Images and Notes

‘Ground Detection’ – USS Missouri

James Howe — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 22:51:24 +0000

(Nikon D700, 28-300mm @ 62mm, ISO 1250, 1/30sec @ f/5.6)

Today’s image was taken on a recent trip to Hawaii. While we were there, we took a tour of Pearl Harbor. Part of the tour included a visit to the USS Missouri. The Missouri is famous for several things. It was the largest battleship ever constructed. It also is the last battleship ever constructed. It was the place where the ‘Instrument of Surrender’ was signed by the US and Japan formally ending World War II. Finally, after being mothballed for several years, the ship was reactivated, reoutfitted and used in combat in support of Desert Storm. The ship has once again been put out of service but has found a home in Pearl Harbor on Battleship Row next to the sunken USS Arizona. I’m not exactly sure what this object is, but I thought it looked cool so I took a picture.

Processing was handled mostly by Nik Software’s Silver Efex Pro 2 using one of the ‘Antique’ presets.

Comments and questions welcomed!

Help Eric – Please Paint Me

James Howe — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 13:17:08 +0000

(Nikon D700, 16-35mm @ 25mm, ISO 200, 7 exposure HDR)

I was going through some older images the other day when I ran across this one which I had taken a couple of years ago. I posted a different angle of the same building here. I decided that I liked this angle as well, especially because of the writing on the side of the building, so I thought I would work with the image to see if I could come up with something I liked. The subject is what I presume to be an old gas station in Saginaw, Michigan. I took the shot at the end of a day trip to Saginaw. Saginaw has been through rough times since the 70′s and it was actually pretty depressing to visit. I grew up near by and was disappointed to see how many buildings in the downtown area had been torn down.

This image was created from 7 exposures, blended in Photomatix and then further processed in Photoshop using primarily Photo Tools from OnOne Software and Silver Efex Pro2 from Nik. I used a variety of effects from PhotoTools, brushing them in where I thought the effect looked nice. I created a black and white version and then backed off on the opacity to bring some of the color back to the image. This version of the shot has a colder look to it than the one I posted previously. The other one is probably more ‘accurate’, given that the sun was low in the sky creating a warm tone, but I think the colder tone of this one works as well.

Comments and questions always appreciated!

Peninsula Paper Company – Ypsilanti, Mi

James Howe — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 19:03:59 +0000

(Nikon D700, 16-35mm @ 30mm, ISO 200, Exposure 1/125 @ f/11)

This shot shows the old generator building for the Peninsula Paper Company of Ypsilanti, Michigan. The company closed years ago and the factory was demolished to make way for some apartments. I shot this shot of the old hydroelectric generator building from the site of the old paper factory. It was late in the day and I tried to get to this location before the sun set. I used my Photographers Ephemeris application to check out the sun angle and I knew that it would be shining on the build and I thought the evening light might look good on the building. The one downside with this sun position and time of year is the reddish color of the building tends to make the building blend in with the trees. Later in the year the sun might not be in such a nice position, but the green of the trees would help separate the building from the background.

I went through several steps to create the final image. The image started out as a wide angle shot, but I decided I wanted to focus more on the building. I also shot this as a 7 shot HDR, but after I processed the brackets in Photomatix I wasn’t thrilled with the result. After some experimentation I decided to use just two of the exposures and ran them through Photomatix to blend them. I then took the image into Photoshop. The first thing I did was use Color Efex Pro 4 to bring out some additional details. I used a ‘recipe’ that I created which uses the Tonal Contrast, Detail Extractor and Reflect Efex filters. The net result created a somewhat glassy look to the calm water and more details everywhere.

I thought image at this point was too colorful. The sunlit portions of the image looked good, but the water had a funky blue tone which just didn’t look right. I thought I might experiment with a black and white conversion, so I used Silver Efex Pro 2 to create an image based on one of the ‘antique’ presets. I adjusted the preset to make the grain less obvious, removed the borders and made some other adjustments. It looked nice, but I decided I wanted to have a bit of color so I reduced the opacity to let some color flow through. The last thing I did was to apply a Topaz Simplify filter. This created a painterly look to the entire image. I blocked out the effect on the trees and building using a layer mask, and I reduced the effect on the water.

I could have stopped at this point but I still wasn’t happy with the color. The building had actually become a little greenish. I played with color balance but couldn’t get anything to look right. I decided to start over. I followed similar steps to create a second version, but I managed to come up with an image where the building looked better, but I didn’t like the look of the water as much. As a final step, I opened both images in Photoshop as layers and had Photoshop line them up. Since they were from the same image there wasn’t a problem getting things to line up. I then masked out the water in one image to let the water show through from the other. I also decided that I didn’t link the wide angle, so I created a square crop to focus more on the building itself.

Always interested in hearing your thoughts or questions. Feel free to leave them below. Thanks!

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!

Utilities

James Howe — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 13:06:06 +0000

(Nikon D700, 28-300mm at 250mm, ISO 640, 1/500 @ f/16)

This image shows a couple of gas meters located on the side of a building next to the office where I work. I’ve always liked the way these meters look in strong light. I like the look of the yellow pipe agains the gray metal siding and I like the shadow patterns created by the sidelight. I’ve seen this image in my head for months but I never bothered to take a picture of it until just recently.

When I processed the shot, my goal was to intensify the color and contrast, since that is what motivated me to take the picture in the first place. My goal wasn’t to necessarily produce what was really there, but instead to produce what my mind saw. Raw images are by their nature a bit flat and you can see from below that the out-of-camera shot really didn’t have much color or contrast. I primarily used Topaz Simplify and some Color Efex Pro 4 to deepen the colors and bring more contrast to the image. The Topaz wiped out some of the details in the meters so I used a layer mask to bring back items such as the number dials, the name plates and the screw heads, any place where I thought that detail was more important.

Always interested in hearing what you think, please feel free to leave comments or questions below.

Blue (Michigan Theater)

James Howe — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 12:46:30 +0000

(Olympus E3, 14-54mm at 54mm (2x crop factor), ISO 100, 1/320 second @ f/9.0)

This image shows some of the details of the Michigan Theater located in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The theater was constructed and furnished by the Butterfield Company and opened to the public in 1928. Like many theaters built in the same time period, the architecture is ‘exotic’ with Moorish details. It was these details, especially the tiles, that I was trying to capture in this shot. I liked the way the blue tile and white domes looked in the bright light against the blue sky.

When I processed the image I wanted to bring out both the detail in the building as well as the blue colors. The raw image has a rather flat look (as RAW images typically do). I used some Topaz Detail to bring out some of the detail and I continued with some work with Photo Tools. I used a bit of Color Efex Pro 4 to deepen the blue and give a bit of vignette to the edges.

Love to know what you think about this image, please feel free to leave comments or questions below.