(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.

(Olympus E-3, 7-14mm at 7mm (2x crop factor), ISO 100, Exposure 1/250 sec @f/8.0)

The image above shows Two Lads Winery located on Old Mission Peninsula near Traverse City, Michigan. The tall glass area is the tasting room which has a wonderful view of the east arm of Grand Traverse Bay. The grounds around the building were rather plain and gave the image more of a snapshot look. Ideally I would have liked to take this shot just after sunset, but when you are on vacation you shoot what you can when you can.

For processing I did a couple of different things. First, I cropped the image to eliminate much of the grassy area below the building. I was using a very wide angle lens and I wanted to keep the camera level. As a result, I got more ground in the picture that I really wanted, but I figured I would crop it out later. I also made a minor curves correction to improve contrast. I then decided to try a technique that I like to use for certain shots which involves using the Topaz Simplify plugin. Basically I make whatever other corrections I want to make to the image and then I create a new layer and edit that layer with the plugin. I like to use the BuzSim preset which does a nice job on grass, stone and other similar surfaces. I then use a layer mask to apply the effect only to parts of the image, leaving the building alone. Sometimes I’ll reduce the opacity of the Simplify layer as well to get a blending of original and processed. You can see the difference the filter made by looking at out of camera version of the image below:

If you are ever in the Traverse City area and you enjoy good wine, I highly recommend you check out Two Lads (and other fine wineries in the area). Michigan wines have come a long way from many years ago and many win top medals and wine competitions. The Traverse City area in particular produces some high quality red and white wines. Check ‘em out.

Comments?

Copyright © 2009-2010 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.

Ponce Cathedral

(Nikon D700, 16-35mm at 17mm, ISO 200, Exposure 1/1000 sec @f/8.0)

My family and I just returned from a short vacation in Puerto Rico. We stayed in the San Juan area, but we took a trip to the south side of the island where we visited the city of Ponce. Ponce was an interesting experience because non of my family speaks Spanish (we can read some) and there was very little English spoken in Ponce. We didn’t have a good map of Ponce and the city has very tight streets. We spent some time in the town square where I took this picture of the Ponce Cathedral. The church itself is on the National Register of Historic Places as “Cathedral Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe of Ponce”.

Processing consisted of conversion to black & white with some perspective correction. The sky was quite blue so I darkened it during the conversion. The building was a light grey color although in this shot it looks more white. I might try some curves work to bring down the brightness of the building a bit to see what it looks like.

Comments welcome!

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.