Images and Notes » design

Lamp

James Howe — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 17:55:26 +0000

(Olympus E-3, 14-54mm at 19mm (2x crop factor), ISO 400, exposure 1/160 sec @ f/4.0

For some reason I’ve had this image sitting in a blog posting which was never published. I must have started to create a posting and then got distracted. Anyway, I finally decided to go ahead and publish this shot. The image shows a lamp which was on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The lamp was part of an exhibit on design. I took this picture a couple of years ago so I don’t know if the exhibit is still there or if it was a temporary thing. The thing I liked about the lamp was the geometry. I liked the band of alternating black and white rings of the base and the interesting light shade. Of course, the coolest thing is the pattern it creates on the wall when the light is on.

When I took the shot there was no doubt that this would be a black & white image. The lamp itself was black and white and only appears yellow in the raw shot because of the lighting and my lack of white balance adjustment. Processing involved using a Black & White adjustment layer in Photoshop along with some curves adjustments. I finished it off by creating a film grain layer and doing a minor crop to make the base touch the bottom and sides of the image.

Comments and feedback welcome.

Rings

James Howe — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 22:10:00 +0000

(Olympus E-3, 14-54mm at 37mm (2x crop factor), ISO 100, exposure 1/160 sec @ f/4)

This shot was taken in front of Hill Auditorium in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The front area of the auditorium has a large plaza area, and near the edge of the plaza there are drainage areas. These areas are covered by the decorative metal work you see here. I originally worked with the color version of this image (seen here), but after revisiting, I decided that black and white might be good as well. I liked the color version because it highlighted the rusty color, but I like the black and white version because it focuses more on the geometric pattern.

Comments and feedback welcome.

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Pierce Arrow Mascot – In Blue

James Howe — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 11:05:00 +0000

(Olympus E-3, 70-300mm at 120mm (2x crop factor), ISO 320, exposure 1/1000 sec @ f/5.6)

I love taking pictures of classic automobiles and so I took a short road trip to the Gilmore Car Museum to attend one of their outdoor classic car shows. This shot shows the hood ornament, or ‘mascot’, of a Pierce Arrow automobile. I was lucky that the car was parked next to another car with such an interesting color, since it gave me a nice background. I think the blue goes quite well with the chrome of the figure and the gold of the arrow. I used a long lens to get a very narrow field of focus, but my preference would be for more of the figure to be in sharp focus. Maybe this year…

Comments and feedback welcome.

This image can be purchased.