Through the Window – Northern Michigan Asylum
by James Howe on Aug.24, 2010, under HDR
(Nikon D700, 16-35mm at 20mm, ISO 3200, Exposure 7 exposure HDR @f/8.0)
This is an interior shot taken at the Northern Michigan Asylum in Traverse City, Michigan. The asylum consisted of several buildings, some of which are currently under renovation for commercial use. Many of the buildings are still in rough shape, including this one. I was able to get a shot of the interior by sticking my camera through a missing window pane. While taking the picture I could feel a breeze on my face as wind blew through the building. There was a very distinctive old and musty smell to the air.
The interior space was fairly dark but I thought that the interior might make an interesting HDR image. I didn’t have a tripod, but the window was small enough that I was able to use it as a make-shift tripod. I cranked up the ISO so that even my long exposures would be reasonably short. The image above was produced from 7 exposures with some additional processing though Topaz Adjust. The interesting thing was what ‘developed’ from the HDR. To my eye there are some ‘ghostly’ components to the image. There is a bright light which appears to be moving into the door in the bottom right. In the center there appears to be a shadow of person being cast on the wall. I don’t really think really are any ‘spirits’ floating around the asylum, but who knows?
By way of comparison, here is one of the images used to create the HDR version shown above.
Comments?
Copyright © 2010 James W. Howe – All rights reserved.
The Asylum
by James Howe on Aug.23, 2010, under Michigan
(Nikon D700, 16-35 at 16mm, ISO 200, Exposure 1/1000 sec @f/8)
Traverse City, Michigan used to be the home of the state mental hospital once known as the Northern Michigan Asylum for the Insane. The hospital closed in 1989 and the buildings on the campus sat dormant. Recently there has been a push to repurpose the site as a combination of retail, housing and offices. The development is known as Traverse City Commons. Portions of the site have been renovated and the result is very interesting. Much of the site remains to be developed, however. The shot above shows one of the original buildings which has yet to be renovated. It retains much of its Victorian creepiness. While the place makes me wonder what went on during its years as an insane asylum, the history of this facility seems to indicate that it was rather progressive in its approach to treatment. Still, I see this place and all I can think of is ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’.
When processing this image I wanted to convey the creepy feeling I got from the building. I converted the image to black & white and worked to create a dark and contrasty image. I used Topaz Adjust to increase the contrast and details in the brick and applied some curves layers to further adjust the contrast. I finished it off with some toning done in Lightroom. Compare the finished image with the out of camera shot:
Comments?
Copyright © 2010 James W. Howe – All rights reserved.
Red Rocker – Mackinac Island
by James Howe on Aug.20, 2010, under Michigan
(Nikon D700, 70-300mm at 300mm, ISO 500, Exposure 1/1000 sec @f/5.6)
My wife and I are taking a short vacation in northern lower Michigan. We just spent a couple of days on Mackinac Island, a place with no cars and limited internet. The island has a wonderful collection of Victorian ‘cottages’, some of which are larger that most people’s houses. I took this shot on a short walk I took one late afternoon. I noticed this red rocking chair on the porch and I liked how it looked against the primarily white and black background.
You may be wondering if this image was done with selective coloring. The answer is not really. I did reduce the saturation of some of the colors reflected in the window, but in reality the image didn’t have much color, as you can see below:
Copyright © 2010 James W. Howe – All rights reserved.
Barn Masterpiece
by James Howe on Aug.16, 2010, under Michigan
(Olympus OM-4, Ecktachrome, exposure unrecorded)
Years ago, in the late 60’s and early 70’s, an artist by the name of Doug Tyler painted several barns in Southeastern Michigan. His work included the Mona Lisa, Eisan’s ‘Standing Woman’, John Copley’s ‘Paul Revere’ and the one you see above, ‘Castiglione’ by Raphael. This barn, which unfortunately no longer exists, was located on US-23 north of Ann Arbor, Michigan. I used to see this barn, and the Paul Revere barn which was on the other side of the highway, on a regular basis as I drove US-23 between my hometown of Saginaw and Ann Arbor to attend college.
Several years ago I took my camera and took some shots of this barn. The image had been getting more and more weathered and the barn wasn’t looking too good either. I figured I better take the picture before the image and/or the barn was gone. A couple of years ago I was driving in the area and noticed that the barn had been replaced. No more ‘Castiglione’. Across the highway the ‘Paul Revere’ barn was also either gone or had been repainted.
The image above was taken with an Olympus OM-4 and shot on Kodak Ecktachome. I used a scanner to scan the slide and did some work in Photoshop and added some tonemapping in Photomatix to get the look you see above. The original image, scanned from the 35mm slide is below:
By way of comparison, the original work by Raphael can be seen here
Copyright © 2010 James W. Howe – All rights reserved.
Artist at Work
by James Howe on Aug.12, 2010, under Automotive
(Nikon D700, 70-300mm at 300mm, ISO 200, Exposure 1/500 @f/5.6)
If you look through my body of work it should come as no surprise that I like to take pictures of classic cars. Some people, however, like a more traditional way to capture an image. I took this shot of a person sketching a car at the 2010 Concours d’Elegance held at Meadowbrook Hall in Rochester Hills, Michigan. I wish I had the skills and patience to do some images by hand, I think it would be fun.
Processing on this image was primarily limited to creating a tighter crop and conversion to black & white. I also added a bit of a vignette using Lightroom.
Copyright © 2010 James W. Howe – All rights reserved.