Utilities
by James Howe on Dec.20, 2011, under Mechanical
(Nikon D700, 28-300mm at 250mm, ISO 640, 1/500 @ f/16)
This image shows a couple of gas meters located on the side of a building next to the office where I work. I’ve always liked the way these meters look in strong light. I like the look of the yellow pipe agains the gray metal siding and I like the shadow patterns created by the sidelight. I’ve seen this image in my head for months but I never bothered to take a picture of it until just recently.
When I processed the shot, my goal was to intensify the color and contrast, since that is what motivated me to take the picture in the first place. My goal wasn’t to necessarily produce what was really there, but instead to produce what my mind saw. Raw images are by their nature a bit flat and you can see from below that the out-of-camera shot really didn’t have much color or contrast. I primarily used Topaz Simplify and some Color Efex Pro 4 to deepen the colors and bring more contrast to the image. The Topaz wiped out some of the details in the meters so I used a layer mask to bring back items such as the number dials, the name plates and the screw heads, any place where I thought that detail was more important.
Always interested in hearing what you think, please feel free to leave comments or questions below.
Copyright ©2011 James W. Howe – All rights reserved.
Blue (Michigan Theater)
by James Howe on Dec.07, 2011, under Architectural Details
(Olympus E3, 14-54mm at 54mm (2x crop factor), ISO 100, 1/320 second @ f/9.0)
This image shows some of the details of the Michigan Theater located in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The theater was constructed and furnished by the Butterfield Company and opened to the public in 1928. Like many theaters built in the same time period, the architecture is ‘exotic’ with Moorish details. It was these details, especially the tiles, that I was trying to capture in this shot. I liked the way the blue tile and white domes looked in the bright light against the blue sky.
When I processed the image I wanted to bring out both the detail in the building as well as the blue colors. The raw image has a rather flat look (as RAW images typically do). I used some Topaz Detail to bring out some of the detail and I continued with some work with Photo Tools. I used a bit of Color Efex Pro 4 to deepen the blue and give a bit of vignette to the edges.
Love to know what you think about this image, please feel free to leave comments or questions below.
Copyright ©2009-2011 James W. Howe – All rights reserved.
’32 Lincoln
by James Howe on Nov.27, 2011, under Automobiles
(Nikon D700,70-300mm at 145mm, ISO 250, Exposure 1/500 @ f/8.0)
I was going through my Lightroom catalog spending some time adding keywords and looking at images that I had ignored in the past when I came across this shot I took of a 1932 Lincoln. The car was part of the Classic Car Club of America show held at the Gilmore Car Museum. I really like the look of some of these old cars, especially the swooping lines of the fenders over the wheels. When I saw the image in the catalog, I immediately thought it would look good with a more painted look. The way the clouds were reflecting on the fender already had a sort of painted look so I enhanced it by applying some Topaz Simplify to the entire image. Just for kicks I wondered how the image might look with a bit more contrast, so I took the image into Silver Efex Pro2 and choose one of the darker presets which added just the contrast that I wanted. The black and white conversion made the tail light too dark, so I masked out the conversion, and applied a separate black and white layer which made the red color lighter, not darker.
As always, your feedback, comments and questions are appreciated.
Copyright ©2010-2011 James W. Howe – All rights reserved.
Tooling Along
by James Howe on Nov.08, 2011, under Greenfield Village
(Nikon D700, Nikon 16mm Fisheye, ISO 200, Exposure 1/8000 @ f/2.8)
With fall in the air and lacking something new to post I thought I would post this shot I took last year at Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan. Greenfield Village was created by Henry Ford, so it’s not surprising that the Model T and other old Ford automobiles should be prominently displayed. The museum offers rides in some of the older cars. This visit occurred in mid November on a wonderful Indian summer day. It was getting later in the day and the streets of the village were becoming empty. The less crowded village streets became a nice background to the old Ford automobiles that were still tooling around the village that day.
Processing the image was fairly straight-forward. I wanted to emphasize the car and add a bit of vintage feeling to the shot so I added a fairly strong vignette. I also liked the way the vignette worked with curvature of the image created by the fisheye lens. I used the Shadow/Highlight layer in Photoshop to bring back some details in the sky. The rest of the changes were done in Lightroom and involved mostly adjusting the blacks and adding a bit of fill light in spots.
Please feel free to leave comments and feedback below.
Copyright ©2011 James W. Howe – All rights reserved
Michigan Central Station – Carriage Entrance Side
by James Howe on Oct.25, 2011, under Michigan
(Nikon D700, 28-300mm at 28mm, ISO 200, Exposure 1/2000th @ f/3.5)
This image shows the Michigan Central Station in Detroit from the carriage entrance side. The shot was taken from the back side of the building, close to where the tracks came in to the building. Carriages used to drop off or pick up passengers from under the metal structure.
Processing of the image involved a bit of perspective correction, I wanted a little less lean to the building. I also adjusted the crop a bit since it seemed to me that there was too much dead space along the left side. I experimented with different black and white conversions. I had a high key one that I liked, as well as a darker sepia, but in the end I went with a relatively contrasty plain black and white. I also used Topaz Detail to bring out some of the subtle color variation in the stonework.
Thanks for looking in and please feel free to leave comments and feedback below.
Copyright ©2011 James W. Howe – All rights reserved