On my way to visit my parents a few days ago I noticed this old windmill at a nearby farm. I don’t know what it is, but I really like old machinery, especially if it is rusty or crusty, so I had to stop and take a few pictures. None of the shots were particularly outstanding, but I liked this one the best of the lot. I initially thought about leaving this as a color image since I like the color combination of the rusty orange and the blue sky, but in the end I went with an antique sepia toned look courtesy of Silver Efex Pro.

The old post office in Saginaw, Michigan is known as the ‘Castle’ post office, with good reason. It was built at a time when the government was trying to build government buildings which reflected the history of the area in which it was built. Saginaw was founded by French Voyageurs so the post office was built in the style of a French chateau. The program didn’t last long. It was scrapped after the first building because it was too expensive. Saginaw did get a nice post office out of the deal, however.

One of the coolest and most depressing buildings in Detroit has to be the old Michigan Central Station (Depot). The station was used by Amtrak until 1988 when it was abandoned and left to basically rot. The station consists of the main railway facilities as well as an 18 story office tower. The interesting thing about the office tower is that the top floors were never finished. Anyway, the building has been decaying for years and has been threatened with demolition many times.

his image start life as an 8 shot HDR. The subject is one that I’ve visited many times, an old schoolhouse west of Ann Arbor, Michigan. I’ve worked on a couple variations of this shot. One was a straight color HDR, a second was a simpler black and white conversion of the color HDR and finally this version. In all cases the thing I liked the most was the clouds in the sky. My original black and white conversion created a reasonably dark sky which looked pretty nice but I decided to go for a more antique look with this version. To me it looks like the sort of image that appeared on old stereoscope cards. I used to love to use my grandparents viewer to look at their cards in wonderful 3D and perhaps that’s why I like the way this image came out.

With a turn to nicer weather yesterday, I decided to go out for a drive to look for interesting subjects to shoot. I was sort of in the mood for things old and rusty, but I didn’t really come across anything which struck my fancy. Heading home, I drove by an old train depot in Saline, Michigan which has been converted to a historical museum. I have driven past this location many times and had never paid it much attention. On this day, however, I noticed a couple of cool elements, one of which was this large wooden windmill. This is a 10ft diameter windmill which is similar to an 18ft windmill which was originally installed at the site. According to the museum’s web site, “The Eclipse was once the most popular of all wooden windmills. It was painted an unusual shade of red and green, colors described by windmill writer, T. Lindsay Baker, as “cow patty green with buzzard blood red tips.” All I know is that I liked the pattern created by the blades. Even though the color is unique, I decided to go with black & white to draw the eye to the patterns rather than the color.

After posting yesterday’s image, I took another look at the raw shot and thought that there were some things that I could do with the original orientation that would also make for a more interesting shot. The horizontal shot I posted yesterday is more focused on the person, whereas the taller shot I think does a better job of showing the person in the context of the surrounding architecture. I used Silver Efex Pro2 to convert to black and white and to add a vignette and sepia tone. I think the vignette helps draw the eye to the person, while still being able to see a larger context.

ometimes a crop can make all the difference in an image. The image you see above was taken in the new wing of the University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA). I was trying to capture the classic ‘musuem’ shot which shows someone contemplating some piece of art. As I walked through the gallery, I noticed this gentleman standing and looking at something and I liked the way he was framed by the walls of the museum. For some reason I decided to shoot this vertically. I think I was captivated by all the angles and lines which were captured by the wide angle lens. However, the vertical nature of the shot was more about architecture than the person. As I looked at the image, I wondered what it might look like if I had shot it horizontal, so I tried a relatively severe crop to convert from vertical to horizontal. I liked what I saw so I did a fairly simple conversion to black and white and the result is what you see above.

I didn’t really know how to title this post because I’m not exactly sure what this thing is. All I know about it is that it is some sort of machine used in the maintenance of railway cars and/or engines. I took this picture at Greenfield Village last fall. The Village has an old railroad roundhouse which is both an exhibit and a place for worker to work on the rolling stock owned by the museum. I was originally planning on created an HDR image out of this subject, and I took 9 exposures while I was there to do it, but when I actually processed the images in Photomatix, I didn’t care for what came out. Instead I did something much simpler. I used Topaz Adjust to bring out some more detail in the metal. I think it did a really nice job in this regard.

It’s spring break time and unfortunately I’ll be stuck in Michigan with our wonderful early spring weather. However, I have my old photographs to warm me up including this one taken on a spring break a couple of years ago in North Myrtle Beach, S.C. Unlike yesterday’s image taken at the same location, today’s image is a bit more cheery.

Browsing through my Lightroom catalog this morning I came across this shot I took in North Myrtle Beach, SC in 2008. What caught my eye was the fog layer in this shot and I was suddenly inspired to work on this image. The thing I like most about this image is the way the new building is seen rising above the fog. The murky nature of the weather combined with the construction in the background made me think of a more industrial scene rather than a beach scene. As such, I processed the image to increase the murkiness.