Reworking One of My Favorite Photos

When I started this blog I was always on the lookout for a new subject. I had to make a photo a day for an entire year, and of course that meant that I always needed a subject. That year really opened my eyes though, and many of the photos that have followed since are because I still always have an eye out for a new subject. It was on one of those early days that I spotted this barn. I was headed out of town, but I knew that I would end up back there later in the week. I called the photo High School Pride because of the sign on the building. I would later find out that it was the barn of the Anthrop family who I had photographed before. I was only 56 days into my project at the time, but I was already learning that you had to take the great subjects as they came. This was an early success that I still like to this day.

The Reworking Process

Part of the joy or agony of a photographer is the fact that you are constantly learning something new. I really don’t like pull a George Lucas and constantly revisit old photos. This was one though that I knew that I had to do. The sky always bothered me a bit, and I knew that I could fix it with the skills that I now possess. I was still early in the editing process at this time. I was using HDR for everything, and the results were not always good. Here though I knew that I could make a photo look much better so why not? I took my three source files, and ran them through Photomatix again. Instead of using the program to make the final photo I took the 32 bit file that had all of the data of the three files, and sent it to Lightroom. Inside of Lightroom I used the sliders to get the final result that I was looking for. At the end of the day I feel that I made the photo better, and much closer to what I saw on that day. That is what it is all about. The dark forbidding clouds in the first photo just put out a vibe that I was not looking for.

More Sports on the Way

This may be the last post that does not revolve around sports for a while. Over the next week I will be covering a lot of sports for a few different teams. I was lucky enough to get a new client that has three games in the area this week. This coupled with the normal sports for me means that I will shoot sports each of the next six days. I will be traveling a bit as well so my posts may be a bit brief. In the end I will have some photos from some new venues which I really need. A portfolio with images all shot at the same school start to all look the same. I will shoot two games in the historic Hinkle Fieldhouse this week, and one at the newly renovated Purcell Pavilion at Notre Dame. It is an exciting time for me as I branch out a bit.