Abandoned Elevator – Defiance, Ohio
by James Howe on Jun.14, 2011, under HDR
(Nikon D700, 70-300mm at 85mm, ISO 200, 7 Exposures @ f/8.0)
In yesterday’s image, I showed an old railroad building in Defiance, Ohio. Just a short distance away was this abandoned grain elevator. I thought the elevator would make for a nice HDR, so I fired off 7 exposures in various locations, this one being my favorite. Even though this is an HDR image, most of the look comes from work I did with OnOne’s Photo Tools. I was trying for a grungy image which would highlight the textures of the building, so I used a variety of layers, mostly from the HDR section, to give the image some more life.
FYI, this, and other images are on display on my newly created site at 500px. Come by and check it out.
Copyright © 2011 James W. Howe – All rights reserved.
Defiance
by James Howe on Jun.13, 2011, under black and white
(Nikon D700, 70-300mm at 122mm, ISO 200, Exposure 1/500 sec @ f/8.0)
On a recent Saturday I decided to take a short day trip into northern Ohio. I wanted to drive on some back roads to see if I could find anything interesting to shoot. For this trip I decided that my destination would be Defiance, Ohio. I thought Defiance looked interesting because it is located at the intersection of three rivers. I found a couple of interesting things to shoot on the way as well as a few interesting things in Defiance itself. One of those was this old railroad building. It was hard to tell if the building was still in use, but I liked its simple character.
For processing I just wanted to enhance the basic black and white of the building itself. There were some distracting elements around it so I used some vignetting to focus the image more on the building. The conversion and border were done using Silver Efex Pro2.
Feel free to leave comments, questions or critiques below. Thanks!
Copyright © 2011 James W. Howe – All rights reserved.
Sign Design
by James Howe on Jun.11, 2011, under Abstract
(Olympus E3, 50mm f2 macro (2x crop factor), ISO 100, Exposure 1/2500 sec @f/2)
One of the things that I like to do when I go out shooting is focus in on the details of some object. In this case it was an old vintage Shell gas station sign on display at the Gilmore Car Museum. I was using my Olympus E3 with a manual 50mm Zuiko macro lens and I took several shots of the sign in an attempt to capture some interesting shapes and patterns. What I should have done (but didn’t) was close down my aperture to make sure I could get the sign in focus. At f2, this lens has a razor thin field of focus. I think this shot is mostly crisp, but I think it would have been better if I had closed things down a bit. Of course, since I was using a manual lens, stopping down would have meant making the image darker in the viewfinder making things harder to focus. Oh well, I did what I did.
Processing on the image was fairly minimal. I did use Topaz Adjust in an attempt to bring out as much detail as I could. I also added a Vibrance and Curves layer to bring back a bit of the color that was lost in the bright sunshine.
Any thoughts?
Copyright © 2011 James W. Howe – All rights reserved.
‘Warhol’esque
by James Howe on Jun.10, 2011, under Michigan
(Nikon D700, 50mm, ISO 200, Exposure 1/1000 sec @ f/4.0)
At the Gilmore Car Museum they’ve built a replica of an early 30’s vintage Shell gas station. Many of the items inside and outside of the museum came from a Shell station which was located in Hickory Corners, just a couple miles away from the museum. More information about the building itself can be found here
This image shows one of the vintage signs which they have set up outside of the museum. I liked the look of it with the cracked paint. I think my 50mm did a nice job capturing the old character of the sign. As I was looking through my images after the show, I saw this one and immediately thought of the Campbell’s Soup Can picture done by Andy Warhol. If only this image were worth as much!
No ‘as shot’ version since this is pretty much the out of camera shot other than a little sharpening and a slight adjustment to the exposure.
I welcome your comments and feedback below.
Copyright © 2011 James W. Howe – All rights reserved.
1931 Studebaker Hood Ornament
by James Howe on Jun.09, 2011, under Automotive
(Nikon D700, 28-300mm at 300mm, ISO 200, Exposure 1/500 sec @ f/8.0)
When I think of a ‘Studebaker’, I think of the funky looking cars that were made in the 50’s and 60’s not a stately automobile on par with Duesenberg, Packard, etc., so I was somewhat surprised to find that the car belonging to this hood ornament was a Studebaker. I took this shot at the Classic Car Collectors of America show at the Gilmore Car Museum. When I go to these shows, I generally find some aspect of the car that looks interesting and I might not even know who made the car. As a way of keeping a record of what shots belong to what cars, I’ll take a picture of the identification sign that is usually posted in front of the car. So with this one, I saw the hood ornament and thought it look interesting, and after I took a few shots, I took a picture of the identification sign and at that point found out that it was a Studebaker. This years show had a special emphasis on cars manufactured in Indiana. Studebakers were manufactured in South Bend.
I initially wasn’t going to do any real processing on this image, perhaps just some sharpening, but in the end I decided to go with a very simple black and white conversion. I’m actually slightly surprised at the quality of this image as it was shot with my Nikon 28-300 lens. While I like the range of this lens for ‘walking around’, I haven’t been thrilled with the quality of some of my shots with it. This one, however, came out quite well I think.
Please leave comments or questions below and thanks for looking in!
Copyright © 2011 James W. Howe – All rights reserved.