rows...

June, week one:
I was wandering around downtown and walking through the empty pavilion when I realized I hadn't taken any pictures of the rows of chairs. It took me several attempts to optimize the composition. This serves as one of my more abstract images of this project, however it is not a true abstract image.

The black and white conversion on this made me realize that my processing gives the bokeh a harsh appearance. While I could smooth this out in photoshop, I want to figure out on my own ways to balance things out. This will be especially important for black and white macro shots.

Image details:
Date and location: 6/10/7 at 18:11 EDT, Pavilion, downtown mall, Charlottesville Virginia
Equipment: Canon 30D, 17-85mm IS lens, Hoya SMC UV filter
Settings: 85mm, handheld with IS, ISO 100, f/5.6, 1/25 sec, shot in raw
Processing: cataloged in Aperture v1.5.3 -> export as .jpg to PSE-CS3 -> black and white (high contrast blue preset) -> resize -> USM (100%, 0.5, 0) -> border + text -> save as .jpg
Photo-a-week goals addressed: #1 (b+w), #12 (abstract)

falling...

May, week four:
There are multiple great waterfalls in the nearby Shenandoah National Park, which are great for both hiking and photography. I got my dSLR last year in the mid-summer, so by the time I got to visit some of these falls the water had started to wane. Today the falls were healthy, creating a great photographic subject. While the overall setting including the surrounding trees was beautiful, I liked this picture a lot because it focused on the shapes created by the water as it fell. I've lived near trees all of my life, but the falls are new.

For the conversion, I tried the "infrared" preset in PSE-CS3. I liked the detail it brought out in the rocks and trees while still keeping the water as the focus. I need to learn more about these new b+w conversion parameters to see why the "infrared" present gives this appearance.

After a slow start to the month, due largely to a hard drive crash and not helped by working nights for a little while, i've made four contributions to this blog. Hopefully my June contributions will not be as irregular.

Image details:
Date and location: 5/28/7 at 14:11 EDT, Doyles river falls (upper falls), Shenandoah NP, Virginia
Equipment: Canon 30D, 17-85mm IS lens, Hoya SMC UV filter
Settings: 85mm, tripod, ISO 100, f/32.0, 1.0 sec, shot in raw
Processing: cataloged in Aperture v1.5.3 -> export as .jpg to PSE-CS3 -> black and white (infrared preset) -> resize -> USM (100%, 0.5, 0) -> border + text -> save as .jpg
Photo-a-week goals addressed: #1 (b+w), #3 (vertical orientation), #6 (extended exposure)

bull...

May, week three:
While driving around the local countryside I noticed some longhorn cattle. Since this is Virginia, it caught my attention. I quick snapped a few shots, although I was really wishing for a longer lens that would allow me a close-up portrait.

Here I tried fiddling with the complex black and white conversion parameters in PSE-CS3. I don't know if I made the best choices, but it was a good learning experience. I'm a little fascinated with assymetric borders at the moment, as you may notice. I think I need to add "rural" as another goal for my project. Otherwise, the only thing this picture fits is wildlife. Sort of fits landscape, too.

Image details:
Date and location: 5/26/7 at 15:41 EDT, Hwy 22 outside Charlottesville, VA
Equipment: Canon 30D, 17-85mm IS lens, Hoya SMC UV filter
Settings: 83mm, handheld with IS, ISO 100, f/8.0, 1/200 sec, shot in raw
Processing: cataloged in Aperture v1.5.3 -> export as .jpg to PSE-CS3 -> black and white (100, 0, 40, 110, 110, 110) -> levels (20, 1.15, 255) -> contrast +10 -> crop -> resize -> USM (150%, 0.5, 0) -> border + text -> save as .jpg
Photo-a-week goals addressed: #1 (b+w), #17 (wildlife), #18 (rural)

wedge...

May, week two:
I was in NYC for my nephew's fourth birthday party. On my way back, I drove through the city a little bit to try and get a few pics. The Flatiron building was one of several stops I made. While it is an often-photographed building, that doesn't mean I shouldn't have my version of it.

This is one of the first photographs I've processed using Photoshop Extended CS3. I downloaded a 30 day trial, and so far I like it. I had heard a lot from people about the black and white conversion process, and I haven't yet had the chance to play around with it sufficiently. For this, I used one of the pre-sets (high contrast red filter). After adjusting brightness and contrast, I applied a little bit more sharpening than usual and went with an asymmetric border. I put the website address in the bottom-left instead of the bottom right because I didn't want to obscure the view down fifth avenue. It's a cliche photograph, but I like it.

