Leaving Paradise

On Tuesday I had to extend my hotel room in West Palm Beach FL and when I did the gentleman at the counter made the statement that I got to spend another day in paradise. This is what my dad used to call it from their porch in Fort Myers FL. It is amazing how many people migrate back and forth to the South Florida environment. Way too many people for me. While I enjoy visiting Florida now and again, I'm sorry, I would not want to live here. So to me leaving paradise is a good thing, especially after three days of hanging around then same hotel. 
Ok it wasn't that bad. We did have a car for most of Tuesday so we drove around some and I was able to get a little photo walk in. One of the other pilots is a huge "dido head" so we had to hunt down Rush Limbaugh' Southern Command. It was a gate of course on the northern end of the the island that is Palm Beach.

The photo walk was a pleasure and here are som images from that experience.

These two images above are of Palm Beach City Hall. Knew the relatively clear sky's with a circular polarizer would provide some really nice blues.

As we were walking down the sidewalk I saw this mirror and stopped surprising the two others guys that were with me. One of the guys was into photography many years ago and asked what I saw. I told him the mirror but he had no idea what was really going on in my head. The mirror had no appearance of support and I just found it so interesting.

It started to become an educational photo walk which I enjoy. Explaining what my thought process was enabled the other two to get into it a little bit rather than just accompanying me.

There was a door on the side of city hall that I just found beautiful.

Hopefully I will be able to find a use for this image other than just here on the blog. Here is a shot looking down Worth Avenue which is appropriately named as this is the Rodeo Drive of Palm Beach.

When we were driving back from the norther part of the island we pawed this church with amazing architecture. This time I left the guys in the cool car and went up and grabbed some shots.

This is an open hallway that completes the street side of the church. You can see the rail on the left side which faces the street. The arches are mirrored on the right and opens to a really nice courtyard shown ithe panoramic below. Click on the image for a larger view.

It is July and out of season in South Florida so the snow birds are gone but the heat and humidity is way too much for this Michigan boy. Nice place to visit but still nicer to leave.

Take care for now... Doug

When you have an opportunity to go shooting, you should take it. I have many of those but too often do not go. Sometimes it might be due to fatigue of a day flying, or airlining for that matter. Yesterday was not a tough day for me as it was a conference call and a checkride to conduct. It ended in San Jose about 3:30 PM Pacific.

Ending up at the San Jose Hilton Downtown I had a nice view from the 14th floor. One that overlooked the downtown area revealing a carnival that had taken roost on a closed street. I felt that move to go and I went, camera slung over my shoulder. Here are some of the images I grabbed on my little walk.

As I continued my walk along carny row this one had some really good light so I leaned up against a pole to stabilize me and took the shot. The carny had a funny reaction to me taking a picture but was obviously friendly about it. You can see his reaction in the image below.

I don't necessarily find carrousels appealing but I do find them interesting. Interesting mechanically and esthetically. The horses are still a little freaky though. This one did give me an opportunity to practice a little blur in camera. Slowing down the shutter speed required an equal amount of closing down the aperture. I ended up with the following image.

The closed road started and ended with a ferris wheel. This was the one at the other end of the street. Unfortunately there were very few people at this carnival. I am not sure if it was the start or end of the deal but they will not stay in business long if their turnout is like this.

On the way back to the Hilton I had to cross the Light Rail tracks and had another though. Obviously inspired by the blurred carrousel I had previously taken. The train was not moving very fast but I was able to sufficiently reduce the shutter speed to get it to look like it was really moving. The camera stats were 1.3 Seconds at f/18 so as not to blow out the ambient light from the platform.

Like I said in the opening, it is important to grasp those opportunities to shoot. Especially if it is not something you normally shoot as that will expand and challenge your photographic talents.


Take care all... Doug

Let's Talk

When you hear those words, the first thing that crosses your mind is what did I do? It's not like let's do lunch, or let's have coffee. No... those are much more cordial and social mediums of a gathering of thoughts.

On the  other hand when some says lets go fishing, relaxation comes to mind. Enjoying the out of doors, male bonding and all that goes with it. That is what I captured as we walked across the Lion Street bridge back to the Gerald R Ford Museum where we had parked are car.

