Images and Notes » travel

Waikiki After Sunset

James Howe — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 20:06:00 +0000

(Nikon D700, 28-300mm at 28mm, ISO 200, Exposure 4 seconds @ f/22)

This shot of the main stretch of Waikiki Beach in Hawaii started out life as a series of brackets to be used for an HDR. I had set my tripod up on a breakwater and shot back at the beach area about 20 minutes after sunset. I processed the brackets, but I didn’t like the end result. There was a bit of a breeze that night and I think it contributed to some camera shake which caused the resultant image to be less sharp that I like. I looked at the brackets and decided to see what I could do with just one of the brackets. Turns out the middle bracket had enough detail to produce an interesting image. The main goal in processing was to brighten certain areas of the image, particularly the hotels. I also wanted to make sure that the clouds had some detail. The original image had a large amount of ocean which I didn’t think contributed to the image, so I cropped it to make it more of a pano. I think that works well with the shape of the coast, the buildings and Diamondhead in the background.

Feel free to leave comments and questions below!

Oahu Coastline

James Howe — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 18:00:50 +0000

(Nikon D700, 28-300mm at 44mm, ISO 200, 1/250 sec @ f/11)

The shot above shows a portion of the north east coast of Oahu, Hawaii. My family and I recently visited Hawaii and one day while the rest of the family was off on a kayaking trip, I rented a car and took a drive around the island. It’s hard to get good landscape images when you are on vacation with others simply because schedules don’t always allow you to be in the right place at the right time to capture the best light. Instead, you just have to shoot what you are given. On my drive around the island I stopped at this small beach park. It was very windy that day and it made for some really nice surf. I took several pictures at this beach and when I was leaving I walked over to this area which was located underneath some trees. I liked the way the foreground plants and the tree framed the surf and the distant hills. Unfortunately the light was rather strong and created some haze in the distance, but I still liked the view so I took the picture.

The picture presented a complicated scene, very dark foreground, very bright background. I had my tripod with me and I could have shot this as an HDR, but with all the wind I thought there would be too much blurring due to motion and I wasn’t looking for the smooth water shot that blurring might give me. Instead, I created two versions of this image in Lightroom. One with a brighter foreground, one with the darker foreground. I opened both images in Photoshop as layers and then used layer masks to brighten areas of the scene that I wanted to be brighter. As I worked on the image I thought that it might look good done more as a painting than as a photograph. I used Topaz Simplify with the Buz Sim preset to create something more painterly. I wasn’t completely happy with that, so I decided to blend my painterly version with a normal version, creating a hybrid of the two. The end result is what you see above.

Please let me know what you think, or ask any questions you might have about the image or the processing below. Mahalo!

Bits of the USS Missouri

James Howe — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 00:55:52 +0000

(Nikon D700, 28-300mm at 48mm, ISO 400, 1/1000 sec @ f/5.6)

One of the things my family did when we visited Hawaii recently was to visit Pearl Harbor. One of the exhibits that is now located at Pearl Harbor is the USS Missouri. The image above was taken during a tour of the USS Missouri. Most of the lower decks of the ship are still off limits, but you can go through most of the upper levels. This picture shows a phone from the bridge area of the ship. I have a thing for old technology and I just liked the look of the thing.

For those who may not know the history of the Missouri, it has a couple of historical distinctions. One of the things I didn’t know about this ship was that it was the last battleship ever launched. The attack on Pearl Harbor ushered in the age of the aircraft carrier and the usefulness of the battleship was greatly diminished. The other notable fact about the Missouri is that it was the ship on which the Instrument of Surrender was signed which ended the war between the US and Japan. After some work during the Korean war the ship was decommissioned in 1955. In 1984 the ship was modernized and recommissioned to serve in the Persian Gulf. The ship was decommissioned one last time in 1992. The ship found it’s final home in Pearl Harbor in 1998.

When I decided to work on this image I wanted to punch things up a bit. I used a few different filters from Photo Tools to give it the more grungy, off color look that it has.

Please feel free to leave any comments or questions below. Thanks for stopping by!