Image details:
Date and location: 5/20/7 at 17:02 EDT, Manhattan
Equipment: Canon 30D, 17-85mm IS lens, Hoya SMC UV filter
Settings: 20mm, handheld with IS, ISO 100, f/10.0, 1/200 sec, shot in raw
Processing: cataloged in Aperture v1.5.3 -> export as .jpg to PSE-CS3 -> black and white (high contrast red preset) -> brightness +10/contrast +10 -> resize -> crop -> USM (200%, 0.5, 0) -> border + text -> save as .jpg
Photo-a-week goals addressed: #1 (b+w), #3 (vertical orientation), #11 (architecture), #16 (street photography)

brookie...

May, week one:
This beautiful brook trout is the first fish that I caught with my new fly rod. It is a native brook trout (not stocked by the state), and had amazing colors. This is a reasonable followup to my previous blog entry, although photographically it is not the greatest shot. However, keep in mind how hard it is to get this shot! It would have been nice to have my 30d with me, with a circular polarizing filter, but since my 630 ended up sliding off some rocks into the water while i was carefully removing the fly from the fish, I think it's better that the dSLR stayed at home. The fish was then released, and swam back to his little feeding hole (catch-and-release with gentle handling and barbless hooks are important to preserving this beautiful fish).

The processing was simple, but it was also delayed (May is now almost over). It got delayed because the day before this shot the hard drive on my laptop crashed. Then, I had to start working nights for a little while. Once I finished with my night shifts, I focused my time on resurrecting my hard drive and reconstructing all of the data from various backups. I've also since purchased several additional external hard drives and have set up a comprehensive backup schedule. I also use Mozy for online backups, and I strongly recommend this service (free 2GB backups) to everyone. Public service message: don't forget to backup!

Image details:
Date and location: 5/4/7 at 14:45 EDT, Rapidan River, Shenandoah NP, Virginia
Equipment: Canon SD630, handheld
Settings: 10.09mm, f/3.5, 1/100 sec
Processing: cataloged in Aperture v1.5.3 -> monochrome mixer (20, 80, 0, 0) -> contrast +50 -> resize -> USM (150%, 0.5, 0) -> border + text
Photo-a-week goals addressed: #1 (b+w), #17 (wildlife)

angler...

April, week four:
A little change of pace from previous entries. FIrst, I didn't take the picture (my fly fishing instructor did). Second, it's with my point-and-shoot (I didn't want my 30D going for a swim). And third, I hate the composition... but, I love the subject, a feisty little rainbow trout that I caught just as I was getting ready to finish up for the day. Shortly after this picture, I went home smiling and the fishie swam back to the part of the stream I found him in. I was doing an Orvis fly fishing school, coordinated by the Albemarle Angler here in Charlottesville, and it was one of the most fun days I've had in a while. Even though I got some better pictures that day out on that farm when I was wandering around with my dSLR, I thought I'd use this picture since fly fishing is all I've been able to think about for the last week or so :-)

For the processing... simple black and white conversion, resize, sharpen, and that's about it. I know it's a stretch to list this as addressing the portrait and wildlife goals, but otherwise all it accomplished was vertical orientation. Anyways, hopefully I'll get some better nature photos on some fly fishing outings in the near future.

Image details:
Date and location: 4/28/7 at 17:14 EDT, Rose River Farm, Madison, VA
Equipment: Canon SD630, handheld (by fly fishing instructor)
Settings: 5.8mm, f/2.8, 1/100 sec
Processing: cataloged in Aperture v1.5.3 -> monochrome mixer (30, 30, 40, 0) -> resize -> USM (125%, 0.5, 0) -> border + text
Photo-a-week goals addressed: #1 (b+w), #2 (portraits), #3 (vertical orientation), #17 (wildlife)

tossed around...

April, week three:
I was wandering around earlier tonight with my camera and ran across a group of people juggling. i asked if i could take their picture, and they humored me... and, performed for me! they were really good, and seemed like fun people. i may try and join them sometime and work on improving my juggling skills. in this shot, three guys are passing nine juggling pins around, with the guy in the middle passing them behind him! the girl in the picture was watching in this shot, but was pretty good at juggling also.

the processing was fairly straightforward for this... i'm not that good at taking photos of people (i think the only other shot with a person in it for this project is my nephew, who was an easy subject since he couldn't crawl away fast enough to escape my camera). i feel somewhat comfortable taking action shots, because i did a lot of sports photography in high school, but this reminds me i need to work on my portrait skills. i just need to find someone to take a picture of.