What we are looking at here is the Michigan Street, and I-196 bridges crossing the Grand River.

Looking a little closer you can see some fishermen north of the small dam enjoying the opportunity and enjoyment of the catch. I could say they are executives that have to fish for their food as a result of the many Michigan corporate downsizings but then that owuld take this post in a completely different direction.

But then again if you look closer as I did once I noticed it in Lightroom, there are a couple of men just standing in the water talking. Hmmm... Maybe it is a new form of therapeutic downsizing.

Let's talk!


Doug

Special Night

Well, it’s back to work and the start of the fall season. I’ve had a great vacation over the last seven weeks. We visited family a little, went for some rides on the Harley, and did a bunch of work on the basement/studio. Basically kicked back and just enjoyed being home.

This past weekend my sister-in-law and her husband came in from Illinois and she and Evelyn when for a quilting retreat. That left Bill and I to wonder around and take pictures for the weekend. The first plan was to take Saturday and go to Binder Park Zoo in Battle Creek but it rained most of Saturday. It did clear up, but it was a wash for the most part. We did get a bunch of Photoshop/Lightroom talk done though.

Friday night we were able to go to Holland MI and get some really nice images of the lighthouse and the sunset. The sunset was very nice but the lighthouse is what became the main event.


As the sun went down the lights in the lighthouse came alive. Now I'm not talking about the rotating light but the lights in the lighthouse as if someone was home. In the twenty four years I have been in West Michigan, I did not know the lighthouse had illumination within the structure. It is a very nice touch photographically.


The above image is the result of a three shot High Dynamic Range across three stops of exposure. I had not used the new HDR Pro function in CS5 so it was time for a test drive. Initially the combined image is a little flat but that's what the rest of Photoshop is for. Curves will go to great lengths to give the HDR depths and separation.


The moon was an absolute bonus for the night as when we left the house it was very cloudy and we left on a whim that it might be clear at the coast. What we were treated with was just spectacular. I must give full disclosure here in that the moon was in fact above the lighthouse but it was much smaller. I took an image of the moon at 320mm and placed it in the image to give a better relation to the lighthouse. Cheating? Slightly... Not realistic? Very much so, but that is what photography is about. This is what I saw when looking at the lighthouse.


That will wrap it up for me today.


Take care... Doug

Majestic

Early this morning I was on a flight from Seattle WA to Reno NV. This route is always spectacular when the weather is clear as you can see all the mountains from Rainier shown above. As we were climbing out of the Seattle area I knew the possibility of a really nice side shot of the mountain may exist. We were on the shadow side though which provides a different view of a traditional mountain shot.

The image below is of Mt. Hood southeast of Portland OR. We were somewhat higher and on the sunny side of the mountain. This angle though provides some interesting lines due to the time

of day. It was 7:15 pacific and as you can see form the long shadow, the sun was still working its way up in the sky. It really gives good definition to the ridges in the mountain.

Below is another shot of the same intro image only in B&W. I figured I would go Ansel Adams seeing as how our route of flight was going to take us over his infamous shooting grounds.

Tomorrow I am going to try and give an evaluation of Lightroom 3 as I have been using the fully released version of it for the bast few days.

For now though, take care... Doug

Ouch!

So what do these two images have in common. Well... Paint for one thing. I had my trusty EF 24-105 f/4 IS L glass mounted to my 40D on a whale watching tour we took while in Hawaii a couple of weeks ago. The whales were pretty active as they were ending their stay in the Hawaiian waters. They were making their last preparations for their migration up to the Alaskan coast.

The hump back whales come down to the warm central Pacific waters to have their offspring an allow them to exercise and earn their stripes for the northern migration. The young whales will bend, blow, and breach around the waters stretching their muscles. Every action they take is in training for their big move. All under the watchful eye of mom whale.

