Tag: Architecture
For the past few days I’ve been playing with a Nikon 24mm PC-E lens. I like to shoot architecture and I thought it would be fun to try a lens which would let me do some perspective correction in camera rather than in Photoshop. I still have a lot to learn about using this lens, but I really like it (which I could afford one). This shot of the new North Quad dormitory on the campus of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor was taken with this lens. I was lazy and shot this hand held. With a 24mm lens I was able to capture most of the building without tilting the camera too much, and then I used the shift capability to reduce any keystoning. The nice thing about being able to do this optically is you keep the full resolution of the image rather than stretching/compressing pixels in Photoshop.
The Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island is an impressive structure built by the Mackinac Island Hotel Company which was formed by a group including the Michigan Central Railroad, Grand Rapids and Indiana Railroad, and the Detroit and Cleveland Steamship Navigation Company. The idea was to promote tourism to the island in northern Michigan and encourage people to travel using the railroads and steamships of the owning companies. The hotel boasts the longest porch. Of course, these days you have to pay $10 to walk on the porch if you aren’t a guest of the hotel. The hotel maintains some quaint traditions, such as requiring gentlemen to wear coats after 6:30 pm and women to wear dresses or pant suits. Other than the expense, its one of the reasons I’ve never stayed there.
One of the things I like to do in my spare time is wander around the University of Michigan campus looking for photo opportunities. It’s particularly nice in the late spring and summer when the students are away. Recently on one of my walks I took this shot of Burton Tower. I have a thing for high contrast and raking light and I liked how the sun was shining on the tower. I really would have preferred to take this shot from a higher point, but I didn’t have access to one so I simply backed up about as far as I could and then zoomed in on the upper portion of the tower.
This is another shot from the old Northern Michigan Asylum in Traverse City. The design of the building included fenced in porches at the end of each floors. I’m sure when the asylum was open they would wheel patients out here for some air, but that’s just speculation. To take this shot I backed as far as I could into the corner of the porch. With the colorful graffiti, my plan was to take enough shots for an HDR to emphasize the color.
Traverse City, Michigan used to be the home of the state mental hospital once known as the Northern Michigan Asylum for the Insane. The hospital closed in 1989 and the buildings on the campus sat dormant. Recently there has been a push to repurpose the site as a combination of retail, housing and offices. The development is known as Traverse City Commons. Portions of the site have been renovated and the result is very interesting. Much of the site remains to be developed, however. The shot above shows one of the original buildings which has yet to be renovated. It retains much of its Victorian creepiness. While the place makes me wonder what went on during its years as an insane asylum, the history of this facility seems to indicate that it was rather progressive in its approach to treatment. Still, I see this place and all I can think of is ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’.
I’ve been doing some work on the layout of this blog and I would really appreciate your feedback. Mostly I’ve been playing around with the look of the sidebar. There are aspects of the current sidebar that I like, and aspects that I’m not happy with. I’ve created a couple of different styles and I would really like to know what you think of the alternatives. Below are four links. Clicking the link will change to a different style. View the different styles and leave me a comment with your thoughts. There will be some more changes in the future, but this is what I have for now. Thanks!
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.
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.
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”.