This would be the last shot of the day. As I look at it I am not really sure where it is. I was driving out of LA there were a few road closures because of the Emmy Awards so I kept driving looking for some new shots and the freeway onramp. Came across this industrial area with the tracks and the look of the city in the background hard to pass up. I look forward to going back at sunrise to see what this looks like with the city lights and a little bluer skies.
Hey who knows just looking for something cool!
I've always told myself that I wouldn't put a lot of time into a photo I really didn't think was worth it. Well that rule was broken on this. I liked the scene but with all the different processing I tried it really wasn't coming out to my liking. HDR, NIk Color, Topaz adjust, some desaturation and finally some textures to give some color I was looking for. Used the warp tool to bend the tracks in the foreground to enhance the POV. Turned out ok, like I stated earlier, better sky in the morning with city lights and better colors could make this scene better we will wait and see until then this will have to do.
Good enough to post? Let me know.
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Wrong Way Home
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Money Shot
Hmmm, so why the money shot title? Anyone who shoots LA, shoots this shot it is the must have. It is like shooting a baseball game, you get the money shots first. Pitcher pitching, hitter hitting, runner leading off of first, you know the easy shots. Once you get those you can move on to the cool shots, someone stealing 2nd, a play at home. But first you get the money shots.
I have been going out to LA to shoot for a few weeks now and I have always wanted to get this shot but yes I have avoided it because everyone else has gotten this shot or some type of shot like this. Today was my day to capture this and then I decided to process it a little different to try to make mine stand out amongst the rest. Yeah right!
Did a lot of driving around in circles with a lot of the streets closed off because of movie shooting and the Emmy's being down there. So when in doubt...get the money shot!
This was fun to take and with the processing you really can't tell if this is sunrise or sunset, any guesses?
This is an HDR with the processing done in Photomatix and then my usual processing in CS5 and finally mono conversion with tinting in Silver Efex Pro 2.0.
I have been going out to LA to shoot for a few weeks now and I have always wanted to get this shot but yes I have avoided it because everyone else has gotten this shot or some type of shot like this. Today was my day to capture this and then I decided to process it a little different to try to make mine stand out amongst the rest. Yeah right!
Did a lot of driving around in circles with a lot of the streets closed off because of movie shooting and the Emmy's being down there. So when in doubt...get the money shot!
This was fun to take and with the processing you really can't tell if this is sunrise or sunset, any guesses?
This is an HDR with the processing done in Photomatix and then my usual processing in CS5 and finally mono conversion with tinting in Silver Efex Pro 2.0.
The Shot:
>Standard 3 Shot HDR +1, 0, -1, ISO 400, F/13, 24-105L @28mm, Tripod and cable shutter release.
Post Processing:
>ACR
>Removed All Sharpening, Removed Black, Added Noise Reduction, Removed Chromatic Abberration
>Saved as Tiffs
Photomatix:
>Detail Enhancer
>Strength 100%
>Color Saturation 72%
>Smoothing (Slider @8.0)
>Luminosity 0.00
>White Point 1.124
>Black Point 1.055
>Microsmoothing 2.0
>Microcontrast 4.9
>Saved as 16 Bit Tiff
Post Processing CS-5
>Topaz Adjust-Color and Detail Enhancement
>Topaz InFocus-Global Sharpening
>Topaz Denoise-Sky only
>Color efex Pro 3.0
>Pro Contrast (Lowered Opacity 61%)
>Tonal Contrast (Everything but sky Lowered Opacity to 61%)
>Copy and pasted in -1 exposure-Masked and Gradient tool used to bring down brightness in freeway
>Decided to go black and white
>Nik Silver Efex Pro 2.0
>Preset High Structure Smooth
>Color Filter Green
>Blue Toner 9
>Cloning to remove dust and spots
>High pass sharpening
>Cropped, Framed and Sized for posting
Friday, September 16, 2011
The City Below
I worked on this last night and then re-cropped it before posting this morning. Posted it and ran out of the house to work before running up a description.
2 Weeks ago up at the Griffith park Observatory this was my first shot of the morning before the sun came up. Obviously a tripod was needed to get this exposure but later found out that tripods were not allowed. Anyway I guess what they don't see is a good thing.
This is such a great place to shoot from and I look forward to going back which may be this weekend depending on what Sunday Morning brings. I will start out in LA and move from there.
2 Weeks ago up at the Griffith park Observatory this was my first shot of the morning before the sun came up. Obviously a tripod was needed to get this exposure but later found out that tripods were not allowed. Anyway I guess what they don't see is a good thing.
This is such a great place to shoot from and I look forward to going back which may be this weekend depending on what Sunday Morning brings. I will start out in LA and move from there.
