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)