Long Exposure HDR

I was inspired by some of the images in my new book "High Dynamic Range" by Ferrell McCollough that were obviously shot after dark. As I was going to be out late, I thought that a detour by South Perth might be worth the effort.

I ended up on the foreshore just east of the South Perth jetty and set up my camera on my tripod.
Settings were RAW manual ISO 400 f=8.0 5 sec Lens Sigma 24-70 DG HSM. +/- 2 stops 1.3 sec and 20 sec

Post processing was done in Aperture using PhotoMatix HDR plug-in using Exposure fusion.

I was quite impressed with the final results.

So now I have to find some other locations. Think I will try East Perth on the freeway walking bridge.

While on the pursuit of HDR, I took a couple more sunset sky shots as I was feeling lazy and didn't want to go to far. Taken from out the front of my house.

 

The image above was made using Exposure Fusion. It is darker in the top third middle which I could not get to go away without washing out the rest of the image - one of the problems of HDR that I am yet to learn how to solve. 

The above image was from a different set of images of the same sky. I went a bit crazy with this one pushing up the red to give the impression of fire. This time I left it on the "Details Enhancer" option
Strength = 100, Color Saturation=100, Luminosity=+5.9, Microcontrast=+7.9, low smoothing.

Well at least it is different :)

In the city after the rain

Today, it rained.

That meant there were clouds in the sky and as I was going to look at a photo exhibition in the city, that meant I should be able to get some sky shots of buildings and clouds. A shot I saw on Flickr the other day used a building near the Esplanade train station so that was my first objective. That shot was not that great so I tried a few around that location.

The first 4 images here are composite tone mapped images using Photomatix plug in with Aperture.

 

Anyway, you can see what i was trying to do. Buildings with glass, clouds, sky and reflections there of.

So I found my way to the gallery, looked at the b/w photos and headed back to the train station, 

Across the road from the gallery was this building.

As well as being a composite images, this has been adjusted by modifying the histogram - see below

 

The next shot is my favourite - this is not a composite - hand held 1/50 F2.8 ISO 800

 

The only post processing on this one was a crop and histogram adjustment

Just before arriving at the station, I managed to get this shot in. It was taken against the glass front of a darkened shop front. It only took two hand held shots to get one that worked for me.

No adjustment - as shot 1/20 f=2.8 ISO 800 hand held.

Over all, I thought it was a successful photo walk. Tomorrow night I return to the city, this time with my tripod!

The last two days

I was going to post last night but fell asleep!

I took my friend Peter on a detour to work where we went down to near the source of Abbey Brooke.

Of course I took a few shots there but the place is looking a bit low on the water side of  things. I was surprised to see the barrage near the artist house not holding back the water.

 

This is downstream from the barrage. The water level is quite low but still offers some great imagery and reflections. It's so amazing you can find locations like this so close to Perth CBD.

We walked a bit further to the main path and stopped at the bridge where I took this.

You might see a bit of a pattern here. They are both HDR tone mapped images - something I have been experimenting with for a while now.

When I arrived home last night, there were two mysterious packages (from my son as it turns out) that had two books - Complete guide to High Dynamic Range photography and Understanding close up photography.

So I have decided that for the rest of this month, I will concentrate on HDR - so much to learn!!

Here are a few from today - enjoy!

This is the freeway from an overpass near me. I like the grunge effect .. sometimes. In this case, it made the trip home more surrealist - much like how I feel when traveling to and from work with my music in my ears and the almost faceless bodies in the train next to me.

 I usually listen to the same music over and over again for quite a few weeks almost not noticing it .. strange!

This image is what I was after. I saw the clouds and hoped for an interesting sunset. I just love the blue in the sky capped by the orange tinge of the sun. I did blow out the sun on the horizon but it was worth it for the rest of the image.

B/W tone mapped

I just love it when I see other people that I follow on Flickr appear in magical places around the world with an amazing vista of photo oppotunities at their front door. I just don't see it here in Perth, especially as I live in one location and move to the location where I work by just a single train and bus ride.

So I have to put up with what I have got. That often means photographing the same thing over and over. I saw on TV the other night that there is this guy who has a huge library of photos taken on Bondi?? Beach NSW. He takes many a day and always every day. I need his inspiration. So when you see the world before my eyes repeating, you will know why. I don't think Perth has that huge diversity to make it work for me at least.

Anyway, here is my shot for today. It is a tone mapped composite image (HDR) of the remains an old car in Yallagonga Regional Park.

I choose B/W in the end as I wanted to explore how it would look and also be appreciated. I do have a colour version that I like but chose the B/W version to be different and to try to keep in touch with the age of the vehicle.

I wanted the "abandoned" look so I set in in a bush like setting but if you look hard, you will see the modern cars streaming along the road in the background.

Comments appreciated

Time to Start: Sunset Mullaloo

I'm here in my study quoffing a bit more red wine and asking myself "should I quit this once a day photo quest that I was going to stop January 1." Somehow I don't think I can!! I must be addicted or something!!

Why am I writing this now? I was inspired by the frank and honest summary by my friend Jo Sargeant "Down the rabbit hole - one year later" diary. (http://confessionsfromthebathtub.blogspot.com/2011/04/one-year-later.html)

So here is my photo for today - Mullaloo Beach -
I needed to get out of the house to be on my own for just a little while. So I went to the beach closest to my house and headed north.

There were a few other photogs there one of whom was a young girl writing names in the wash of the last wave and catching the sun reflection in the sand on the writing.

That reminded me of my goal and that was to get the red sun reflection in the sand. So I moved further up the beach and prostrated myself on the sand waiting for the next wave.
I now try to shoot on Manual (the method of all pure, great photogs) and my first two shots were well and truly undercooked. The next batch were over exposed to the point of no recovery. Once the sun actually set, my settings proved fine and with a little post processing, the result is shown above. ( http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikeleishman/5584531555/ )

My focus was on the water and sand in front of me and I really think this has worked well. I love the texture and tone/colour of the water as it comes towards me.

So what next. I will try to maintain my diary .. no guarantees.

And as for Jo (and Duncan) - I can only congratulate her for her honesty in her writing. I wish I could be as open. Maybe time will tell!

Introduction

Question that might be posed regarding a photographer and the photos taken.

Why am I doing this?
What does it matter?
Does anyone else care?
Does anyone else understand me?
Am I any good at this? And does it matter if I'm not?

I post a lot of my photos on Flickr and like to see comments and adulation. Sometime I think my photo is great and no one comments which disappoints me but then I say "I am doing this for me" Why do I care what other people think anyway.

Photos should tell a story and if the viewer does not understand the story, then I can't expect the viewer to understand why I took the photo and why I like it enough to make it public.

The intention of this blog is to tell the story of my photos. So here we go. I plan to post one photos a day from my collection and write it's story.

Comment if you desire!