Image details:
Date and location: 4/24/7 at 19:38 EDT, UVA campus, Charlottesville, VA
Equipment: Canon 30D, 17-85mm IS lens, Hoya SMC UV filter
Settings: 17mm, handheld with IS, ISO 400, f/5.6, 1/60 sec, shot in raw
Processing: cataloged in Aperture v1.5.3 -> export as .jpg to PS7 -> monochrome mixer (20, 40, 40, 0) -> contrast (+15) -> crop -> resize -> USM (150%, 0.5, 0) -> border + text -> save as .jpg
Photo-a-week goals addressed: #1 (b+w), #9 (action), #16 (street photography)

dendritic...

April, week two:
There was a thunderstorm that started less than an hour after the "night photography" challenge started on DPChallenge. I went on to my balcony and tried to start taking some shots. It was hard to time it right, and out of a few dozen images only two or three turned out decent. This is my favorite. I learned a lot about timing lightning strikes, and am looking forward to future opportunities. Unfortunately, since I was in my apartment complex, the lights in the parking lot didn't allow the dark background that I needed to do very long exposures and still have decent contrast. The longest exposure I could get in this setting without the background looking too bright was about 2 seconds... so, most images had no lightning. Here's one that showed some of the nice dendritic branching that I was hoping to capture. I wish there were more lightning storms around here.

For the processing, after a simple b+w conversion I adjusted the levels to darken the sky a little. Resizing, sharpening, and then I went with the asymmetric (top/bottom) border again... this time to compensate for the wide crop ratio that I was forced to use.

Image details:
Date and location: 4/4/7 at 01:01 EDT, my balcony, Charlottesville, VA
Equipment: Canon 30D, 17-85mm IS lens, Hoya SMC UV filter
Settings: 17mm, tripod, ISO 100, f/4.0, 2.0 sec, shot in raw
Processing: cataloged in Aperture v1.5.2 -> export as tif to PS7 -> monochrome mixer (0, 100, 0, 0), -> crop -> levels (0-222) -> resize -> USM (300%, 0.5, 0) -> border + text ->save as .jpg
Photo-a-week goals addressed: #1 (b+w), #6 (extended exposure), #7 (night photography), #10 (landscapes)

streak of light...

April, week one:
There's a great little crêperie in downtown Charlottesville, in a tiny little brick building. You just walk up to the little window, get your food, and eat it on the patio out front. Unfortunately they are closed on Monday's so I couldn't get a crêpe but i was able to get some cool pictures. Making use of my handy-dandy tripod, I was able to get some extended-exposure shots with cars driving by leaving streaks of their lights. A trick I learned is that you often get a better effect if you can time it so that you only have cars driving away from you... the red tail-lights don't over-expose as easily as headlights do, and you get the added advantage of their headlights illuminating some of the subject. That worked well here. This image addresses a large number of my goals for this project... more than any other single image to date (although admittedly "action" is questionable).

The black and white conversion process wasn't very complicated, although because of the detail I wanted in the bricks I did a little bit more sharpening after resizing than I normally do (USM with 200% instead of 150%, still at 0.5 pixels). Also, since the image was slightly under-exposed, the total percentage for the various channels in channel mixer added up to 110%, followed by a slight boost to brightness and contrast. Doing this in post-processing, as opposed to getting full exposure with the original image, kept the street-lamps from being too blown-out. Lastly, I toyed around with an asymmetric border... I hadn't ever tried this before, but I really like the way it turned out. I need to experiment with this more to try and maximize the impact the borders can have.

Image details:
Date and location: 4/2/7 at 20:47 EDT, downtown, Charlottesville, VA
Equipment: Canon 30D, 17-85mm IS lens, Hoya SMC UV filter
Settings: 28mm, tripod, ISO 100, f/4.5, 5.0 sec, (pattern metering ; - 1.0 EV) shot in raw
Processing: raw conversion in Aperture v1.5.2, export as .jpg -> photoshop -> USM (200%, 0.5, 0) -> monochrome channel mixer (50, 50, 10, 0) -> crop -> resize -> USM (200%, 0.5, 0) -> brightness +10 & contrast +20 -> border + text -> save for web
Photo-a-week goals addressed: #1 (b+w), #6 (extended exposure), #7 (night photography), #9 (action), #11 (architecture), #16 (street photography)

luna...