There are rules in the Hawaiian Islands regarding approaching the migrating whales. Generally a vessel can not come within 100 yards of the whales. This is the rule for the captains, not necessarily for the whales though. I was up on the port side of the catamaran leaning up against the cabin corner which would be on the right side of the image above. I chose this location as it was the most protected from spray when the boat would his a wave. People on the trampoline and on the starboard side were definitely getting wet. We had seen a number of breaches and blows in the distance when a large spray came across the boat. The spray was a bit different than when the boat would his a wave, there was a strange noise associated with it. We were just figuring out the noise we witnessed was a whale blow very close to the boat when it happened. The boat lurched and then lunged in an unusual way, not at all like taking a wave the wrong way. We were flung sidewise while some fell onto the trampoline and others against the lifelines (guess thats why they call them that). Fortunately I was leaning against the cabin and was not only able to keep my footing but I was able to protect the camera from the spray. When the boat lunged I let my camera ride down the R-Strap while I held onto what ever I could grab. The camera banged around a little and the lens hood got that white marring but boy did I have a story.

Yes, that is what it was, a story. Hope it was a good one! What actually happened was while the camera was hanging on the R-Strap and I was maneuvering on the boat, the lens hood banged into a corner of the boat. Hence the white scar of paint on the hood. The rest of the story was all fabrication.

The lesson here regardless of how cool of a story you can come up with is this. My plastic hood took the hit and not the lens or camera. No harm, no foul. Not even to the whales.

Take care... Doug

Sporadic

That is the word for the day, maybe this month as evidenced by the rate of blogging I have gotten done this month. Shooting has been busier that the blogging which I guess is a good thing. One could blog full time if they wanted to. I think of David Ziser and his tremendous blog Digital Pro Talk... Every day. The amount of content David puts out is absolutely astounding.

Photography is not my primary source of income and therefore must fall into the orders of life's priorities. While it is a business, it must be moderated with the other strings pulling at my time. My lofty goals of one blog of worth per day remains a goal and to that end I will continue in my blogging efforts as I truly enjoy spewing my thoughts out in this cyber format. I have in the past had make-up posts to cover days I have missed, I will no longer be doing this as it is water under the bridge.

Anyhow for today I have a few images to share with you from our Hawaii trip.

We took a day to do some exploring off the beaten path and went up to the tip of the big island. We had already been to the other end of the island which was the southern most point in the United States. The winds we blowing pretty good and the waves were breaking nicely.

A quick look at Google maps gives a little insight into where you might be going but it really misses the mark for first hand information.

The first image in the post was take from a breaker of lava rock I climbed on to get the shot. Shown in the image above by the red arrow. Being careful not to get too close to get my gear spayed with salt water. I would do daily gear cleaning when we got back to the hotel just to get the salty grime off from the air. Below is a picture of a local riding some surf before it got too crazy. It was taken from the vantage point shown on the image above represented by the yellow arrow.

He did not stay too long as the surf was changing and getting a little more unpredictable. Seeing that the surface is all volcanic rock, I don't blame him.

Hope you'll understand about the postings and pleas come on back. I will be here!

Cya... Doug

Bold and the Birdiful

Hey, so I've been gone for a little bit, ok! So it's been a week and a half. Actually just this week as Evelyn and I were in Hawaii last week enjoying some time together we have not had in the last fifteen years. Well not actually, our children are out of the house for the most part but it has been that long since we had take time for ourselves that did not include time with some part of the family.

Yes I will be boeing you next week with a bunch of images from that trip so get used to it for a week or come back in two. Anyhow we were sitting at a coffee stand/boat landing waiting to take the water taxi back to the main building. Having finished a snack Evelyn was flipping these birds some scraps. They became ever more bold in their approach. These images show that boldness in a sequence. I had to boost the ISO to 1600 to get the focus at 1/400th second at F/4 which is as open as the EF 24-105 f/4 IS lens would go. Here is a real close-up of the activity of the little scavenger.

That will wrap it up for this week and I hope to get a good week in for you all next week.


Take care... Doug

Options

We were waiting for takeoff last week in Scottsdale Arizona these mountains present a slight obstacle on the initial climb out of the jet. Two good points about the SDL area is that the weather is generally as you see it. Clear sky's and a bazillions miles visibility. The other is the normal departure route is a left turn to 250 degrees to avoid the whole mess.

