Here’s another image from our evening out in Havana at the Tropicana Club. This was near the end of the floor show – shot with my Nikon D600 and the Nikkor 85mm f/1.8 prime lens, ISO 3200, 1/250 at f/4. Post-processed using Nik’s Silver Efex Pro 2 and a number of other tweaks in Photoshop CS6.
During our first full day in Havana, we visited the campus of the University of Havana. While exploring the hilltop campus location, I came across this student having a conference with what I assume is one of her professors. They were sitting near the end of a long hallway and the natural light was streaming in from the north – giving her face that special kind of diffused glow.
To complete the processing, I cropped the image significantly, using empty space as an offset in the darker area down the hallway on the left. I finished it using some Lab color tweaks in Photoshop along with a slight luminosity adjustment layer created using Nik’s Silver Efex Pro 2 (see Doug Kaye’s technique for this).
I originally thought I’d process this as a monochrome image – but I loved the contrast between her reddish shirt and her teacher’s blue dress and wanted to maintain that look in the final image.
On our first morning in Havana (January 24, 2013), I headed out on Dawn Patrol (our leader’s term for departing the hotel at 6:15 AM sharp). We walked down to the harbor and then worked our way back. Along the way back, I snapped this image of a Havana street scene just waking up.
I processed this image using Doug Kaye’s Silver Efex Pro luminosity adjustment technique before bringing it into Lab color in Photoshop for some final adjustments.
Last Sunday I headed up to China Camp State Park in Marin County. I had never been to China Camp before this visit.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, China Camp is a beautiful spot on th western shores of San Francisco Bay. China Camp Village has some very interesting old buildings – and this wonderful, quirky, old pier that juts out into the bay.
I shot a number of different images of this pier – from the left, from the right, and down the middle. I used two big DSLRs – my new Nikon D600, my old faithful Canon 5D Mark II, my iPhone 5, and the camera I used for this particular shot – my tiny Canon PowerShot S100. I continue to be delighted how many great “spur of the moment” shots I capture with this camera (and its earlier versions, the PowerShot S90 and PowerShot S95 – both of which I bought new and subsequently sold as I upgraded along the way).
This was a RAW image shot with the S100, minimally adjusted in Lightroom 4.3 and then brought into Photoshop CS6. I went through my full sequence of steps to enhance the image in the Lab colorspace – before deciding that I thought I’d prefer the final result in monochrome. I used Nik’s Silver Efex Pro 2 to do the black and white conversion before bringing it back into Lightroom for a couple of final tweaks.
This was a very satisfying image for me. Watching it evolve through the Lab color enhancement process was fun – and then the move into monochrome with Silver Efex was especially exciting. Hope you like it too!
This best camera is the one you have with you – as they say – and my iPhone is that camera for me. Here’s an image taken and completely processed on my iPhone 5. The courtyard area outside Cafe Borrone in Menlo Park is normally a busy spot – except when it’s wet and cold during the winter months as it was on this particular morning.
This image was shot as I was heading into breakfast one December morning – and then processed on the iPhone using Nik’s Snapseed and Painteresque. It’s really pretty impressive the kind of photography and post-processing that can now be done one these little sensor-loaded computers that we carry in our pockets.
I’ve got a domain that I haven’t had time to develop – theworldinmypocket.com over on Tumblr – where I want to develop this theme a bit further!
Just east of San Rafael in California’s Marin County lies China Camp State Park. It’s a beautiful setting on the west side of San Francisco Bay and delights with a number of stunning Bay views. Among the more interesting spots is the China Camp Village – site of this dock, a beach area, picnic tables and the Quan Bros. snack shop (open on weekends). It’s a delight – and a wonderful place for photography.
I had some used lenses to try out that I’d gotten from my late friend Chris Gulker and decided to head to China Camp for the first time to try them out. This particular image, however, was taken with my trusty Canon 5D Mark II looking down the dock at China Camp Village. I post-processed it using Lightroom 4.3, Photoshop CS6, and Nik’s Color Efex Pro 4 filters. I purposely subdued the tone of the image a bit to an almost film like quality – preferring this version to the brighter one I originally shot as it came straight out of the camera.
Note: Lots of photographers use neutral density filters to smooth the water via a long exposure setting. Here’s a great example of one of those kinds of images – shot by Swee Oh on a recent long exposure photo walk. I don’t yet own a neutral density filter – so this shot is just a normal one with the subtle waves showing in the Bay water.
Here’s a photo from Drake’s Beach taken on Sunday with my iPhone 5. I loved the combination of the little girl, her mother, and the kite in the sky up against one of those puffy clouds! A beautiful landscape indeed!
Cropped (16:9) and edited lightly using Nik’s Snapseed on my iPhone 5.
On Sunday, Doug Kaye and I headed out to Point Reyes and a group photo walk at Drake’s Beach. Along the way, Doug stopped briefly at this road – which I call “Radio Road” – heading down to the old RCA / Marconi Radio site. I took this shot with my iPhone 5 looking out the car window – and processed it using Nik’s Silver Efex Pro 2, Topaz Simplify 4 and Photoshop CS6. It’s a moody, dark lane with this treatment!
For more about radio at Point Reyes, see: Communications at Point Reyes – the home of KPH. The article notes: “The Monterey cypress “tree tunnel” at the Point Reyes station is a signature landscape feature that evokes some of the prestige that RCA placed in this profitable, historic operation.”
Indeed! By the way, here’s what that Monterey cypress tree tunnel looks like from above.
On New Year’s Day, I’ve got a tradition of heading to San Francisco to take pictures. I usually head for the Golden Gate Bridge – exploring various vantage points as I get closer to the bridge.
Baker Beach is often a favorite – and this year the view was gorgeous. I headed down closer to the edge of the surf for this show – taken with my Nikon D600.
I processed it simply – bringing it into Photoshop CS6 from Lightroom, applying two Nik Color Efex Pro 4 filters (Brilliance/Warmth) and Tonal Contrast followed by a Lab color layer – before using Imagenomic Noiseware to remove the noise and then bringing it back into Lightroom. The colors in this version are much more postcard like (warmer) than the original.
Another one of my New Year’s Day explorations at the Golden Gate Bridge was Battery Boutelle. The symmetry of this image is what captured me – shot handheld with my Nikon D600. I converted it to monochrome in Photoshop CS6 using Nik’s Silver Efex Pro 2 – and then brought it into Lightroom and applied another one of Trey Ratcliff’s Lightroom Presents – A Crisp Start – to add this particular tone.
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