March, week four:
I was able to borrow a telescope from my friend James, and after a bit of fiddling got my camera hooked up. It was a clear night out and there was a great view of the moon. I had first tried this setup two days previously with some decent preliminary results, although I think the images were slightly overexposed (at 1/50 sec!). I think it was Ansel Adams who reminded people that the moon is a sun-lit subject, so I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when it came out better with 1/125 exposure. Seems strange to be using such fast shutter speeds in the middle of the night, but it's hard to argue with the results.

My biggest problem was probably focus, since I'm not used to manual focus, and I was pretty much laying on my back looking at an angle, propping myself up with one hand and adjusting the focus with the other. This was complicated by having to chase the moon, which at this stage (waxing gibbous at approximately 90% full) could barely fit in the field of view. That meant that if everything was aligned perfectly, I would have about 5 seconds of the moon passing through where I could image it in its entirety. What I did was move the telescope to where the moon was half-in the image and then focus. Once it was about to be in the image completely, I took several shots until it had passed through. Then I checked the exposure and focus on the camera's LCD, and started over. Each time I think the focus got slightly better. After two or three of these passes, I loaded the images onto my computer to evaluate more carefully, and then try a couple more sets. An experience like this this helped me realize the real benefits of tethered shooting, not to mention the live-view feature that is available on the Canon 1D-Mark III and the EOS 20Da.

Overall, I'm very excited by the results (although admittedly the black-and-white conversion process wasn't very complicated for this image). After playing around with lunar shots some more, I'm gonna try some planetary imaging, followed by (hopefully) some stars and neublae (however those may be better in color :-)

Image details:
Date and location: 3/30/7 at 01:41 EDT, my balcony, Charlottesville, VA
Equipment: Canon 30D, Celestron NexStar 6" Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope (f/10.0, approx 1500mm), Celestron T-adapter, T-Mount for Canon EOS
Settings: manual focus, telescope on tripod, shutter release, ISO 100, 1/125 sec, shot in raw
Processing: raw conversion in Aperture v1.5.2 -> export as .jpg -> USM (200%, 3.0, 0) -> resize -> USM (200%, 0.5, 0) -> channel mixer monochrome (0, 0, 100%, 0) -> crop -> text -> save for web 100%
Photo-a-week goals addressed: #1 (b+w), #7 (night photography), #8 (astrophotography)

tracks...

March, week three:
I was wandering around and came across this old railroad bridge. I hadn't realized it was so easy to walk to... i just had to park on the side of the railroad tracks and wander over here. I had tried a couple wide angle shots from a very low perspective (on the tracks), but the autofocus captured the railroad ties and not the far distance like I had wanted. It was an oversight on my part, and will require a reshoot because otherwise it would have been a cool picture. When I go back I'm also interested in getting some shots on the bridge. Maybe I'll be able to time it so that a train is coming.

The conversion wasn't anything special, however I did clone a spot of sensor dust using photoshop. While this is minimal post-processing, I normally do not do any adjustments that are not applied to the entire image.

Image details:
Date and location: 3/11/7 at 12:49 EST, Charlottesville, VA
Equipment: Canon 30D, 17-85mm IS lens, Hoya SMC UV filter
Settings: 17mm, handheld with IS, ISO 100, f/10.0, 1/200 sec, shot in raw
Processing: raw conversion in Aperture v1.5.2, export as jpg to ps -> clone spot of sensor dust -> USM (150, 0.5, 0) -> monochrome mixer (100, 0, 0, 0) -> contrast +20 -> resize -> USM (100, 0.5, 0) 0> border + text -> save as .jpg
Photo-a-week goals addressed: #1 (b+w), #11 (architecture), #15 (nostalgia)

gliding...

March, week two:
Another image from my trip to Seattle... Here is a picture of one of the birds that was flying right next to us as we rode the ferry from Bainbridge Island back to Seattle. The original image was slightly washed out, so I had to downplay the blue channel during black-and-white conversion to regain some contrast between the sky and the clouds. Otherwise, I didn't use any new technique for the monochrome conversion. I'm happy with the detail, which was aided by the bird flying so close to us. It was gliding so peacefully...