The problem with images like this is the wide angle does not give the depth that a zoom does but to zoom you end up not getting the vastness of the scene. So once I got it into Photoshop I figured a little zoom effect might enhance the image. Once that was done another thought struck me. Remember the old corny T.V. program called time tunnel...

You guessed it. My own version of Time Tunnel. The effect really deepens the image and kind of like it better than the zoom. The problem still exists with a close and far relationship with size and vastness mentioned above.

Either way it was a fun little exercise in PS.

Take care... Doug

Planes, Trains & Automobiles

I was originally going to call this my ICT Photowalk as my plans were to go downtown Wichita KS and do a little photo-walking. I am out here for aircraft recurrent training and have the afternoon off so I thought I would go exploring. I did go for the walk but found it to be rather depressing. It turned into a drive by shooting session and a short walk. On the way back to the car I walked under a train overpass with an old steam engine sitting on display. The train was on display as part of the Great Plains Transportation Museum. This is a collection of a number of old train engines, cars and cabooses (or is it caboosi?).

Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe 3768 locomotive was built in 1938 and and was retired in 1958. This puppy weighs in at 500 lbs shy of 250 tons (the easy math makes that 499,600 lbs.) Believe it or not old 3768 could chug along at 90 mph. At $178,767 in '38 I can not imagine the cost of something like that today.

This old girl was manufactured in 1967 and used in passenger service until Amtrak was brought into existence in 1971. Yep, four years of service just doesn't seem right. Must not have looked the part for Amtrak.

This engine NW 2 was built by General Motors Electro-Motive Division of La Grange, Illinois. Starting in late 1948 the NW2s were manufactured in EMD's Plant #3 in Cleveland, Ohio. While Burlington Northern changed the paint scheme in the 80's the designation was changed to 421, it spent most of its life as Frisco 261 working the 29th Street Yards in Wichita KS.

Here are some real styling accommodations. I do not have any information on this particular caboose but it was heated as shown with the stove. Guess it beats sleeping on a stack of coal in the wind.

The title was a bit lame if I do say so myself but I did fly a plane out here, and had a rental car to get to the train museum. So there!

Take care all... Doug

So What... It's a JPEG

Yes I am a RAW shooter... Yes I enjoy the range and tonality a 12 or 14 bit file provides the RAW format. Does that make me a RAW snob. Only if looked down on RAW shooters and that is just not the case. Do I think that someone who only soots jpeg is lees of a photographer? Not at all! I come from an industry that has switches that allow pilots to customize the displays they fly by. Why would it make a difference to me what format someone else shoots in.

Actually I am probably stuck in RAW because I am probably be too lazy to make changes in the camera. I am thinking of setting one of the Custom setting on the 40D and 5D Mk II in jpeg so it would be simple to change and reduce the likelihood of forgetting to change it back.

Here is a jpeg my wife took last year while D.C. on her Nikon CoolPix L6. She sets it in auto mode and fires away. Not a thing wrong with that. In fact that is probably the best what to maximize the spontaneity that a point and shoot provides. The xif data revealed the shot was taken at 1/400, f/5.3, ISO 50 at a focal length of 19.2 mm.

Photo by Evelyn Peek

A classic shot from the north side of the tidal basin of the Jefferson Memorial in Washington D.C. Even with the cherry blossom partially obscuring the top of the monument it is a very strong foreground that emphasizes a special time of year in the D.C. area. If this were the fall, a bare branch in the same place would not have worked so well. The real beauty here is that Lightroom and Adobe Camera RAW is  not just a RAW editors. TIFF's and JPEG's are not a problem.

Jazzing with the sliders and localized correction brush (they should call it an enhancing brush) in Lightroom makes an already nice image pop. Being able to locally lighten the cherry blossom and boost the tonality of the monument is really big without having to get into Photoshop.

Sooo... JPEG shooter unite! It is still a fantastic format.

Take care... Doug

Pilgrimage to Mecca

Ok… So maybe not “the” Mecca in the middle-east but certainly a central point of importance to most photographers and certainly to Photoshop Junkies. I did a checkride today from Greensboro NC to Brooksville FL. When I got to Brooksville, I had to get a car and drive to Tampa and get to the hotel which is the bonus post today.

