(Nikon D700, 16-35mm at 17mm, ISO 200, Exposure 1/60 sec @f/16)

The picture above shows Newberry Hall on the campus of the University of Michigan. The Richardsonian Romanesque building was originally built as a home for the Students Christian Association. It is one of the oldest buildings on the U of M campus, with construction beginning in 1888 and completion in 1891. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Currently the building houses the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology which recently added an addition on the back.

I took this shot on a sunny, late spring morning. I wanted to go try out my new Nikkor 16-35mm lens. Processing of the image involved a couple of different things. First, I did some perspective correction to straighten out the tilt of the building. From where I was standing, I had to tilt the camera up a bit to get the entire building in the shot which resulted in some image tilt. After correcting the distortion, I cropped the image to a square. I used the ‘Spicify’ preset in Topaz Adjust to bring out the color in the blocks. The bright morning sun washed out the colors to some extent. I reduced the opacity and used a layer mask to apply the effect only to the block and not the sky or trees. The original, out of camera image, is shown below:

Some day I need to rent a tilt-shift lens and go around campus and take pictures.

As always I’m interested in any feedback you may care to offer.

Copyright © 2010 James W. Howe – All rights reserved.

(Nikon D700, 16-35mm at 29mm, ISO 200, Exposure 1/500 sec @f/8.0)

This image shows the University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) in Ann Arbor, Michigan. As you might be able to guess, the original photograph was ‘tweaked’ just a bit. My original plan was to do some perspective correction, minor cropping and curves adjustments to create a reasonable architectural image. One idea I had was to create both dark and light versions of the image and create a single image HDR just to see what it would look like. As I worked on creating the darker image I found that I liked the pattern that was being created by the tree on the main wall of the museum. I decided to see what things would look like if I really pushed the blacks. With some additional work in Lightroom, including cropping, I took the image to Photoshop where I painted over some light spots which existed in the black expanses of the building.

As a point of comparison to the finished image, the raw, out of camera version of this image is shown below.

While working with the image I played around with some additional options. One idea was to try a pure black and white. With a deep blue sky it was pretty easy to drive the sky either black or white. The white sky was interesting in how it played with the fins on the roof, but I didn’t like how the main side of the building lost its top. A black sky worked well with the roof line, but I didn’t like how it turned the tree into more of a blob. The image below is somewhat of a compromise where I turned the sky a darker grey. I think I still prefer the color version.

As always I’m interested in hearing your comments.

Copyright © 2010 James W. Howe – All rights reserved.

UMMA Interior

(Nikon D700, 14-24mm at 22mm, ISO 1600, Exposure 1/250 sec @f4.0)

This image shows one of the galleries in the new wing of the University of Michigan Museum of Art in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I really like the clean architecture of the new wing, very modernist. The new wing does a nice job of showcasing modern art.

Processing of this image was fairly simple. I used Lightroom to convert to black and white and I used a curves layer in Photoshop to add some toning. The image above shows the full crop, but I think there is also a nice square crop opportunity as well.

Other thoughts? Please leave a comment!

Copyright © 2010 James W. Howe – All rights reserved.

(Olympus E-3, 7-14mm at 10mm (2x crop factor), ISO 100, 5 exposures @ f/9.0)

This image shows Zingerman’s Deli in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The company I work for recently moved to a new office and we wanted some images from around town to adorn our walls. Since we all enjoy Zingerman’s food, we named one of our conference rooms “Zingerman’s”. A print of this picture now adorns the wall of that conference room.

The shot was taken with my Olympus E-3 with the 7-14mm wide angle lens. I processed the image using Photoshop and used the Topaz Adjust and Topaz Simplify filter to give the image a bit of a different look. I liked the effect the filters had on the stone work and reflections in the windows.

Comments and feedback welcome.

Image and text Copyright © 2009 James W. Howe – All rights reserved

This image can be purchased.

(Olympus E-3, 7-14mm at 40.0 mm (2x crop factor), ISO 100, Exposure 1/320 sec @f/5.6)

It’s been a rough couple of years for the University of Michigan football program, but one of the things which is headed in the right direction is completion of modifications to Michigan Stadium. While I still preferred the stadium when it had a lower profile, I’m getting used to the new look. This shot shows the entrance to ‘Champions Plaza’, which is the main entrance to Michigan Stadium. Each corner of the stadium has a special plaza with customized bricks which have been purchased by fans and alumni as part of a fund raising effort. These plazas were actually built before the current stadium expansion plan.

This particular shot of the stadium was taken in spring of 2008 in the evening. The sun was setting off to the west and it cast a nice glow on the lettering of the gates. I was looking through some images in Lightroom this morning and this one appeared in a collection where I wasn’t expecting it. However, I liked the look of it so here it is. Processing was actually fairly minimal. The sky was already pretty pale so I just enhanced that a bit. I tweaked the contrast a bit on the gates, desaturated the color a little and added a vignette.

Next year the stadium construction will be done. Hopefully the team reconstruction will also show significant progress as well. Go Blue!

Comments and feedback welcome.

Image and text Copyright © 2008, 2010 James W. Howe – All rights reserved

Please visit my Galleries at ImageKind for other images from Ann Arbor and elsewhere.