Image details:
Date and location: 3/5/7 at 16:03 PST, Bainbridge Island Ferry, Puget Sound, WA
Equipment: Canon 30D, 17-85mm IS lens, Hoya SMC UV filter
Settings: 85mm, handheld with IS, ISO 100, f/10.0, 1/320 sec, shot in raw
Processing: raw conversion in Aperture v1.5.2 -> export as jpg to PS7 -> USM (150, 0.5, 0) -> crop -> resize -> USM (100, 0.5, 0) -> channel mixer monochrome (100, 100, -100, 0) -> watermark/border -> save for web
Photo-a-week goals addressed: #1 (b+w), #9 (action), #17 (wildlife)

produce stand...

March, week 1:
I went to seattle and had the chance to wander around Pike's market. Fortunately it was a sunny day, and the outdoor produce stands had a stunningly brilliant color that I did not expect out of the normally rather grey city. The color version of this image turned out fairly well (even though I forgot to switch the ISO, which I kept at the 400 I was using inside... I prefer 100 when possible). The color image was fairly easy to produce (no pun intended), given the colorful subject matter and excellent lighting.

The difficulty here was in the greyscale conversion with the channel mixer. If you look at images with just the red, green, and blue channels, you get very different looking images. In particular, all of the fruits and veggies looked black on the blue channel. While it was easy playing around with the channel to make an image that was visually appealing, I thought it was also important to have the different produce items somewhat recognizable. While a high contrast black lemon may look cool, it wouldn't really look like a lemon. After adjusting in multiple ways, I determined that for this subject matter the green channel seemed to contain detail, red channel brightness, and blue channel contrast/darkness. I ended up choosing a green-dominant balance (50%), with some red to maintain brightness (25%), and just enough of the blue channel to give it a contrasty black-and-white feel.

Overall the trip to Seattle was great, and i will likely be posting some more pics from my explorations. For this image I added another category of my photo-a-week goals, street photography, which this seems to fit very well. I also posted the color version of this image, which I may start doing more regularly.

Image details:
Date and location: 3/1/7 at 14:56 PST, Pike's market, Seattle, WA
Equipment: Canon 30D, 17-85mm IS lens, Hoya SMC UV filter
Settings: 41mm, handheld with IS, ISO 400, f/14, 1/400 sec, shot in raw
Processing: cataloged in Aperture v1.5.2, export as 16 bit tiff, to photoshop, USM (150, 1.0, 0) -> monochrome (channel mixer 25, 50, 15) -> resize -> USM (100, 1.0, 0) -> border -> save for web
Photo-a-week goals addressed: #1 (b+w), #16 (street photography)
color version

dirty caterpillar...

February, week four:
A significantly different photo from last week... I will admit that I was a little desperate for a submission since today is the last day of february. I took this at the construction site next to where I am working tonight. Once completed, this building will house the University of Virginia Department of Radiology research space. I like the depth of field effect on the fence (I also took a companion photo focused on the fence, with the construction equipment out of focus). Until now, I had addressed 8 of the 15 stated goals for my project (several of them more than once, of course), and thought this may be a good way to address "industrial" (although it's not the first thing that comes to mind when I think of industrial photography). Hopefully by the end of March I will check off a few more from the list.

Something I did with this photo, which I recently figured out when reading photographer notes on dpchallenge.com (especially the very helpful info by scalvert), was to resize in the middle of processing. I realized that I was spending so much time trying to tweak the contrast and sharpness of a photo, and then just hit "save for web" and submitted. Only after thinking about it did the obvious become even more obvious... I need to spend my time working on the image that is being submitted, not just on the full resolution image! So, after some minor initial sharpening, I resized and did another round of sharpening, and the results really stood out. While I could have improved upon this image some more, the more important thing was the immediate understanding of why many of my images have appeared soft in their final form. For this image, the second sharpening really brought out the detail on the dirt...

I'm getting more comfortable with the channel mixer for black and white conversion, so I will need to start learning more about hue & saturation methods of converting. Then, hopefully within a few weeks, Photoshop CS3 will be out (I'm using a really old version right now, clearly not optimized for my macbook) and will play with its new features. But I want to learn the basics before I try and let a fancy piece of software take all the fun out of the process.

