Stairwell – University of Michigan Museum of Art
by James Howe on Jan.01, 2010, under Ann Arbor, Architecture, Michigan, University of Michigan
(Olympus E-3, 7-14mm at 7mm (2x crop factor), ISO 400, exposure 1/20 sec @ f/5.0)
This image comes from the old wing of the University of Michigan Museum of Art. I was visiting the museum to see the Lens of Impressionism exhibit and managed to take several interior shots of the museum while I was waiting for other people in my party to arrive. This image shows the main staircase in the old wing of the museum. I shot this from the bottom floor looking up toward the top of the building.
This was a difficult shot to take. The light in the museum is fairly dark, like most museums. The wood of the staircase is also dark. At the same time, there is a big window as well as lights to contend with, creating a large dynamic range. The museum doesn’t allow tripods so trying some sort of HDR would be difficult (but not impossible). To avoid seriously blown highlights, most of the image is dark.
In processing, I wanted to bring out a little more detail in the staircase. The raw image was primarily monochromatic so conversion to black & white wasn’t an big deal, and I had figured this would be a black & white image when I took it. Processing mostly consisted of applying some different curves to bring out some of the staircase while limiting the blown out look from the lights and window. I converted to black & white and applied a platinum toning curve at about 50% opacity to give the image a bit of color.
Comments and feedback welcome.
Image and text Copyright © 2009-2010 James W. Howe – All rights reserved
University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) – Old Gallery
by James Howe on Dec.31, 2009, under Architecture, Michigan, University of Michigan
(Olympus E-3, 7-14mm at 7mm (2x crop factor), ISO 400, exposure … sec @ f/5.0)
After having taken several pictures of the exterior of the University of Michigan Museum of Art over time, I decided to take my camera inside to take some interior photography. At the same time, my wife and I took in an exhibition called The Lens of Impressionism. The exhibition was quite interesting. It was a collection of photographs and paintings from the mid to late 1800’s and it showed the effect that photography had on impressionist painting. The photography was amazing. The clarity of some of the images was truly stunning. Anyway, this has nothing to do with the image above!
The image you see was taken in the original part of the museum. Last year a new wing opened which gave the museum some much needed additional space. I’ve always liked this gallery area, in particular the curves and the posts. The museum doesn’t allow tripods, and it was a cloudy day outside so the gallery area wasn’t awash in an abundance of light. I had to increase the ISO to get a reasonable shutter speed and I also had to rest my camera on a railing to get a stable shot. I like the image, but it isn’t as sharp as I would like it to be. I’ll have to go back some other time and try again.
Processing of this image involved a few steps. First, some minor perspective correction was done to make sure the posts were straight. I then used a Topaz Denoise filter to reduce some of the camera noise, followed by Topaz Adjust using the Clarity preset to increase micro-contrast. I used a HSL filter to tone down the saturation just a little bit.
Overall I like the way this image came out. In fact, I’m using it as a desktop background on my external monitor. Looks pretty cool.
Comments and feedback welcome.
Image and text Copyright © 2009 James W. Howe – All rights reserved
Gate 5 – New Mott Children’s Hospital
by James Howe on Sep.23, 2009, under Architecture, Michigan, University of Michigan
(Olympus E-3, 7-14mm at 7mm (2x crop factor), ISO 100, multiple exposures @ f/8.0)
The shot above shows the new Mott Children’s Hospital which is currently under construction on the medical campus at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. This is a 4 shot HDR (was supposed to be 5) with some additional post processing (mostly cleaning up some flare spots in the sky).
The reason this was a 4 shot instead of a 5 shot HDR is because I was not allowed to take the 5th shot. As I was taking the picture, a public safety officer approached me and informed me that I was not allowed to take pictures of ‘infrastructure’. He was very polite and non-confrontational, didn’t threaten to take my camera, he just told me to stop taking pictures. He also said that if I wanted to take more pictures, I would need to get permission from the University. I’ve since contacted the Public Safety office at U of M to get a clarification on their photography policy and what does, and does not, constitute ‘infrastructure’.
Comments and feedback welcome.