Pali Lookout

James Howe — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 12:44:18 +0000

(Nikon D700, 28-300mm at 28mm, ISO 800, 1/1000 sec @ f/11)

This picture was taken in Hawaii on the island of Oahu at a place called the Pali Lookout. The site overlooks the 985 foot cliffs of the Koolau Mountain Range and has a special place in Hawaiian history. It was here in 1795 that King Kamehameha and his warriors defeated the Oahu armies by sending them over cliffs to claim victor and ultimately unite the Hawaiian Islands. The site does provide an incredible view off to the north on Oahu’s windward side. The lookout sits in a gap in the volcanic mountains and channels the trade winds which blow across the islands, turning the area into something akin to a wind tunnel. The wind was so strong the day I was there that I was afraid that the wind would rip the glasses off of my face and send them into the valley below.

Process started in Lightroom where I created both a light and dark version of the original image. I wanted to bring up some of the detail in the vegetation in the lower left. I opened the two images as layers in Photoshop and manually blended them using a layer mask. I then used a handful of filters in Color Efex Pro 4 to bring out some detail in the clouds and elsewhere in the image. I then used Silver Efex Pro 2 to create a black and white version, but I set the opacity to 72% to create an image which has a tinted look to it.

Certainly would love to hear your thoughts on this one, feel free to leave them below.

Punalu`u

James Howe — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 01:49:13 +0000

(Nikon D700, 28-300mm at 92mm, ISO 200, 1/500th @ f/5.6)

My family and I are taking a vacation in Hawaii and we arranged to make a day trip to the island of Hawaii (we’re staying on Oahu) so we could visit Volcano National Park and see some other sites. One of the places we visited was the black sand beach at Punalu`u`. We arrived late in the afternoon so the lighting was nice, but still very bright. The combination of black sand, volcanic rock and bright sky made for difficult exposures. Fortunately things weren’t too bad when I was able to shoot away from the sun. Punalu`u is a fantastic location and trying to shoot it made me appreciate the challenges of creating a great landscape image. Trying to come up with the right combination of exposure, proper f-stop, etc. is something I’ve never really been good at. With this shot I tried to capture the look of the area with it’s dark rock, interesting vegetation and wonderful surf.

Processing was actually pretty minimal. I added some blacks back to the raw image to improve the contrast and did a little sharpening. I also added a brightening curves layer which I selectively applied at various opacities with a brush to bring out some of the highlights.

I would certainly love to hear any constructive feedback on what you think of this image, and things I might have done to make it better. Please feel free to leave comments or questions below. Mahalo!

Got Candy?

James Howe — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 22:00:56 +0000

(Nikon D700, 28-300mm at 100mm, ISO 800, Exposure 1/2000 sec @ f/5.6)

Last Christmas, my family and I took a Caribbean cruise which included a stop on St. Martaan. The island has a new port area designed to hold the numerous cruise ships which visit the island. I believe when we visited there must have been 5 or 6 ships in port. From the port area you can take a water taxi in to the main town. When you get off of the taxi you are immediately confronted with all sorts of things to buy. I took this picture of a small shop because I really liked the look of the candy advertisements agains the bright yellow siding of the building. There is no ‘before’ picture this time because this image came straight out of the camera.

Port Oneida Farmstead

James Howe — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 12:20:46 +0000

(Nikon D700, 28-300mm at 100mm, ISO 200, Exposure 1/125 @ f/16)

Port Oneida is an historic farming area in the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. The area has an interesting collection of old farmhouses and out buildings. My wife and I were driving through the area on a less beaten path when we came across this farmstead. There was a farmhouse off to the right which was interesting, but I thought these two buildings had more character.

I had a couple of goals when processing this image. First, I wanted to tone down the patch of blue sky in the upper left corner of the image. Converting to black and white helped, as did adding a vignetted. However it still left a big bright spot in the upper corner so I used a technique that I had learned from watching some videos at The Mindful Eye, a web site run by Craig Tanner. Craig will oftentimes use selective scaling to make minor alterations to his landscape shots. I selected an area of the trees in the left corner and scaled them up a bit. I touched things up with a bit of cloning and did a minor crop of the image and the end result is that I was able to get rid of most of the sky. I also used some curves layers to selectively brighten and darken elements in the image. In the initial black and white conversion the building sort of blended in with the trees, so I used curves to brighten the building a bit. I also brightened some elements of the trees as well since they also were a bit flat from the conversion.

