We enjoyed watching the last sunset of 2019 from the deck of River’s End in Jenner, California as this solo kayaker rowed slowly by.
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Solo at Russian River’s End
Tag: california
Here’s another photo from almost four years ago taken at the Castle Air Museum in Atwater, California. This time, it’s a C-47 Skytrain, the workhorse transport aircraft of WW II, the Berlin Airlift, etc.
This shot was taken using my first digital SLR, a Canon 30D, as a single RAW image. Postprocessing was done using Lightroom 3, Photoshop CS5 (to remove power lines, etc) along with Nik’s HDR Efex Pro and Color Efex Pro.
Hope you enjoy it!
Maybe it’s the visit to the Ansel Adams show with Chris on Saturday that has sent me over the edge, but I’m continually intrigued by how one can take a color photo and turn it into a much more powerful black and white image.
See the photo below – it’s #3 from my initial Canon S95 HDR post earlier this morning.
Frankly, I didn’t spend much time on this photo – the point was to provide it (a traditional HDR post-processed shot) as a point of comparison with the new in-camera HDR feature built-in to the S95.
As I was looking at it, I wondered how a conversion to black and white might look – now that I’ve become acquainted and familiar with Lightroom 3’s excellent Black and White Mix controls.
So, I gave it a shot – here’s the result – after about 10 minutes of tweaking in Lightroom:
Obviously, it’s the same subject as the original photo – Rodin’s Gates of Hell – but it’s been transformed into a more powerful photograph through the conversion to black and white.
I also experimented for the first time using the new Lens Correction features in Lightroom 3 – to remove the distortion in terms of angle, etc. that I had in the original image. It now looks very close to a direct, head-on shot at the scuplture.
Finally, I tweaked it in Flickr – using Picnik to add a museum frame around it – dressing it up a bit.
I like the result. What do you think?
You may also want to view my Flickr set of Canon S95 HDRs taken this morning at Stanford.
It’s Sunday morning and while sipping coffee and reading the New York Times, I came across their 36 Hours travel column which this week is about Carmel-by-the-Sea, one of my favorite spots on the planet! Reading that 36 Hours article brought back memories and stimulated me to do a little writing about them!
I first got acquainted with the Carmel area over 20 years ago when I was working at Visa International. For many years, the Visa board of directors held its February board meeting at Pebble Beach every year – at the Lodge. I loved the natural beauty of the area – even if I didn’t have a golfer’s appreciation for it that most of the directors did!
Here’s my first attempt at handheld HDR photography using my new Canon EOS 5D Mark II.
The setting is Rodin’s Gates of Hell at the Cantor Arts Center on the Stanford University campus.
I love their description:
“The Rodin Sculpture Garden is open all hours, with lighting for nighttime viewing. Admission is free.”
I took three raw shots while seating on the ground, holding the camera as steady as I could, using Aperture Priority with three high-speed shots on the 5D Mark II.
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