Anyhow with a car and nothing really to do, I headed off to visit the Kelby Training Group. Better known as the home of the national Association of Photoshop Professionals or NAPP for short. It is about a twenty minute drive from the Tampa airport.

As I pulled into KTG’s parking lot I spied a spot by the building to park. As I turned into the spot the sign below presented itself.

I thought better of it and parked across the way in a Visitor spot.

I stepped in the building and was greeted by a nice gal by the name of Debbie. We talked a little and she offered a tour of the facility and I gladly accepted. There are three facilities in the local and I was at the main Administrative building which housed both the creative and editorial groups. I felt as though I was in the center of the CS brain trust.

Well it was fun to even stop by and say hi. Not that it was on my bucket list or anything like that.

Take care… Doug


P.S. I don't know what I was thinking as I did not bring my G9 with me to the NAPP headquarters so I was stuck with my piece of junk camera on my Blackberry. That is a yuck and Im sorry for the poor quality.

Tampa Bay - Bonus Post

After my NAPP visit I headed to a little place in Tampa I have not been to in years, Chubby’s BBQ, a wonderful hole in the wall place with the best barbeque in Tampa. It was a clear day at the 90 degree mark and I was looking forward to getting a nice shot of downtown at sunset. I ended up sing a movie (Surrogate- very good!) and missed the sunset so I went back to the hotel.

My room faced the bay and as I walked into the room I saw the image below.

First I killed all the lights in the room and grabbed my G9 out of my flight bag. Using the window mullion and the glass I could stabilize the camera to capture two images. Below is an assembled pano of the view. Glorious I’d say!

Honestly, that is the view from my room. Enjoy... Doug

Any Team, Any Time

A promise has been satisfied. After 30 plus years I took my wife to Cubs game at Wrigley Field in Chicago. I must admit I am not the biggest baseball fan. To that point, a few years ago I was standing by the counter at the Fixed Base Operator in Tampa FL when my first officer across the way pointed to my right and made some lip talk. I looked to my right and there were a couple of people standing there, so I looked back at my guy and with my arms out, liped back to him with What? I walked over to him and asked him what the big deal was, He said "Dude! You were stnading right next to Derek Jeter!", to which I responded "Who's Derek Jeter?"

With that story (which is true by the way) told, I have established the fact that I may not be the biggest follower of the game that hits the small stiched ball. After having gone to the park, I must say Wrigley Field is magical. Riding the bus from the parking lot at DeVry University through bustling streets of a residential city to come upon the ball park is a visual transition that was so natural. Very old but well kept, tightly spaced homes, transitions to a more but very old commercial district and finally there is the ball park in the midst. Very old but unassuming and very natural in its surroundings. Then you see the marquee. That massive red, and unmistakable Wrigley Field.

Entering the stadium is like going back in time. If it were not for all the people dressed in todays garb, you feel as if you are back in the early 20th centyury. It was a wonderful experience. We obviously had to stop and shop at the Cubs Store but after that it was up the ramps to our seats.

I must say there are a muber of experiences in life where your first view is breath taking. That first view of the Grand Canyon, or waking up in Denver to see the Rocky Mountains, or something many have experienced, going up in a tall building and finally getting to a view point that over looks the city. That is the feeling you get when you finally get your first glimps of the ball diamond, lush green grass, and that wonderful and historic ivory coverd wall of Wrigley Field.

Other than the old architecture, structure, and ivy covered perimeter wall, there was one more very old school item to the park. The score board! for the longest time I could night see what the score of the game was until I realized I was looking at the running scores of all the games being played in the National and American leagues.

Below is a portion of the scoreboard as you can see the dismal performance of the Cubs in the bottom of the 8th inning. The really old school functionality of this board is the little squares where the numbers are shown a panels that are manually placed throughout the game. After realizing this I started looking around for a semaphore flagman at the bullpen.