The Shot:
Single Exposure-F/14, ISO 400, 3.2 seconds, -1 EV, Tripod Mounted with cable release, 1ds Mark II, 24-105L @35mm
Post Processing:
>Raw-Fill light, Vibrance Slider, opened in CS5 as 16bit tiff
CS-5:
>Masked in HDR photo for Observatory brightness and fill in shadows
>Nik Color Efex Pro 3.0
>Pro Contrast-remove color cast in sky cityscape
>Tonal Contrast-masked and used for clouds, city and Observatory
>Adjustment Layer Hue/Sat-Global saturation and then masked just for city lights
>Free Transform tool-Stretch photo for better cropping
>Cropped photo for better composition
>High pass sharpening
>Framed and Sized for posting
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Heaven's Light
So you already know that this is not the way the shot came out of the camera. With a white balance set in the camera to shadow, this came out of the camera very warm, ok Orange!! I really liked all the sunrays and layers of light and shadows from front to back with the fog/smog setting in at sunrise over the LA basin. What took the longest to decide was the duotone hue to use. As you can see I settled for a Yellow sky and blue foreground to go up against the silhouettes of hills . Something different and not really a lot of post processing.
The Shot:
Single Exposure-F/14, ISO 400, 1/1000, -1 EV, Hand Held 1ds Mark II, 70-200L @135mm
Post Processing:
>Raw-Recovery slider, Vibrance Slider, opened in CS5 as 16bit tiff
CS-5:
>Cropped photo for best composition
>Adjustment Layer Curves-Global Contrast
>Adjustment Layer Hue/Sat-Changed Orange for Blue Tone
>Adjustment Layer Hue/Sat-Changed Blue for Yellow tone/Masked and used Gradient tool for duotone effect
>Adjustment Layer Curves-increase contrast in Sunrays
>Adjustment Layer-Levels-increase black in foreground hills for better silhouette effect and a tad more overall contrast
>Topaz Denoise-Overall to really soften global look
>Framed and Sized for posting
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Sunrise 2011
2nd sunrise from last Sunday Morning. Like I previously stated the sunrise was spectacular and once I caught just a glimpse of it I knew to sit and watch it would make the for the start of a beautiful day. Sunrays, clouds, colors, layers of mountains, really not a morning I thought I would catch in Southern California over LA. But hey what can I say "God is Good!"
Laserium
So how many of you stay up until 1-2am working on photo's? I am sure more than just a few of you. Well here I am the rest of the house has gone to bed hours ago and I have been going through photo's deleting most working on a few. This is the one I decided to focus my energy on tonight.
Griffith Park Observatory/Laserium. Maybe you are asking yourself what is Laserium? Well when I was a teenager we would go up to the GPO and sit in one of the domes, they had these head rests on the back of the seats that you laid your head in to look up and they would play rock & roll to a laser show on the inside of the dome. Pink Floyd was one of the favorites..."Dark Side of the Moon". What a blast!! Anyway, I almost didn't post this until tomorrow but in reality it is already tomorrow.
Griffith Park Observatory/Laserium. Maybe you are asking yourself what is Laserium? Well when I was a teenager we would go up to the GPO and sit in one of the domes, they had these head rests on the back of the seats that you laid your head in to look up and they would play rock & roll to a laser show on the inside of the dome. Pink Floyd was one of the favorites..."Dark Side of the Moon". What a blast!! Anyway, I almost didn't post this until tomorrow but in reality it is already tomorrow.
The Shot:
>Standard 5 Shot HDR +2, +1, 0, -1, -2, ISO 100, F/14, Sigma 10-20mm @11mm, Tripod and cable shutter release, security guard speeding toward me to tell me "no tripods" finished shot just in time.
Post Processing:
>ACR
>Removed All Sharpening, Removed Black, Added Noise Reduction, Removed Chromatic Abberration
>Saved as Tiffs
Photomatix:
>Detail Enhancer
>Strength 70%
>Color Saturation 91%
>Smoothing (Slider @1.0)
>Luminosity 0.00
>White Point 1.195
>Black Point 0.808
>Microsmoothing 10.0
>Microcontrast 2.0
>Saved as 16 Bit Tiff
Post Processing CS-5
>Topaz Adjust-Color and Detail Enhancement
>Topaz InFocus-Global Sharpening
>Topaz Denoise-Sky only
>Color efex Pro 3.0
>Pro Contrast (Lowered Opacity 61%)
>Tonal Contrast (Everything but sky Lowered Opacity to 61%)
>Adjustment Layer-Curves-overall contrast
>Adjustment Layer-Color Filter-Cool filter for blue in sky only
>Adjustment Layer-Curves-Masked for building only and increased brightness
>Adjustment Layer-Hue/Sat-increase green in grass
>Magic Wand selection tool
>Grass selected
>Free Transform Tool-Stretched out grass to hide sidewalk with oil and skid stains
>Cloning to remove dust and spots
>High pass sharpening
>Cropped, Framed and Sized for posting
Monday, September 5, 2011
Stormy Sunrise
I have never been sorry to be up and shoot a sunrise whether I have gotten a shot or not. They are all beautiful. This morning was not exception. After shooting from the back side of the Observatory pre-sunrise I headed back to the car. The sun was starting to stretch over the horizon so in the parking lot I set up for a series of shots with the sun coming over the horizon and then moving through the clouds. This was one of the more pleasant shooting times I have had because where I was shooting from seemed perfect for the sunrise. So after setting up the tripod, I sat and watched the beauty unfold before me.
