For many years, I’ve enjoyed seeing this old boathouse sitting out in Tomales Bay just off Inverness, California. In November 2020, we were staying nearby and I couldn’t resist pulling over along the road and snapping this photo with my iPhone 12 Pro Max. Note the white heron in the water near the right side of the boathouse!
This black and white version was first processed in Lightroom using some filters and then into Snapseed with the Drama filter applied to the lower 3/4 but not to the sky area.
Here’s the original photo from which the black and white version was cropped:
I was looking through my collection of older images tonight – a valuable exercise – and came across and image that I shot in May 2007 using my first digital SLR camera – a Canon 30D. I really liked the composition (after all, I took the shot!) but there was a big post right in the middle of the image that basically destroyed the shot. In the latest versions of Photoshop, Adobe has added several “content-aware” tools that help edit out these kinds of problems. Using this image, I set to work to remove the post – and just generally clean up the image.
Once I had removed the post and a few phone poles on the distant shore, I wanted to simplify the grasses in the foreground and the water in Tomales Bay – while preserving the lovely detail on the fishing boat. Using a combination of the Topaz Simplify 3 plugin and Nik’s Silver Efex Pro 2, I was able to get to an image that I enjoyed a lot more. I hope you do too (click on the image to see the larger size)!
While heading out to Point Reyes last Saturday, I took a couple of shots along the highway through Inverness. The first stop was the FV Point Reyes – run aground behind the Inverness Store. See my post “Photography Explorations: Filling the Frame” for more about that shot.
The next step, just a bit further west, was to take this shot of the Launch for Hire building and pier on Tomales Bay. I have a large version of an image of this building that I bought from Chris Honeysett years ago – it hangs in my home office. It’s a beautiful image taken from the other side of the building.
For this image, I used by Canon 5D Mark II and my 70-200mm f/2.8L lens – at 70mm. The image was post-processed using Nik’s Silver Efex Pro with the final toning added in Lightroom 4.
I love the circle of rocks in the lower left hand corner, the pier at low tide and the contrasty clouds in the sky. There are elements of layers in this image that cause my eye to wander back and forth within the frame – trying to take it all in.
Last Saturday, I took a drive up to Point Reyes – mostly to visit some photographers’ open studios but also to do a bit of exploring out at Pierce Point Ranch.
As I was heading back into Inverness for my first open studio visit (Richard Blair), I had been watching the beautiful clouds off in the distance. At one point, the road made a 60 degree turn to the left and I puled over – taking two shots with my little Canon PowerShot S100. This image is a two shot panorama stitched together in Photoshop CS6 and then converted to monochrome using Nik’s Silver Efex Pro 2.
I enjoy the tree on the right and almost how the clouds are flowing out from it to the left. The fence provides a bit of layering to the image which I also enjoy. A fun – and beautiful – image shot with a bit of whimsy along the road to Inverness. Be sure to click on the image to see a much larger version!
On Saturday, I took a drive up to Point Reyes – motivated by the Open Studios held this weekend. There were a few photographers having open studios – including my friend – and black and white photographer – Marty Knapp. Before heading to the open studios, however, I stopped by a few of my favorite sites in Inverness and at Pierce Point Ranch out on Point Reyes.
First stop was the FV Point Reyes, a popular site just behind the Inverness Grocery Store. Many photographers have shot this forlorn fishing boat over the last few years. I made a quick stop here – spending at most 10 minutes – shooting hand-held with my Canon 5D Mark II with the Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L lens – and my iPhone 4S.
I first captured the usual iconic shots of the boat – from about a half dozen angles as I walked around the bow. As I was about to leave, I noticed how lovely the light was on the cabin of the boat itself – and that motivated me to go in closer and to “fill the frame”, not worrying about capturing the whole boat itself.
This image turns out of be one of what I consider the best of my recent photos – with the beautiful light, the great detail of the boat’s “grunge”, the bokeh and moodiness in the sky behind, etc. I titled it “Derelict”. A great example of one of the basics of great photography: “fill the frame”! The major point about filling the frame is that our minds will deal with the missing elements – it’s certainly easy to see that this is a fishing boat – and, given it’s tilt, that something’s amiss!
Here’s another image – one that was more heavily post-processed including a texture overlay – of the FV Point Reyes that I posted last summer.
PS: If you’re in the US, hope you’re having a great Memorial Day weekend! We had one of our grilled tri-tip dinners last night that was wonderful – a bit more more on that later once I update the menu on my Scott’s Kitchen web site.
PPS: Here’s a straight out of the camera shot of the FV Point Reyes – taken with my iPhone 4S. Sort of sets the scene for the closeup shot above!
Last year, I took a photo workshop at Tomales Bay led by Dave Wyman and Ken Rockwell. One of the spots along our adventure was this fishing boat aground at Inverness – a boat that’s been photographed many, many times! We had some beautiful light this particular morning.
Earlier this week I selected this image to attempt to enhance it a bit in Photoshop CS5. Click to continue reading the approach I took.Here’s the original image:
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