Image details:
Date and location: 2/28/7 at 17:10 EST, Charlottesville, VA
Equipment: Canon 30D, 17-85mm IS lens, Hoya SMC UV filter
Settings: 41mm, handheld with IS, ISO 100, f/8.0, 1/100 sec, shot in raw
Processing: raw conversion in Aperture v1.5.2, export as .jpg and load into photoshop 7, channel mixer/monochrome (50, 0, 35, -10), USM (150%, 1.0, 0) -> resize -> USM (100%, 1.0, 0) -> +10 contrast -> border, text, save
Photo-a-week goals addressed: #1 (b+w), #14 (industrial)

bug eyed...

February, week three:
I'm visiting my brother in Augusta where my parents are coming to celebrate their 40th anniversary. My visit, and that of my other brother, was a surprise to my parents. While waiting for my parents to arrive, I spent some time playing with my niece and nephew. Here my nephew is excited to have his picture taken... he is only 8 months old, but this morning he climbed out of his crib on his own for the first time. Looks like my sister-in-law and brother will have their hands full keeping track of him. I have taken nearly 150 pictures in less than a day here, and will likely take many more as the weekend goes on.

I don't have a lot of experience taking pictures of people, in particular in black and white, so i like how this turned out. I wish I had a faster lens so I wouldn't have to use a flash. The conversion on this was fairly straight forward, and I'm excited about how powerful Aperture is. I have about 12 days left in my trial, and will likely be purchasing the full version at that time.

Image details:
Date and location: 2/17/7 at 19:23 EST, my brother's house, Augusta, GA
Equipment: Canon 30D, 17-85mm IS lens, Hoya SMC UV filter
Settings: 22mm, handheld with IS, flash, ISO 100, f/4.0, 1/60 sec, shot in raw
Processing: raw conversion in Aperture v1.5.2, monochrome mixer (0, 100, 0), sharpen 1.0, brightness 0.25, contrast 0.10, to photoshop, resize to 768 pixels, border + text, save as .jpg
Photo-a-week goals addressed: #1 (b+w), #2 (portraits), #3 (vertical orientation)

stone wall...

February, week two:
While driving around on some country roads just at about sunset, i noticed that the light was nearly parallel to a stone bridge that led to Monticello. Even while driving I could see the amazing contrast that this offered, and I had to park on the side of the road and quickly get some pictures. Within just a few minutes the sun had shifted enough that there was no longer any light, but in that time I got some great shots that I really like.

I have completed my transition to Aperture for management of my library, and for this image actually chose to do all of the post-processing (other than the initial raw conversion) in photoshop (still on v7). While I like aperture, photoshop offers much more flexibility. In addition to regular sharpening, there is also USM (both sharpening features are more customizable). I liked the ability to sharpen both before and after resizing (which I guess could be done in Aperture, but not as easily). This is something I hadn't thought much about, but it makes sense that the resizing (in this case downsizing to 1024 pixels) will alter the sharpness and other image parameters. I need to start doing fine-tuning at the final output resolution.

This could have turned out a little better, with more intrinsic sharpness and contrast, if I had used a tripod, which I may do on a reshoot. Regardless, I am very happy with this image. There is a balance between creating crisp sharp images as opposed to harsh-appearing oversharpened images. While I think this would look better if more of the sharpness was natural and not created in photoshop, I have no complaints. Every week I suggest that if I went back I could take a better version of the image, and I plan on re-shooting nearly all of these images. I think this is a good demonstration of how post-processing can improve an image, but can only go so far in compensating for limitations in the initial capture. Hopefully I will better anticipate the things i need to do to improve the pictures, and maybe I will soon have images that i can enjoy without thinking about re-shooting.

Image details:
Date and location: 2/4/7 at 16:17 EST, Saunders Bridge at Monticello, Charlottesville, VA
Equipment: Canon 30D, 17-85mm IS lens, Hoya SMC UV filter
Settings: 70mm, handheld with IS, ISO 100, f/8.0, 1/125 sec, shot in raw
Processing: cataloged in Aperture v1.5.2, monochrome channel mixer in photoshop (10, 10, 100, 0), USM 200, 1.0, 0, resize to 1024 pixels, USM 100, 1.0, 0, +10 contrast, border + text, save as .jpg
Photo-a-week goals addressed: #1 (b+w), #12 (abstract)

coke wall...

February, week one:
I was walking downtown this afternoon with some friends and noticed this wall with a faded coca-cola advertisement. This fascinated me for several reasons. First, I love coke (although I switched to diet-coke a few years ago) and coke advertisements. More than anything, though, was that I had never noticed this despite walking past it dozens of times over the last year and a half. The afternoon lighting was on the opposite side of the street, but I like the way this turned out... especially since it was very faded to begin with.

