an addition on the back.