October 2012

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Photo of the Day

Part of the fun of being downtown last Friday was to see the many costumes that were on display. I liked this family that really went all out dressed as characters from the DC Comics universe. I am not really into comics, but I have seen the movies. Here the son dressed as the Joker looks back at his father. I had the title for the picture as soon as I took it.

Technical Data

For this shot I got a little lazy. I used one of Matt Kloskowski’s desaturated sports presets. I thought that it gave a feel to the picture that is in line with the newer Batman movies. The only other post processing done to the picture was to crop it down a bit. I was across the street, and I was not in a great position to get the shot. In the end though I got what I think is an interesting shot for sure.

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Photo of the Day

On Friday I was in downtown Lafayette to see the ZombAid walk down Main Street. I was trying to see where the walk started so I went to the end which is obvious right? I found the starting street, but also a great photo op. One of the volunteers was dressed up as Shaun from the movie Shaun of the Dead. When I saw him earlier I of course yelled a line from the movie to him. It was awkward later to ask directions. I did get a picture though for the Halloween theme though in the end. I liked the picture enough to add it to the Halloween countdown.

Technical Data

For this shot I had a couple of things working against me. It was a quick portrait while he was working out of the back of a semi trailer. The lighting was not ideal, but I think that I did a pretty good job capturing the image. The fog machine had just been started up, and you can see part of that fog in the lower left hand corner. That fog looked as if the shot was overexposed there so I had to crop in to get rid of it. This is a portion of photography that I was never that great at, but over time I am getting much better at the quick portrait in any type of lighting.

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Photo of the Day

I am still keeping to my theme of Halloween posts, but after seeing the devastation in Ocean City I felt that I needed an extra post today. When you hear about a hurricane for some reason you are concerned, but at the end of the day it doesn’t personally intrude on you so it becomes just another part of the news. Hurricane Sandy was becoming that very quickly for me. You can only watch weather people on a beach getting slammed with waves so many times before you become accustomed to it. Maybe even numb. This storm really hit home when I saw the pictures of the Ocean City Pier, and other parts of the town that had been destroyed by the hurricane. I spent a great week there this summer so the pictures kind of brought the destruction to my front door so to speak.

This is the pier that was destroyed, and it has a funny story that goes with the picture. When you are on the beach you don’t normally have everything that you need on you. In fact when I went for a walk shooting that day I didn’t take a lot with me other than my camera. When I came to the middle of the pier I saw the yellow sign that you can see ahead that said that you needed to pay fifty cents to pass through. Of course I did not have any money on me so I had to just settle for the picture that you see above. It is kind of humbling to be a man in his mid thirties that can’t even pay the fifty cent toll to walk through the building. The next day I was sure to grab my wallet before leaving, and I was able to pass through. This is not the greatest technical picture in the world, but it has a great meaning to me.

Technical Data

This picture was actually shot from over the railing without looking through the viewfinder. I am normally very good at this, but for some reason my skills failed me here. It took a good crop and straighten to get the picture right. This picture probably would never have seen the light of day if not for the hurricane taking part of the pier down. It was really meant for just my own purposes. Of course now I had to fix a picture with no clouds out over the ocean. It looks a bit flat, but you have to shoot in the conditions of the day. I had many thoughts of getting up early to get this pier during the sunrise, but I never got up early enough to make the drive to the beach. Maybe I will get the rebuilt bridge next year.

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Photo of the Day

Today’s photo was taken last weekend at the zoo in Indianapolis during the Zoo Boo event they had. I liked the little displays they had all over the empty spaces at the zoo. Most of them dealt with the Wizard of Oz exhibit that you have seen on here already, but this one dealt with pirates. I tried to take the subject that was somewhat interesting to me, and frame it in a way to make it a little more interesting. I don’t know if I did that exactly. What do you think?

Technical Data

For this photo I just adjusted the six sliders in Lightroom that I really use. The program has many sliders to pick from, but for the most part I can get a good result from just using six of the sliders. In some cases more will be used, but for me they can make the picture a bit unrealistic.

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Photo of the Day

Here is another shot from Friday night in downtown Lafayette. The Zombie Aid walk was in full stride, and I liked the look of a zombie pushing a shopping cart. I really am not a zombie aficionado, but I did stop to wonder what a zombie might shop for. I guess if the zombies have taken over he wouldn’t have to worry about paying so he could buy whatever he wanted. In any case I thought that this would be an interesting picture, and it would fit the current Halloween theme very well on here.

Technical Data

For this shot I walked a fine line between reality and fantasy. I wanted to punch up the colors a bit, but not to make it unrealistic. The camera cannot see what I see on the scene so it is up to the editing process to make up that gap. On a shot like this that can be a little challenge, but in the end I like this photo.

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Photo of the Day

From what I saw last night during the Zombie Aid walk in Lafayette you just give them more blood. Take this zombie here. He was having a good time, but the application of a bit more blood really made him happy. I went uptown yesterday to see some of the costumes during the trick or treat on Main Street, but I stayed to see the many zombies that would follow them down the at seven. The number really never showed, and it was only a handfull. That is too bad because it was for a good cause.

Technical Data

Most of what I tried to do to this picture made the subject look a lot less like a zombie. I had to make my adjustments very lightly in Lightroom so as to not make him look like an accident victim. So just subtle adjustments were made here.

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Photo of the Day

Here is another picture from the Zoo Boo last Sunday. I really liked the way that each department of the zoo incorporated the characters from the Wizard of Oz into their displays. I took a few pictures of those characters because they looked cool to me. I really never thought that I would be posting them on here let alone on back to back days. I really felt that they captured the spirit of Halloween though which is coming up.

Technical Data

After my success yesterday with a preset I decided to start with a preset here. I really did not find anything that I liked though so I decided to go on my own here. I wanted a warmer feel to the shot so I upped the temperature a bit. I also performed minor changes to exposure, clarity, contrast, highlights, and saturation. None of the changes were huge, but together they came together to form a decent picture.

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iPhone Photo of the Day

This photo was taken on the same night as last week’s photo. I was on my way to the Elliot Hall of Music to see the play Rock of Ages when I came across this scene. Two planes had left a trail that crossed right at the clock tower on campus. I didn’t have my camera with me as they were not allowed in the hall, but luckily my iPhone takes a pretty good picture. Thanks to that I could capture this scene.

Technical Data

I struggled a bit with this one. The dynamic range was very high on the scene, but the features built into my phone really could not give me any results that I liked. I thought that this weekly feature should be edited on my iPhone instead of Lightroom. I think that it would be a great way to feature some of the many apps on my phone that I have been meaning to talk about on here. I used the HDR feature in Camera+ to edit the shot, but even toned down a bit it really still looks a bit fake.

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Photo of the Day

Sunday we went to the Zoo Boo at the Indianapolis Zoo. It was a good time, and we had fun looking at all of the other costumes that were walking around the zoo. They also have a 4D showing of the Wizard of Oz so a lot of the decorating around the zoo had themes from the movie. When I saw this picture I knew what I had to do to it. It had everything that you think of when you think of fall all in one shot. I was happy when I got home to see that the picture came out pretty good. I think that for the next couple of days I will try and find posts with a Halloween theme to them. It is the season after all.

Technical Data

I had a version of this shot with my own settings that I liked, but I decided to see what I could get from some of the many presets that I have in Lightroom. I found one of Trey Ratcliff’s presets that I really liked. It was called fade into red, and I think that it made a decent picture much more interesting. The preset made the harsh noon sun look like it was the golden hour. It really seemed to work for me, and I am glad that I tried a few presets.