Last week I made a switch to managing my photos in Aperture, which is much more powerful than iphoto. I'm not as familiar with aperture as I was with lightroom, so I wanted to play around with it some. While I had the option of doing the black and white conversion in photoshop, as I have been doing previously, I decided to make the adjustments in aperture. The controls aren't as flexible as photoshop, but I like the way this turned out. I had to use Imagewell, a simple but useful freeware program, to add the border and watermark. Hopefully I will learn how to do more functions directly within Aperture. Together with photoshop CS3 (should be out in a few months), I will hopefully have all the necessary tools to create some great images.

So my last few entries have been architectural in nature, along with a junk/nostalgic theme... I'll look to shake things up next week, as there are a bunch of my goals that I haven't addressed yet. Also, to avoid there being "week 28" entries, or other numbers like that, I've started numbering as "Month, week X." I will attempt to do 5 entries in at least four months, giving me 52 for the year.

Image details:
Date and location: 2/3/7 at 15:51 EST, Downtown Mall, Charlottesville, VA
Equipment: Canon 30D, 17-85mm IS lens, Hoya SMC UV filter
Settings: 17mm, handheld with IS, ISO 100, f/5.6, 1/60 sec, shot in raw
Processing: to monochrome in Aperture v1.5.2 (-20, 27, 100), sharpen 0.60, export as jpg and then border+watermark in Imagewell v3.0.1
Photo-a-week goals addressed: #1 (b+w), #11 (architecture), #15 (nostalgia)

dilapidated...

January, week four:
This image was taken only 13 minutes after my last entry, which was posted 13 days ago. I have been debating about how new an image has to be, and my goal will be to post weekly with a new image, however since the black and white conversion process can be its own creative effort, I may occasionally deviate from this and perform conversions (during this week) on previous images that I have taken which I would like to see in black and white. The last two weeks have been fairly hectic, so I'm excited to be getting back to this!

This house immediately caught my eye when I was driving around. Unfortunately, it was a fairly gray day out, but that was also rather fitting for this house which seemed to be starving for attention. The detail in the full resolution original did a good job showing the chipping paint, especially after I played around with USM sharpening in photoshop. I used similar black and white conversion parameters as I have done recently (primarily blue channel... it's my way to focus on my favorite color in this mostly monochromatic-themed effort). The contrast in the final output is not exactly what I was hoping for, and I may revisit this house in the future to bring out the textures and detail that are calling out to be seen.

Image details:
Date and location: 1/14/7 at 13:34 EST, Waynesboro, Virginia
Equipment: Canon 30D, 17-85mm IS lens, Hoya SMC UV filter
Settings: 38mm, Handheld with IS, ISO 100, f/8.0, 1/125 sec, shot in raw
Processing: raw to tiff in lightroom beta v4.1, then to PS7, crop, USM (250%, 1.0, 0), then b+w (channel mixer 10,-10,100,0%), saved at 50% resolution (to preserve most of the detail without it being too big)
Photo-a-week goals addressed: #1 (b+w), #11 (architecture), #13 (junk)

exposed skeleton...

January, week three:
This image was taken geographically between my two previous entries. Last week's shot was taken in Shenandoah National Park, and the first week was on the blue ridge parkway, just south of the park. This is of an abandoned hotel that overlooks Interstate 64 that is between the blue ridge parkway (which runs south from this point) and Shenandoah NP (which starts north of here). Between these two great examples of the beautiful Virginia outdoors is a set of old abandoned buildings which stick out like a sore thumb.

Since I was worried about the structural integrity, I didn't go inside, so I got these pictures while standing just outside. Since there was a low light situation, I considered grabbing my tripod or increasing the ISO. I was too lazy to grab my tripod (even thought the car was only 20 yards away), and I didn't want to introduce graininess with the high ISO, so I decided to try holding as still as possible and count on the IS. I think it turned out pretty good, but I plan to go back and use a tripod. I'm actually very happy with how this looks given it was hand-held at 1/13 (IS is awesome!).

After doing slight exposure adjustment in Lightroom, I switched over to photoshop for black and white conversion. I stuck with the channel mixer primarily focused on the blue channel data, with slight modifications. The sharpness is even better on the full resolution version, and I can't wait to reshoot this with a tripod. Maybe next time I'll poke my head inside if I have someone to go exploring with me (Chris... that means you! better get your XTi soon!)