Mackinac Bridge

James Howe — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 12:22:10 +0000

(Nikon D700, 70-300mm at 195mm, ISO 200, Exposure 15 sec @ f/32)

The Mackinac Bridge in northern Michigan is the third longest suspension bridge in the world and is the longest suspension bridge in the western hemisphere. The suspension part of the bridge is 8921 feet and the total length of the bridge is 26, 372 feet. The bridge was built to connect Michigan’s lower and upper peninsulas. The bridge spans the Straits of Mackinac which is where Lake Michigan meets Lake Huron. The concept for a bridge at this location had been pondered since 1884, but wasn’t built until 1954. The bride opened to traffic in 1957. One of the fun events surrounding the bridge is the annual Labor Day ‘Bridge Walk’. Each Labor Day, half of the bridge is dedicated to foot traffic and you can walk the bridge starting on the north side. The middle lanes of the bridge are made out of a steel grate to let the wind pass through. As you walk across the bridge, it is interesting to look down through the grate at the water below. If you’re lucky, a freighter might be passing under the bridge at the time.

This image was taken on a recent trip to northern Michigan. My wife and I had just come from the island (Mackinac Island) and we were headed out of town. We stopped at a local park so I could get some pictures of the bridge. It was a breezy day with some nice clouds so I thought I would try to take a long exposure aided by my 10 stop ND filter. Even at f/32 and 10 stops, the best I could get was a 15 second exposure. I think it did a nice job with the clouds, but it would have been nicer to have an even longer exposure, I think. Processing included cleaning up a ton of dust spots (I think from the sensor and not the filter), creating more of a panoramic crop and some basic image adjustments in Photoshop using onOne’s PhotoTools product.

Comments or questions? Feel free to leave them below.

Mackinac Island Evening

James Howe — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 14:15:01 +0000

(Nikon D700, 28-200mm at 28mm, ISO 200, Exposure 2 minutes @ f/22)

I recently purchased a B+W 10 Stop ND filter and I’ve been looking for opportunities to try it out. My wife and I were on vacation last week and one evening I decided to try my hand at a long exposure landscape shot. I’m still learning the tricks to making long exposures work so this shot was as much of an experiment as anything. The sun was setting on the other side of the island but I had noticed that there were some clouds that were going to get some of the late sunlight. I headed to a spot which I thought might make an interesting composition and set up. I took a couple practice shots and then put on the 10 stop filter. The exposure was 2 minutes.

Post processing involved working to lighten up the tree area on the left which was rather dark in the raw image. I spent a little time with some curves layers trying to adjust the brightness/contrast of the rocky area in the foreground as well. I’m still contemplating a black and white version as well.

If you have any questions, comments or constructive feedback, please feel free to leave it below.

Serendipitous

James Howe — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 00:00:20 +0000

(Nikon D700, 28-300mm at 28mm, ISO 200, Exposure 1/1000 at f/8.0)

My wife and I are spending some time in Northern Michigan, including Mackinac Island situated between Michigan’s lower and upper peninsulas. The island has a great collection of summer ‘cottages’, most of which are really large homes. They were generally built by wealthy industrialists and needed to accommodate family and servants. A nice example of a typical Mackinac Island cottage is ‘Brigadoon’ shown above. This cottage has a wonderful view of Mackinac Island’s harbor.

I took this shot as we were walking back to our hotel room after having lunch in the main part of town. I took a few different shots and finally settled on this low angle where I took a series of shots for possible HDR processing. However, when I got back to the room and look at the shots I had taken, I knew right away that I had to go with this shot. Unbeknownst to me at the time, a monarch butterfly had flown into the frame in the upper right. It fit so nicely with the sky that it almost looks as if I placed it there in post. I assure you I did no such thing. It’s just one of those lucky things that sometimes happens to photographers.

Processing for this image included some perspective correction and some work in Lightroom and PhotoTools to bring out the color that was present in the scene. As you can see in the raw image below, the bright sun created a somewhat washed out image to start.

Comments and feedback are always welcome. Feel free to leave them below.