Cabs in Midtown Manhattan
by James Howe on Oct.04, 2012, under New York
(Nikon D800, 28-300mm at 300mm, Exposure 1/500th @ f/5.6, ISO 500)
One of the most common sights to see in New York City are the ubiquitous yellow cabs, they can convert the streets of Manhattan into a river of yellow. On a recent visit to New York I had to opportunity to wander around. I had a 28-300mm lens on my camera and with the lens racked out to 300mm I snapped this shot of group of cabs in the Midtown area. I like the compression you get out of a telephoto lens as well as the shallow depth of field and I like the look of the cabs and the repetition of their roof top signage.
If you compare the finished image above to the as shot image below, you will notice that out of camera the image was rather flat. In some regards this was by design. In general I try to shoot a little brighter, without blowing the highlights, so that I capture more information in the raw image. In post-production, I’ll then tweak the exposure to add back more darkness and contrast. For this image all processing was done in Lightroom 4. I decreased the Blacks considerably (-82) as well as the Whites (-52). The other major change was a boost in Clarity (+100) and a bit of Vibrance (+49). Working with the new algorithms in Lightroom 4, combined with the high pixel count of the D800, I find that you can get some really nice results by a significant boost in clarity especially if you are going for a punchier image.
This picture, and many others from New York, are available for purchase in my New York gallery at Imagekind.com, as well as in my store at 500px.com.
If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to leave them below.
All images available for sale or license. Please contact me for more details.
Copyright ©2012 James W. Howe – All rights reserved
Warehouse – From the High Line, NYC
by James Howe on Oct.01, 2012, under New York
(Nikon D800, 28-300mm at 32mm, Exposure 1/4000th @ f/5.6, ISO 500)
For those who don’t know, the High Line in New York City is a wonderful linear park created out of an abandoned rail line. The elevated tracks that used to service the various warehouses and industries in the Meatpacking and West Chelsea neighborhoods now offer a wonderful view of New York for pedestrians. If you ever get to New York, I highly recommend spending some time visiting this park. The shot above was taken during my visit to New York this past April. I don’t have any particulars on this building, other than it was one of many warehouses in the area.
When I processed the image I knew that I wanted to create a final image which have a bit of ‘grit’ to it, to bring out the age and character of the building. The original image, show below, was way too bright. I was able to do most of the processing of this image in Lightroom 4. Much of the look comes from the increase in Contrast (+70) and Clarity (+100). I also decreased the Highlights (-81), Blacks (-90) and Whites (-48). The picture was taken with a Nikon D800 which provided plenty of pixels and dynamic range which allowed me to make these changes without sacrificing image quality.
This picture, and many others from New York, are available for purchase in my New York gallery at Imagekind.com, as well as in my store at 500px.com.
If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to leave them below.
All images available for sale or license. Please contact me for more details.
Copyright ©2012 James W. Howe – All rights reserved
1937 Delahaye M-135 Cabriolet
by James Howe on Sep.29, 2012, under Automobiles
(Nikon D700, 28-300mm at 28mm, Exposure 1/800th sec @ f/5, ISO 250)
This image is a followup to my previous blog post which showed the windshield of a 1937 Delahaye M-135 Cabriolet. A couple of people commented that they would have liked to see the whole car. I took a look through my catalog and found this shot that I took shortly after the windshield shot. I hope it gives you some idea of the interesting design of the automobile.
For processing I wanted to try to separate the car from the background. I used a technique that I’ve had success with in the past. In Photoshop, I used Topaz Simplify to create a new layer using the Buz Sim preset. This preset does a nice job of abstracting the people and the grass. I then used a mask to reduce or eliminate the effect on the car itself. I also used a curves layer to darken the background a bit as well, trying to bring the car forward. Finally I cropped the image to eliminate some of the distracting elements.
Questions and feedback are always welcome, please leave them below!
Copyright ©2012 James W. Howe – All rights reserved
Windshield/Windscreen
by James Howe on Sep.24, 2012, under Automotive
(Nikon D700, 28-300mm at 190mm, Exposure 1/640th sec @ f/5.6, ISO 250)
One of my favorite activities to do in the summer is to attend some of the wonderful classic car shows held in Michigan. The image above comes from the 2012 Concours d’Elegance of America held at St. John’s, near Northville, Michigan. This Concours is one of the best in the country and they always have a great collection of classic automobiles. It’s always nice to see cars from other countries or manufacturers that you don’t encounter every day. It’s also nice to see how designs have changed through the years.
The Concours d’Elegance always does a nice job grouping cars by theme. They generally group by year, but they also group by other criteria. At this year’s Concours, one of the groupings was the ‘Jazz Age’. These cars exhibited some cars with the nicest lines. I’ve always been fond of cars from the ’30’s. I think car design was really taking off during that period. Included in this section where a few cars produced by Delahaye. The Delahaye automobile company started operation in 1894 and existed, in one form or another, until 1956. I’ve seen a handful of cars from the 30’s and they are some of the most interesting designs that I’ve ever seen, very curvy, very Art Deco. The shot above shows the windshield of a 1937 M-135 Cabriolet. As I was taking shots of other cars in this group I noticed the reflection on the windshield that made the glass almost opaque. I zoomed in to focus on the look of the chrome and glass and to capture the interesting detail work around the frame, in particular, note the little point in the frame which surrounds the windshield. The final processing was actually pretty simple, just some minor adjustments all done in Lightroom 4.
Questions and feedback are always welcome, please leave them below!
Copyright ©2012 James W. Howe – All rights reserved
Miller’s Pub – Chicago
by James Howe on Sep.19, 2012, under Chicago
(Nikon D800, 28-300mm at 70mm, Exposure 1/200th sec @ f/9, ISO 250)
This summer I participated in the Google+ 1 year anniversary photo walk in Chicago, Illinois. I hadn’t been to Chicago in quite a while and it was a good chance to see the city and meet some talented Chicago area photographers. At the end of the day, while walking back to my car, I spotted this shot of Miller’s Pub on Wabash St. I liked the way the sun was shining on the taller buildings in the background combined with the ground level details such as the fire escapes and the supports for the ‘L’ train. I fired off a few shots along Wabash St. and this was my favorite.
Of course, it took a little bit of work to get the final shot you see above. If you look at the raw shot below, you will notice that the image isn’t that attractive. The light on the buildings that I found attractive was all blown out, and the street area was too dark. However, I shot this with a Nikon D800 which has incredible dynamic range. It didn’t take much work in Lightroom to bring the sky back down and to bring a little more light to the darker parts. After getting the basic balance right, I worked on a bit of stylizing. I discovered with some shots that I took in New York with the D800 that you can get a really nice look in these high resolution images by bumping the clarity slider in Lightroom quite high. Lightroom 4 has a much improved algorithm for the clarity slider for any image, but it really shines when you use a high resolution file. I like the hyper-realistic look it gives to certain images. I also bumped the Luminance noise reduction slider quite a bit to smooth things a bit, which I think also contributes to the painterly look of the final image. As a final bit of editing, I decided to crop out the lower portion of the image to focus more on the Miller’s Pub sign. I like the full length version as well because it works as more of a ‘street’ photograph, but I think I prefer this version.
Questions and feedback are always welcome, please leave them below!
Copyright ©2012 James W. Howe – All rights reserved