Images and Notes » Abstract

Guggenheim Museum – NYC

James Howe — Wed, 09 May 2012 11:23:05 +0000

(Nikon D800, 28-300mm at 28mm, Exposure 1/250th sec @ f/11, ISO 200)

On a recent trip to New York City I had the opportunity to spend a little time outside the Guggenheim Museum. It was late in the day and I didn’t have the time to actually go inside so I decided to get some exterior shots. I’ve always been fond of the design of this museum and I wanted to capture some of its details. For me the two things that stand out about this museum is the unique inverted ziggurat he used as the main display area, and the typography used on the exterior lettering. The plain white concrete shapes with the simple black lettering really appeal to me. I was trying to capture something a bit more abstract than just a regular architectural shot so I played with different angles. I liked the angle on this shot, but the image was rather flat coming out of the camera. I used a few different tools in Lightroom 4 to help bring out the texture of the surface and to increase the contrast. Probably the change that had the most effect was bumping the clarity up to 100 while reducing the highlights and blacks. I debated about just making a black and white image, but I wasn’t sure what to do with the bit of blue sky. I didn’t want it dark, and I didn’t want it light so in the end I decided just to keep the bit of blue.

Please feel free to leave any comments or questions you may have about this image below.

Sign Design

James Howe — Sat, 11 Jun 2011 22:26:23 +0000

(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?

Emerald Forest

James Howe — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 13:00:07 +0000

(Nikon D700, 70-300mm at 185mm, ISO 400, Exposure 1/125 sec @ f/16)

I’m still experimenting with applying textures to images and trying to figure out what works with regards to base image, blend modes, texture images, etc. Last night while watching some TV, I played around with a few images on my laptop to see if I could come up with some images that I liked. This particular image resulted from a ‘I wonder what would happen if…’ sort of moment. I took this shot a few weeks ago during a foggy/snowy day. I’ve always been attracted to the graphical look of bare trees against a monochromatic background. The fog/snow created a perfect opportunity.

My original thought was to process this in a high key black and white, and I did do a version with that processing. The image above was a refinement of that image. I chose the ‘Ming’ texture from my Flypaper collection and added it to the stack. I played with the usual blend modes of Overlay, Soft Light and Hard Light. I chose Hard Light and was pleased with the green tint that it added not only to the tree but to some other elements of the shot. I still wasn’t happy with it, however, so I added a second texture called ‘Lost Void’, a grayish dirty plastery sort of texture. For this layer, however, I did something different. I decided to go with the Darker Color blend mode to bring more of the texture into the image. I backed off on the opacity until I got a nice blend of the original scene, the green layer and the top layer. The opacity ended up being around 65%. I finished things off with a curves layer with a strong S-curve to increase contrast.

Would be really interested in hearing your feedback. Thanks!

Pool Abstract #1

James Howe — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 17:45:41 +0000

(Nikon D700, 28-300mm at 150mm, ISO 200, Exposure 1/125 sec @ f/16)

I’ve always been attracted to images with a strong graphical quality, whether they are color or black and white. When I was wandering around our cruise ship I had my eye out for subjects which might make interesting subjects. This image was taken from a bridge which overlooked the pools on the Freedom of the Seas. The pools have a variety of colored elements which make for interesting visuals. For this shot I simply pointed down at a portion of the pool and attempted to capture an interesting pattern of shape and color.

Processing of the image involved bringing out the color that I experienced when I took the shot. The day was bright so some of the color was washed out in the raw file. Adding some black in Lightroom brought back most of the color. I played with a couple of different processing options. In one attempt I used Topaz Adjust to bring out additional contrast in the shot. This had the effect of highlighting the grain on the handrail as well as the grain on the deck. It also brought out more detail in the water. However, I decided that I didn’t like all the detail. I wanted something that had larger shapes and fewer color variations. I then processed the image with the Buz Sim preset in Topaz Simplify. This had the effect of brightening the colors a bit more and making the image somewhat more abstract.

What do you think? Please feel free to leave your comments below.

Click either image to see it in lightbox mode

Discarded #2

James Howe — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 12:14:00 +0000

(Olympus E-3, 14-54mm at 50mm (2x crop factor), ISO 100, exposure 1/40 sec @ f/8.0)

This is another shot taken of the ‘bone yard’ at Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan. This is a picture of a part of an old boiler (I think) which sits outside of one of the museum exhibits. This area is ‘littered’ with old boiler parts, coal and other items from an old machine shop. I was visiting the village for their annual Motor Muster event. The day was quite sunny and I liked the strong shadows created by the sun shining on the old boiler parts. Processing consisted mainly of increasing the contrast to make sure I captured the feeling of the scene.

Comments and feedback welcome.

All of my images are available for purchase. Check out my galleries at jameshowephotography.imagekind.com for additional images.

Le Klint – 172

James Howe — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 00:14:00 +0000

(Olympus E-500, 14-54mm at 54mm (2x crop factor), ISO 100, exposure 1/180 sec @ f/4.5)

Here’s an image that is a bit different than what I’ve been working with recently. This is actually an older image that I took at a friend’s house a couple of years ago. The image shows a Le Klint 172 pendant lamp, tinted to give it a little color. I took the shot by first turning the light on. I focused in on various parts of the lamp until I got a composition that I liked. For this image, I took the raw image, added some contrast and then played with the hue/saturation slider until I got a result that I liked. I have a couple other versions of this lamp, including a black and white image that I really like. I recently found a group on Flickr which is devoted to Le Klint. Check it out here.

The out of camera image can be seen below.

Comments and feedback welcome.

Lines in the Sand

James Howe — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 12:34:00 +0000

(Olympus E-3, 70-300mm at 300mm (2x crop factor), ISO 100, exposure 1/250sec @ f/13)

This shot was taken in North Myrtle Beach, SC where I had spent some vacation time last year. The beach there is quite wide and firm at low tide and people like to ride bicycles on the sand, particularly recumbent tricycles. People really seemed to like to ride these things in circles, making interesting patterns in the sand. I was heading out of our hotel room to look for pictures to take and I noticed these two cyclists on the beach making some interesting patterns in the sand. Just as I was framing the shot, they decided it was time to move on. I had wanted to capture both cyclists as they were riding, but I was only able to capture one, just as he was leaving the edge of my composition. While I wish I had a shot of both of them, I am actually quite pleased with getting the one cyclist.

I didn’t really do much post processing work on this image. The raw image, shown here, was pretty flat and didn’t really convey the feeling that I experienced when I saw the shot. The sun was out and it highlighted the tracks in the sand. The raw image doesn’t really show that. Most of my processing was intended to bring out the pattern created in the sand by the tricycles. I did a post on my photo processing blog here which gives more details on the processing. Here’s a quick look at the image as it came out of the camera:

Comments and feedback welcome.

This image can be purchased.