It wasn't until after I got the images downloaded and was able to take a closer look did I realize the open panels were not simply missing. As evidenced by the man sitting back with his arms behind his head in the image below, they were peep holes for the occupants of the scoreboard to watch the game. Very cool!

The Cubby's were up against the Washington Nationals and it was too bad the entire team didn't show up for the game. It is true, baseball is as much a team sport as football or basketball.

The star pitcher for the Cubs started the game after being off fur a number of weeks. The crowd had high hopes but soon faded. Not even his home run in the third was enough to bring fan loyalty and more-so, coach patience. A relief pitcher was brought in during the fifth inning with two on base, the next batter was intentionally walked as he was a good hitter. I can't remember the count but it was the next batter that sent one over the ivy for a grand slam. BAM! 6 to 1, that'll take the wind out of your sails for sure.

They never did recover as you can see the 15 to 6 score on the board. So the question still remains... Is Doug now a baseball fan?

To that I will continue not to be but I do enjoy going to the park and watching a bunch of guys hitting a ball and running around the bases. As far a Wrigley Field, I am most certainly a fan and hope they are able to maintain the emotion that facility brings out in people. As far as the Cubs? Well there is always another game, and another year to go for the championship. I guess that makes me a Cubs fan!

Cya later... Doug

Lines of a Sunset

This image was from last Saturday evening. Evelyn and I drove up to Grand Haven for a sunset and of course I had to bring my gear. Come on, how could I pass up a sunset shot. I did not have a long-shot of the pier at sunset and being June I thought I could get the sun right behind the lighthouse for a unique effect.

We paid the state the $6 to get into the parking lot and drove well south in the lot and set up camp to wait for the setting sun. Little did I realize I would have to contend with a couple hundred sea gulls. As the sun began to set I had to relocate three times as the sun was setting way north. I finally realized the sun would be going behind some clouds and I would not be getting the shot I came for but that is what happens and you just roll with it.

Not only did the sun misbehave, the sky was very hazy making life more difficult. Shot with a Canon 40D with an EF 24-105 f/4 L IS lens with photo specs of f/4 aperture, 1/8000 (that's right) shutter speed. The sun was still rather bright and in order to keep the blow-out and wild lens flare (which is mildly evident anyhow) to a minimum, I had to go for long focal length and high shutter speed.

So what is with the wild lines in the sky. That is a posterizing effect in Photoshop. Now for the why I chose to employ that effect. The sun did a wonderful job at what the sun does when you shoot into it. There was some natural lines of gradation that just didn't look that great. I am on the road with this image and retrieved the image as a dng and it opened in 8 bit which just does not have the data that 16 bit provides. So rather than live with the gradation. I went a little more artsy. Simple as it sounds, it is what it is.

It is getting late and I have to br bright eyes and bushy tailed in the morning.

Cya, and take care... Doug 

The Rest of The Story

This is the back story or as Paul Harvey used to say, the rest of the story. Yesterdays post Getting A Jump, I know why do I have a hyperlink to a post you can just scroll down to?Answer; What if you were at this post by another link. Hmm... Anyhow it had a lead in to how and why I got these shots.

First the why. I had left the Interstate in search of a location referred to by one of those brown historic site signs. Just exiting a town in western Maryland, I was crossing a rather high bridge and noticed this train yard below and though I might stop by on the way back to the Interstate.

I did make it to the rather anticlimactic "historic site" and headed back and did make it to the turn-off to what was a truck staging area for coal delivery. It looked like it had been some time since coal had actually been exchanged so I pulled into the staging area. With camera in hand, I made my way over to the tracks and started grabbing some shots. 

Things were going quite well when I noticed what looked to be a semi-official looking truck approaching from down the way. For some reason the rail system people do not like people hanging around. Especially tyrannical biased photographers. I ran into the same thing out in Portland last September when an Amtrak guard got a little fussy about getting too close to the tracks. Oh well, I am not going to get bent out of shape over it so in this case I simply moved towards the car and stowed my gear. After all, I had gotten the shots I wanted.

I got back down to Columbus last night and it looks like I will be doing a couple portrait sessions while I am here this week. That should be fun!

Have a great Tuesday all... Doug