Another lesson learned for me...never leave an area early, look around from your initial intent. After shooting the Observatory, being told by a security guard that tripods are not allowed I could have easily been discouraged and walked to my car and went home, but instead I decided to keep looking while walking and like I said the sunrise was beautiful!
The Shot:
Single Exposure-F/14, ISO 100, 1/100, -1 EV, Tripod Mounted 30D, 24-105L @24mm
Post Processing:
>Raw-Recovery slider, Vibrance Slider, opened in CS5 as 16bit tiff
CS-5:
>Adjustment Layer Curves-Global Contrast
>Adjustment Layer Levels-Retrieve blue in the sky
>Adjustment Layer Hue/Sat-Slight desaturation of yellows and Oranges in sunrise
>Adjustment Layer Curves-increase contrast in Sunrays
>No Cropping just sized, framed and minimized for posting
Another lesson learned for me...never leave an area early, look around from your initial intent. After shooting the Observatory, being told by a security guard that tripods are not allowed I could have easily been discouraged and walked to my car and went home, but instead I decided to keep looking while walking and like I said the sunrise was beautiful!
The Shot:
Single Exposure-F/14, ISO 100, 1/100, -1 EV, Tripod Mounted 30D, 24-105L @24mm
Post Processing:
>Raw-Recovery slider, Vibrance Slider, opened in CS5 as 16bit tiff
CS-5:
>Adjustment Layer Curves-Global Contrast
>Adjustment Layer Levels-Retrieve blue in the sky
>Adjustment Layer Hue/Sat-Slight desaturation of yellows and Oranges in sunrise
>Adjustment Layer Curves-increase contrast in Sunrays
>No Cropping just sized, framed and minimized for posting
Sunday, September 4, 2011
Camelot
This shot started out in Hollywood early in the morning. I drove around Hollywood at 0-Dark-30 didn't really see anything that caught my eye so I headed on up to The Observatory in Griffith Park. I arrived just before sunrise and walked out to the back side of the Observatory that over looks LA. I have seen many shots captured from all around this area so I hoped to capture something different. Had to work around a few things to get the shot, there was a big plastic trash can right in the middle of this scene, glad it wasn't nailed or bolted down so I moved it out of the way. There was a young couple just to the left of this mack'n away so I needed to compose around them as well with my date Canon.
During post processing the photo came around feeling more like someone in a castle looking over there kingdom...wala title.
Thanks for stopping by and taking a look, leave a comment!!
During post processing the photo came around feeling more like someone in a castle looking over there kingdom...wala title.
Thanks for stopping by and taking a look, leave a comment!!
The Shot:
>Standard 6 Shot HDR +2, +1, 0, -1, -2, -3 ISO 400, F/14, 24-105L @28mm, Tripod and cable shutter release
Post Processing:
>ACR
>Removed All Sharpening, Removed Black, Added Noise Reduction, Removed Chromatic Abberration
>Saved as Tiffs
Photomatix:
>Detail Enhancer
>Strength 91%
>Color Saturation 89%
>Smoothing (Medium)
>Luminosity 6.00
>White Point 4.856
>Black Point 1.884
>Microsmoothing 2.0 (Default)
>Microcontrast 8.0
>Saved as 16 Bit Tiff
Post Processing CS-5
>Masked in -1 EV to remove halos in sky from Photomatix.
>Topaz Adjust-Color and Detail Enhancement
>Topaz InFocus-Global Sharpening
>Topaz Denoise-Sky only
>Color efex Pro 3.0
>Pro Contrast (Lowered Opacity 58%)
>Tonal Contrast (Everything but sky)
>Duplex-Lowered opacity and only applied to wall and walkway
>Cloning to remove dust and spots
>High pass sharpening
>Cropped, Framed and Sized for posting
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