Photo Of The Day

This is an HDR photograph I did recently. The scene is a wooden walkway over the water in  the Japanese Gardens located in the Missouri Botanical Gardens in St. Louis. This was a 3 bracketed exposure and then processed in the NIK HDR Pro software.

Clicking on the photo will open it much larger in a new window so you can view it better.

First Impression NIK Silver Efex Pro 2.0

The other night I download a free trial for the NIK Software, Silver Efex Pro 2.0 I have been doing my conversions to B&W in Adobe Photoshop CS5 and this allows me quite a bit of flexibility and control over the final outcome. I have been wanting to try The NIK software for converting color photos to B&W. I have read many reviews on it, and it is considered by many to be the best conversion software available.

I scrolled though a couple folders of photos I had and grabbed a photo that I had never processed or used before. This is a photo I took at the state capitol grounds in Nashville TN. A statue of Stonewall Jackson that is on a side of the capitol building overlooking the city. A harsh midday light and not much though put into the shot as I was really walking around try to find a good angle to shoot the capitol building. I processed the photo in CS5 and then took it into the Silver Efex Pro conversion software.

Processed in Adobe CS5

So like most men, I did not bother to read the directions, help file, or getting started guidelines. I just started moving sliders and playing around. I am somewhat familiar with the NIK software,  and now use their HDR Pro software. They have numerous presets to give you a wide choice of looks to your photo with one click. Or they are a good starting point to then allow you to tweak it to your taste. I have a lot to learn to get a handle on this software but found it allows amazing control of the image. Numerous vignettes and edge effects allow you great creative control.

Processed in NIK Silver Efex Pro 2.0

After playing around for about 15 minutes and trying all the tools, sliders, and effects, I created this B&W image from the original color photograph. In my humble opinion, it looks much better as a B&W. It still is not all that good of a photograph, but with more knowledge and practice, I am sure I could make some further adjustments to enhance it further. The NIK website has live web training and video tutorials for all their software products. On my first try I am really impressed with this software. I am sure I will be adding this software to my toolbox. 

Clicking on the photos will open them much larger in a new window.

Have a great weekend,

Scott

Photo Of The Day

This was a photograph that I thought looked much better when it was converted to a B&W. This barn sits along a country road that was once far outside the city. The urban sprawl will soon turn this farmland into another subdivision. This was a massive summer storm that was moving about 30 miles per hour.

Photo of the Day

For me, certain subjects or scenes just seem to look better in Black and White. This is a railroad only bridge that crosses the Cumberland River in Nashville TN. I photographed this at 16 mm and had the camera at at ground level to really emphasis the rails. It was a cloudy overcast day, and this helped keep the tonal range well within the cameras ability to capture it all in a single exposure. It looked decent in color, but when I converted it to a B&W in Photoshop CS5, this allowed me to control each color channel separately and make the sky more dramatic than it looked in the color version.

Have a great weekend!

SCOTT

Tracks Across The Cumberland

Monument Valley

 

This past fall I took a road trip out west and visited some amazingly beautiful places that were very inspiring. I spent a lot of time in central and northern Arizona visiting national forests, parks, and wilderness desert areas. Sedona was beautiful, and the Grand Canyon is one of the most amazing natural wonders on the planet. As I moved north into southern Utah, I had been longing to return to a place I had briefly visited on a family vacation a very long time ago. Monument Valley.

Hwy. 163 coming into Monument Valley from the North

If you have ever watched the movie Forrest Gump, the scene where he stops running across the country was shot in this exact spot in the photo above. Highway 163 running south from Mexican Hat UT. into Monument Valley. In my opinion, one of the most iconic scenes you will ever see while driving on a road trip.

Massive Sandstone Mesas and Buttes rise from the desert floor

This area is a place you may feel very familiar with, and yet you have never been there. This area was discovered by Hollywood director John Ford in the late 1930's and there have been parts of over 70 major movies filmed in the area, along with countless television commercials and videos . So in your subconscious you have been here many, many times. But I highly recommend that you visit it in person. Like the Grand Canyon, this place must be visited in person to truly appreciate the stark beauty of the landscape. I spent three days here and wished I had at least a week.

Massive Butte with a daylight moon

For a landscape photographer this area is a pure paradise. Monument Valley lies within the 16 million acre Navajo Indian Nation. 

Along HWY. 163 south of Monument Valley

There are only a few options for lodging in Monument Valley. I stayed at The View Hotel, owned and operated by the Navajo Indians. This is the only hotel located inside the tribal park, and I highly recommend staying there. A bit pricey, but the view from your balcony is just amazing.

View from my hotel room balcony of the Mittens and Merrick Butte

If you just do a Google search on Monument Valley, you will find many links with all kinds of information you would need to learn more and plan a trip. My goal is not to rehash all that information here, but to inspire you to really consider visiting this place with my photography.

