I’ve been doing black and white conversions in Photoshop for some time now, but I’ve always been interested in the results I’ve seen from Nik’s Silver Efex Pro plugin. Well, I finally took the plunge and purchased it. As a quick test of the software I decided to try it out on an image I had been playing around with.

The picture shows the Greyhound bus depot in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The depot itself was built around 1940 in the Streamline Moderne style. I’ve always enjoyed the look of this building, although its a shame that it hasn’t been kept in better shape. I took this picture on an early morning walk I made around town a couple of months ago.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I was walking through Nickels Arcade recently and noticed this storefront. I just thought this was an interesting collection of ‘stuff’. Image processing mostly consisted of added a bit more contrast to bring out the features of the toys.

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.

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 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).