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.

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 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.

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.

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 not sure this qualifies as a great landscape shot, but I’m happy with it.

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.

This shot was taken a couple of years ago when my wife and I were in New York City celebrating our anniversary. My wife had never been to Grand Central so we decided to check it out. On display in the main concourse was this Maserati Quattroporte automobile. I like shooting cars and architecture, so this seemed like a perfect find! It was cloudy outside and there wasn’t a lot of bright light flooding Grand Central so the lighting wasn’t the greatest. I was using my Olympus E-3 which tends to be grainy at higher ISO’s so I stuck with ISO 100. The car was isolated from the unwashed masses with heavy velvet rope held up by a series of metal poles. I was able to set my camera on top of one of the poles to get this shot. The image is rather sharp even though the exposure was just 1/6th of a second.

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.

Here’s something different, an image in color! I’ve had this post sitting in draft stage for some time and I finally decided to publish it. No reason for the delay, it just got ignored for some reason. The picture was taken while my family was on on vacation in Puerto Rico last year. It shows one of the two forts in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico known as ‘El Morro’ officially named ‘Fort San Felipe del Morro’ When I took the shot there was a boy sitting on the grass and I thought he added a bit of interest to the shot. Unfortunately I think he’s a bit too small to really have much impact on the picture, particularly in a smaller image.