Since the sagging support structures in the ceiling can be seen, i chose the name "exposed skeleton." this is another reference to the different type of digital images i look at as a radiologist.

(PS: No dad, this is NOT my new apartment :-)

Image details:
Date and location: 1/14/7 at 13:21 EST, Abandoned hotel in Afton, Virginia
Equipment: Canon 30D, 17-85mm IS lens, Hoya SMC UV filter
Settings: 28mm, Handheld with IS, ISO 100, f/4.5, 1/13 sec, shot in raw
Processing: +0.65 exposure, raw to tiff in lightroom beta v4.1, b+w in PS7 (channel mixer 5,5,100,-10%)
Photo-a-week goals addressed: #1 (b+w), #11 (architecture), #13 (junk)

black and white in blue...

January, week two:
I went for a hike last weekend along the whiteoak canyon trail in Shenandoah National Park. At the end of the hike (4.6 miles out and back, approximately 1200 foot elevation change) there was an amazing 86 foot high waterfall, the second highest in the park. It was a great day for a hike, and on the way back I took this photo from a footbridge about 200 yards upstream of the main falls.

While I really liked a lot of my images of the falls, I think this one looks better in black and white than one of the entire falls. I feel this way because I like the texture of the rocks, water, and trees that this provides, and these characteristics would have been lost on a distant view of a tall falls.

My camera was on a tripod placed on the middle of a small footbridge crossing over the stream (which as stated is shortly before it makes it's big drop). I used a polarizing filter, mostly because I wanted to extend the exposure to get maximum blurring of the moving water... this was necessary since I was stopped down all the way (f/32) and don't have any neutral density filters.

As for the conversion, processing shots for my first submission (fractured limb) was the first time i played with "channel mixer" in photoshop as a method of black and white conversion. I love the flexibility it offers, but I am still learning. Nearly everything I had been converting started at something like 100% red, 40 to 50% green, -10 to 0% blue, and -25 to 0% constant, and i tweaked it from there. That worked ok, but then I learned a trick to start off by looking at each of the three channels at 100% with the others at 0% to see what that channel's information looked like. I had been frustrated with the 100/40/0/-10 settings and all subtle modifications, so it was eye-opening to do it this other way. It turned out that I liked the way the 100% blue and 0% everything else looked, so I went with it. I could probably tweak it some to improve it, but I wanted to go with it this way because it represents a new step in my digital black and white experience; last week I started using channel mixer, this week I started shaking things up... can't wait to see what comes next! Also, blue is my favorite color, so I liked being able to use just the blue channel. That is where the title of this blog entry comes from, "black and white in blue" (the original title i gave to the photo itself is "Whiteoak cascades")

Image details:
Date and location: 1/6/7 at 14:15 EST, Whiteoak Canyon Trail, Shenandoah NP, Virginia
Equipment: Canon 30D, 17-85mm IS lens, circular polarizing filter
Settings: 56mm, tripod, ISO 100, f/32, 3.2 sec, shot in raw
Processing: raw to tiff in lightroom beta v4.1, b+w in PS7 (channel mixer 0,0,100,0%)
Photo-a-week goals addressed: #1 (b+w), #6 (extended exposure)

fractured limb...

January, week one:
Here's my first entry into my photo-a-week blog for 2k7. the thought of a photo-a-day seemed like an overwhelming commitment, however i think this weekly project will be a lot of fun. i can't wait to see what people come up with! This picture is an experiment in black and white. My early experience with photography was almost entirely black and white, however I haven't had much success with b+w in digital. Improving upon that is one of my photographic goals for 2k7.

Yesterday I went driving along the blue ridge parkway, just south of Shenandoah National Park. About a month ago there was a big windstorm that knocked down a lot of trees, and you can still see tons of branches everywhere. I like the way this one turned out, as the focus was great and i think it translated well into black and white. I had originally considered entering this into the DPC "Centered Composition" challenge.

I liked the title "fractured limb" because as a radiologist I usually see pictures of fractured limbs of a different sort.

Image details:
Date and location: 1/2/7 at 10:53 AM EST, Blue Ridge parkway
Equipment: Canon 30D, 17-85mm IS lens, Hoya SMC UV filter
Settings: 85mm, handheld with IS, ISO 100, f/8.0, 1/200 sec, shot in raw
Processing: crop in lightroom beta v4.1, b+w in PS7 (channel mixer)
Photo-a-week goals addressed: #1 (b+w)