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)

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)