Tag: lighthouse

Categories
Black and White Fujifilm X-E2 Fujifilm X100S Lightroom Monochrome Photography Photography Photography - Black & White Photography - Fujifilm X-E2 Photography - Fujifilm X100S VSCO Film

Misty Morning at Pigeon Point Lighthouse

Misty Saturday - Pigeon Point Lighthouse - 2014

This morning I headed over to Half Moon Bay and then south on Highway 1 to the Pigeon Point Lighthouse. I was thinking I’d capture some of the fields of yellow that bloom in the springtime along the coast – but none of them motivated me to shoot! So I kept heading to the lighthouse – it’s always interesting and the weather can be hard to predict.

When I came up on it, it was swirling around in between the fog and the blue skies above – a very interesting subject to photography. The image above is one of the first. I’ve included a couple of others below. These images were shot with my Fujifilm X-E2 and Fujifilm X100S – and processed using VSCO Film in Lightroom.

A beautiful morning along the coast!

Aglow - Pigeon Point Light - 2014
Surf and Sky - Pigeon Point Lighthouse - 2014
Standing Tall - Pigeon Point Light - 2014
Categories
HDR Photography Lightroom Photography Photography - Canon 5D Mark II Photoshop

The Lighthouse #3 – Pigeon Point – 2012

The Lighthouse #3 - Pigeon Point - 2012

This image of the Pigeon Point Lighthouse was shot on January 13, 2012, during shoot with my photo buddy Doug Kaye. We started out at the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve near Half Moon Bay and then headed south along US 1 to Pigeon Point. The light was very special that day – this image was shot about 1 PM but you can see the sun angle is still not very high.

The new version of Lightroom 4.1 has 32 bit HDR Tiff handling support – so I used Merge to HDR Pro in Photoshop CS6 to blend three images together (taken on a tripod using +/-2 EV exposure bracketing with my Canon 5D Mark II). I brought the image back into Lightroom and make a few final tweaks – love how this version turned out! Click on the image to see a larger version!

And be sure to checkout my earlier post Coasting in 2012 – Pigeon Point Lighthouse for a black and white image of the Pigeon Point Lighthouse!

Categories
Black and White Half Moon Bay Lighthouse Monochrome Photography Nik Software Photography Photography - Black & White Photography - Canon 5D Mark II

Point Montara Light Station

Late this afternoon, I headed over to Half Moon Bay – specifically to Montara and the Point Montara Light Station – to join up with a small group of Google+ photographers. I tried several HDR shots – none of which worked very well given the continuous movement in the ocean. But this image grabbed me – primarily because of the vanishing point effect of the clouds merging at the lighthouse.

I shot this with my Canon 5D Mark II on a tripod – using a Canon EF 28mm f/1.8 lens. I shot it at f/11 at 1/50 of a second and post-processed it in PhotoShop CS5 using Nik’s Silver Efex Pro 2 and Color Efex Pro 4 filters. I particularly like the wide tonal contrast around the lighthouse in this image.

Categories
Black and White Lighthouse Lightroom Nik Software Photography Photography - Black & White Photography - Canon 5D Mark II Photomatix Pro

Coasting in 2012 – Pigeon Point Lighthouse

All Aglow - Pigeon Point - 2012

This morning I met up with Doug Kaye over on the coast – for a morning of shooting – of the photography kind. We started at the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve and then headed south to Pigeon Point Lighthouse before heading to Pescadero and Duarte’s Tavern (DOO-arts they say!) for a great cracked Dungeness crab lunch.

I’ve really come to appreciate these photo shoots with a friend – especially one who, like Doug, is pushing new frontiers and trying new techniques. As we explore a venue, we see through each other’s eyes – and see things we otherwise wouldn’t see. Try it sometime. It’s great fun!

This image is of the Pigeon Point Lighthouse on the San Mateo County coastline south of Pescadero. The light this morning was beautiful – and this black and white treatment features it!

This image was shot as a 3 image handheld HDR with my Canon 5D Mark II. I post-processed it first with Photomatix Pro (using undeveloped JPEGs exported from Lightroom 3 and Photomatix alignment by features), and then opened in Photoshop CS5. In Photoshop, I first adjusted with Nik’s Color Efex Pro 4 – specifically, tonal contrast and detail extractor. Then I brought the image into Nik’s Silver Efex Pro 2 before finally bringing back into Lightroom for final tweaking, noise reduction, and uploading.

I’ll always remember this day and our time coasting the San Mateo coast! Beautiful!