Image and text Copyright © 2009 James W. Howe – All rights reserved
Follow me on Twitter: @JamesHowePhoto
1936 Cord 810 S/C Phaeton
by James Howe on Sep.14, 2009, under Automobiles, Automotive, Michigan
(Olympus E-3, 14-54mm at 23mm (2x crop factor), ISO 100, exposure 1/320 sec @ f/8.0)
This shot shows a 1936 Cord 810 S/C Phaeton which was on display at the 2009 Concours d’Elegance car show held at Meadowbrook Hall in Rochester Hills, Michigan. I’ve always been attracted to the Cord, particularly those from the mid 1930’s. I love the design elements, particularly the ‘coffin’ nose and the exposed exhaust pipes. The car just has great lines and exudes class.
I originally posted this image on Flickr shortly after the event. A couple weeks later I was surprised to receive an e-mail from the owner! His daughter had seen the picture on Flickr and had told her dad. One of the highlights for me about this car was the unique color. Most Cords that I have seen are black, brown, cream, but this one had a very interesting green metallic color, very sharp. He gave me some additional backstory on the color used for the car:
I picked up this Cord as a severely butchered rear-drive hot rod in 1959. It took me until 1967 to get it all back to original and I enjoyed driving it almost daily until 2005. By then it was a very tired dark green driver with many scratches, mis-matched paint repairs etc A close friend offered to spend the weekend painting it all one colour so it would be a bit closer to presentable. The weekend turned into three years and a month with both of us working every spare moment on it. The colour was being considered by a self appointed committee of about six. I wanted a lime green like Duesenberg engines are, they were coming up with black cherry, copper, multi colour chamelion, and then we hit upon the pearlessence type light green. A very possible but unknown original colour! Without the experimental pearlessence it would be “Ganges Green” I believe, it is the fish scales that make it “glow”.
Another interesting bit of information that I learned from the owner was that this car was the inspiration for a painting by noted automobile artist Tom Hale. The rights to the painting were purchased by Kruse and used on a poster promoting a show at the Auburn Cord Duesenberg museum in 2008, seen here:
I’ve always admired the work of Tom Hale, even though I didn’t really know much about the artist. I really like the strong graphical quality of his work.
My finished image is a combination of the raw image with a contrast adjustment combined with some ‘simplification and blurring’ over the front fender. It was a bright, sunny day and it was hard to control reflections. I first used the Topaz Simplify filter in Photoshop CS4 to de-emphasize the people in the reflection. I masked out the parts of the car that I wanted to remain sharp. I then used the blur tool to smooth out the image a bit more.
Comments and feedback welcome.
Image and text Copyright © 2009 James W. Howe – All rights reserved
This image, and others, can be purchased from my gallery at jameshowephotography.imagekind.com.
1934 DeSoto Airflow Detail
by James Howe on Aug.03, 2009, under Automobiles, Michigan
(Olympus E-3, 70-300mm at 70mm (2x crop factor), ISO 100, exposure 1/1000 sec @ f/8.0)
Every year I look forward to the Concours d’Elegance car show held at Meadowbrook Hall in Rochester Hills, Michigan. Each year this car show brings in over 200 classic cars, many of which are rarely seen in public. This year was the 30th year the event had been held at Meadowbrook. For those unfamiliar with automobile history, Meadowbrook Hall was built by Matilda Dodge Wilson and her second husband Alfred Wilson. Matilda was the widow of John Dodge, one of the founders of the Dodge Brothers Company which was later sold to Chrysler. Hence, this location is a very appropriate place to hold a car show.
This particular image shows the grillwork of a 1934 DeSoto Airflow automobile. DeSoto was a Chrysler brand from 1928 until 1961. The Airflow was a unique vehicle for the time. It used unibody construction, which was a new concept at the time. The car also was one of the first to use a streamlined design. Unfortunately the American public wasn’t ready for this new styling and coupled with some notable mechanical problems, the car was a failure.
This image has had only minor processing done to it. Contrast was increased and converted to black and white. I masked the nameplate to bring back its color. The color of the car was a gray, and the color in this image is almost exactly what the color looked like in the color version. Converting to black and white also removed a blueish cast from sunny sky.
Comments and feedback welcome.
Image and text Copyright © 2009 James W. Howe – All rights reserved
This image, and others, can be purchased from my gallery at jameshowephotography.imagekind.com.