Nothing Fancy
by James Howe on Dec.09, 2010, under Michigan
(Olympus E-3, 70-300mm at 169mm (2x crop factor), ISO 100, Exposure 1/800 sec @ f/5.0)
I’ve been looking at this image from time to time in my Lightroom catalog for some time. The picture was taken in 2008 and I’ve tinkered with it on and off since then. There isn’t really anything that interesting in the shot, but I like the simplicity and the repetition created by the poles.
Processing consisted mainly of converting the image to black and white, removing a wire which crossed the image at the top and a bit of cruft on the left side. Nothing fancy.
Copyright © 2008-2010 James W. Howe – All rights reserved.
Saginaw Castle Museum – Old Post Office
by James Howe on Dec.07, 2010, under Michigan
(Nikon D700, 16-35mm at 18mm, ISO 200, Exposure 1/1000 sec @ f/8.0)
Here’s another shot to show you that not everything in Saginaw is in a decaying state. This building is known as ‘The Castle’ and currently houses the Saginaw Castle Museum, a museum dedicated to the history of Saginaw County. The building was built originally as a U.S. Post Office. According to some information I found on the web, the post office was built in 1897 as part of a government program to make government buildings reflect the history of the town where they were built. In this case, the post office was created to look like a French chateau to reflect the fact that the city of Saginaw was established by French Voyageurs. Apparently this government program was too expensive (gee, you think) and was scrapped after the first building was completed. This building sits right behind the Hoyt Library.
I’m not entirely happy with the way the image came out. I decided to post it mostly because I think its a cool building and it shows that Saginaw still have some interesting architecture. As you can probably tell, the sun was behind and off to the right of the building, which cast the front in shadow. I took 9 exposures handheld to produce an HDR, but I didn’t like the end result. Part of the problem was that I didn’t have my tripod handy and the sharpness was off due to some minor camera movement. Instead of using the 9 exposures, I decided to try to process just a single image. In Lighroom I created three virtual copies and made one 2 stops darker and one 2 stops lighter. I then ran it through Photomatix Pro. Still didn’t really like the result, but I persevered. I used Silver Efex Pro to add some structure to the sky and used the Antique Paper setting in Photo Tools to give the sky an interesting treatment. Still didn’t really like it so I went back into Silver Efex Pro and did a simple Holga-esque look with a sepia tone. Used a Curves layer to darken some brightness in the front and ended up with the image you see above. As you can see in the original image below, the front was rather shaded.
Comments?
Copyright © 2010 James W. Howe – All rights reserved.
Hoyt Library – Saginaw, Michigan
by James Howe on Dec.06, 2010, under Michigan
(Nikon D700, 16-35mm at 17mm, ISO 200, Exposure 1/500th @ f/8.0)
I’ve shown several images from Saginaw which show things in various states of decay. However, not everything in Saginaw is falling apart. Saginaw was, and still is, home to many buildings of architectural significance. One of those is the Hoyt Public Library building. In 1882, Jesse Hoyt of New York bequeathed $100,000 to East Saginaw for the construction of a library. While an early design was done by Henry Hobson Richardson (he of ‘Richardsonian Romanesqe architecture fame) the final design was altered and executed by Van Brunt & Howe (no relation that I know of). The library was built in 1887. An expansion (seen on the right) was done in 1960 and was designed by the father of my best friend. The building is a great example of Romanesqe architecture and has been well maintained.
I actually took a series of 9 exposures with the intent of creating an HDR image. I ran the shots through Photomatix and I didn’t really like what I ended up with. I might try again with some different settings, but for this image I chose one of the middle exposures and used Silver Efex Pro to create a black & white version. I used a few control points to darken the sky and lighten some portions of the building, and then I used a preset that I created which creates a toned Holga-like shot. I then backed off the opacity just a bit to let a little color come through. I also did some minor perspective correction.
Love to hear your thoughts.
[Click either image to view it in lightbox mode]
Copyright © 2010 James W. Howe – All rights reserved.
Out of Gas
by James Howe on Dec.03, 2010, under HDR
(Nikon D700, 70-300 at 70mm, ISO 800, 8 exposure HDR @ f/4.5)
I was just about done shooting for the day in Saginaw, Michigan, when I came across this old gas station. It surprised me because it sits on a fairly large lot and the station is so small that I would have figured this would have been torn down long ago. Growing up I used to come by this way almost every Sunday as my family went to church and I have no real memory of seeing it. Perhaps at the time it was just another gas station, or maybe it was some little shop of some kind that didn’t interest me. Anyway, I almost passed this up because I had packed up my photo gear and was preparing for the drive home, but I didn’t. While there wasn’t a lot of interesting stuff around the station, the station itself was sort of cool. I took several shots from different angles, and I ended up liking this one the best.
The processing of this shot followed the same basic pattern as the other shots in this series. I took 9 exposures into Photomatix to create an initial HDR file. I think took that file into Photoshop and applied some filters including Silver Efex Pro on Luminosity (to bring out detail) and PhotoTools. I also did a little perspective correction and a small crop before finishing the image.
Comments?
[Click the main image to view it in lightbox mode]
Copyright © 2010 James W. Howe – All rights reserved.
Michigan Bean Bunny – Saginaw
by James Howe on Dec.02, 2010, under HDR
(Nikon D700, 16-35mm at 22mm, ISO 200, 9 exposure HDR @ f/11)
Anyone who grew up in Saginaw or spent any time living in the area, is probably familiar with the neon bunny on top of the Michigan Bean elevator. The lighted bunny can been seen for miles due to the flat terrain and has been a Saginaw fixture since it was first illuminated in 1947. From what I’ve read, the elevator is no longer in operation and the sign went dark in 1985. Fortunately a preservationist named Thomas Mudd, with support from Altrusa International obtained funding to get the sign lit once again in 1997.
The usage of a bunny for the Michigan Bean company has an interesting history. Apparently it all started with a show by Houdini at the Jeffers-Strand Theater in Saginaw during the 1920s. Houdini asked for a volunteer for a bunny magic trick and he promised the rabbit to whomever helped him with it. It turned out that the volunteer happened to be the daughter of the founder of the Michigan Bean Company. In 1937 the Michigan Bean Company was searching for a new corporate symbol and they were reminded of Houdini’s Bunny magic show and decided a dynamic jumping jack rabbit would be the logo for their company. My memory of the sign is that the bunny had 3 different positions which were lit in sequence to given the bunny the appearance of jumping. The current version of the sign just has a bunny in a static position. Either way it’s nice to see that the bunny sign has been preserved and still lights the night sky. More information on the history of the bunny and it’s restoration can be found here
The image was created from 9 exposures processed in Photomatix and I think it’s my favorite of the weekend shots. I completed processing with Silver Efex Pro and PhotoTools. I used Silver Efex Pro to bring out some additional texture by adding structure and using the Luminosity blend mode. In PhotoTools I used the Daily Multi Vitamin along with an antique texture. This was actually the first of my Saginaw images that I processed like this and I was pleasantly surprised with the effect that the antique texture had on the sky, it gave it some nice additional texture and a great glow.
Comments?
Copyright © 2010 James W. Howe – All rights reserved.