The North Window

I also highly recommend signing up with one of the local Navajo Indian guides for a tour. You can drive much of the area on a rough dirt road, but they have access to areas that are restricted unless you are with a guide. They provide great insight and information you would not get just driving it yourself.

The View Hotel, Monument Valley UT.

Three Sisters Rock Formation

The tough part of visiting Monument Valley as a photographer is trying to photograph as much as possible in the limited time you have. The desert light is extremely harsh within a couple hours of sunrise so starting very early is a must. Sunrises and sunsets there are spectacular if the weather cooperates.

Clouds add dramatic textures to the sky

A Monument Valley Sunset

I found a real sense of peace and rejuvenation in Monument Valley. While I was wandering alone in the early morning darkness or late afternoons looking for the perfect landscape photo opportunity, The desolate beauty and remoteness of this place are inspiring. I just wish I could have captured it better than I did on this trip. I know I will be back again.

  

Photographs From The Road



Hwy. 88 in the Superstition Mountains

 Recently I went on an 18 day road trip to Arizona and Utah. I had intended to post photos and information on my blog every few days as the trip progressed. I drove about 5000 miles in that time through 8 different  states. I was trying to squeeze what should have been a 3 month trip into that small window of time that I actually had. The good thing about a trip like this is you get to see a lot of scenery and visit many interesting places. The downside is that you do not have the time at any place to really stay and explore it totally. When I visit somewhere new I would much prefer to have more time to throughly explore and learn all that I can and photograph the location.







A bridge on Hwy. 88 climbing into the mountains

With all the places I wanted to visit on this trip, and so little time to do it, I did a lot of driving and quick visits to many locations. I took more photos on this trip that I care to reveal because many people would laugh and tell me I am crazy unless they were a serious photographer. I did some wildlife photography, but the vast majority of my photos on this trip were shots of the amazing landscapes. Although I shoot digital, and always in color, I love to convert manyof the southwest landscape scenes to Black and White.

Abandon Building Outside Roswell New Mexico

I was driving into Roswell New Mexico when I noticed this abandon building sitting alone in he middle of no where. There were no signs to indicate what it may have once been. I stopped and photographed it from several angles and bracketed some exposures for an attempt to do an HDR image. My problem was it was in the middle of the day and the sunlight was extremely bright with not a cloud in the sky. When I was looking at the images, I was not real happy with them. Plain and boring to me. Then I tried the conversion to B&W but was not happy with the plain sky. In a stroke of creativity I darkened the blue and cyan channels to create this totally black looking sky. With some further tweaking in the various color channels, it now appears that it was taken at night with a bright moon light. A good Photoshop save of an otherwise drab photograph. No idea what happened here, but I think the aliens from nearby Area 51 may have been involved.

Scott                                                                                           

Black and White Photography

When I first started learning photography in high school, I was mostly self taught, and I shot everything on B&W film. It was the cheapest, and a buddy had a dark room in his basement. We learned to develop and print our own work. Most of us older folks that learned this way still have a strong affinity for B&W prints. I on the other had much preferred color photography. I simply could not afford the film and cost of sending everything to the lab. My reasoning was I see in color, and I always felt it was more realistic in my mind. When I got back into photography and started studying some of the master photographer's works in some of my college classes, I started re-thinking my opinion of B&W photography. Now I really look at everything I photograph and consider how it might look as a B&W print. The great thing about the digital dark room is the luxury of shooting everything in color, and making the conversion in a photo editing program. They have become so sophisticated that it is a snap to get a nice B&W conversion. Now I have many of my photos as both a color, and a B&W file. Since you know how much I love old barns, many of them get converted. The photo above is actually what is called a Double-sided Corn Crib. Each side held picked corn on the ear to dry in the slatted bins. A hay loft is above the corn cribs.

This is a street scene from Nashville TN. I though it made a good conversion to B&W here. Sometimes if the light was contrasty or the exposure range to great to get everything correct in a single shot, B&W seems to save some of those for me. This rail road bridge is a favorite B&W photo that I have printed to poster size. When I saw the bridge, I was already thinking B&W before I risked my neck climbing  up to get it. This bridge is in down town Nashville on Front St. and goes across the Cumberland River. I used a super wide angle of 10mm here and got right down on the ties and rails to create this composition. It was a cloudy overcast day, and this created a even better moody feeling sky for me. 

This old barn was photographed in Cades Cove, Smokey Mountain National Park. I was not happy with the color version due to a lot of filtered sunlight hitting the barn. When I converted it to B&W, I though it made a much better shot and the filtered sunlight did not  seem to be distracting. I have a much greater love and appreication for B&W photography now that I can have my cake and it it too.

Take Care,

Scott