Back in Norway, my last name was spelled with one “s” on the end. Somewhere along the way, after immigrating to the US, my great grandfather decided to add a second “s” to the name – we suspect to make it “easier” to pronouce (ha!).
This is me – at a road sign at Loftesnes, Norway – shot in June 2002 with my first digital camera, a Kodak DC290 with a whopping 2 megapixel sensor. Tweaked a bit in Lightroom 5 and VSCO Film 05. Lots of memories from this trip!
I was looking back through my Lightroom photo archive tonight and came across the original of this image – shot in June 2002 with my first digital camera – a Kodak DC290. I think I probably still have it around here somewhere!
The DC290 had a 2.1 megapixel sensor – and was one of the weirdest looking “cameras” ever made. But I was able to get some beautiful shots of Norway with it on a special vacation to our “hometown” – Loftesnes – just across from Sogndal.
When I came across this image tonight, I loved the composition. It had been sitting in my archive for fourteen years – with me ignoring it. The composition seemed ideal for a monochrome treatment – so that’s what you see here. A bit of platinum toning was applied and a border added.
Brings back memories of being on the boat heading to Sogndal years ago!
I’ve been enjoying going back through my Lightroom photo archive and looking for new opportunities for images.
This is one I came across tonight – I reprocessed it in Nik’s Silver Efex Pro 2 and Topaz Simplify 4 – along with apply a severe crop in Lightroom.
I love the look – brings back memories of our days in Sydney in 2012!
I was looking back through my Lightroom archive tonight – and somehow came across this image shot during a workshop I took up in Sonoma County in 2010.
I’d processed it to monochrome – but hadn’t actually shared it. I love the sweep of the bridge and the tonality of the monochrome image. Let me know what you think!
One of my favorite spots in San Francisco is the Palace of Fine Arts. It’s such a beautiful setting and the people watching is always great as well.
In this image, I’ve used a painterly approach – adding a bit of texture and smoothing out some of the detail. I kept the colors bright – as that’s how I remembered the day.
The monochrome image below – titled “Power and Glory” – provides a different emotional dimension – one of strength and detail.
Sometimes the camera angle adds to the power of an image. That and the lens.
Here’s an example – shot with my Nikon D600 at San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts.
Post-processed in Lightroom with VSCO Film. That image title just popped into my head as I was processing this image – lots of power and glory indeed!
One of our favorite places for photography in San Francisco is Embarcadero Center. The Center’s architecture is very special and unique – with lots of lovely nooks and crannies along with beautiful vistas of the four tall buildings that make up the core of the center.
There are several spiral staircases within Embarcadero Center that make wonderful subjects for photographers. A couple outside and another couple inside the buildings. As the light shifts, the outdoor ones take on a variety of moods – sometimes they’re in bright light/shadow. Other times, when it’s foggy and overcast, there’s a soft light aspect that can be special.
Yesterday, we were on our way to see the movie Tim’s Vermeer at the Embarcadero Center Cinema when I walked by this particular staircase and captured it with my iPhone 5s. I brought it into Photoshop CC and tweaked it a bit using both Topaz Simplify 4 and the Oil Paint filter to add a bit of interesting texture. The image deserves more time to make it even better – but this quick, first cut version captured my eye!
We headed up to San Francisco’s Embarcadero Center Cinema today for the noon showing of “Tim’s Vermeer” – a wonderful documentary about how Tim Jenison, a Texas based inventor, spent almost five years working on figuring out how Vermeer was able to paint his beautiful images so precisely. It’s a great movie – we really enjoyed it – and this location has great seats, etc. that makes seeing a film there quite a pleasure.
After the movie, we headed to The Slanted Door at the Ferry Building for a delightful late lunch. The Slanted Door’s Saturdays are extremely busy – so reservations were impossible – but we were able to get a couple of seats at the bar after a 20 minute wait. While we were waiting, I shot this image of the oranges with my iPhone 5s. Such a delight!
Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, we’re often bored by the boring blue skies that seem to dominate much of the year. So, when it’s raining, it’s fun to go see what kinds of images we can create that are different.
Yesterday, I headed up to San Francisco hoping for a few of those kinds of shots. I took 280 to King Street and then proceeded along the Embarcadero. There was a traffic jam at the Ferry Building – a road crew has closed two of the three lanes – and I happened to look over my shoulder at the Bay Bridge as I pass by. I noticed that the end of the suspension span of the bridge disappeared into the clouds before it reach Treasure Island. I decided to pull off to the left, execute a U-turn and head back around to the Embarcadero near Pier 24.
From there I captured this shot with my Fujifilm X-E2. A bit of post-processing in both Lightroom and Photoshop CC yielded this moody result. It’s one of my favorite recent images.
Looking back through my shots from our visit to Havana a year ago, I came across this image. I had skipped over it previously – probably because it’s not super sharp and that blurred motion of the woman in the foreground. But, giving it a second look, it pulled me in – there’s the element of layers in this image.
Shot with my Nikon D600, I post processed it using Lightroom and Photoshop to emphasize the textures and tonality of the image.