It's those little journeys off the beaten path where one can learn the most. Learning to follow the path of greatest curiousity is where we reap our greatest rewards.
I've made mention in the past that HDR, High Dynamic Imaging is one way to control contrast and get details in the highlights and shadows beyond what a normal DSLR can capture.
Since it is a bracketed exposure set to capture highlights, mid-range and shadow as "perfectly exposed" when you get around to generating the HDR file you have complete detail across a much broader EV scale than what you can get with just one image.
Both of these are HDR images that I post processed with the help of Adobe's CS5. The Top image, that of a Cadillac ELR that is set for production in the next few years was done more with a surreal touch whereas the Mustang GT500 was done with a more realistic blending. Both work for their own reasons. Both will show up in publications around the web.
I've been shooting, some B&W but need to finish the roll so it will be a short bit before I get to that part. Funny how it works, not like the digital realm where you just offload immediately and not have to worry about "finishing" the roll.
This week has been busy over at SoCalAutoBlog. So much so that its been at the expense of everything else I need to be doing. Its a good thing to be busy, just would like a little balance in the deal. Today was the 21st Annual Street Rods Forever car show here in Monrovia and spent my morning there.
The three images here are HDR images. Today was just a crappy day for car shooting...overcast and dull shadows. It may be an even overhead light but it still sets you up to lose shadow detail. This saved the day. The HDR post processing was done with Adobe's CS5 and is a stupid easy process. Pick the frames, the blending (I chose photo realistic) and voila you are done.
The Palm Springs Air Museum is pretty much lit by massive skylights. Makes for bright tops and very dark bottoms of the planes you try to shoot. Also it leaves for dark corners and ceilings. HDR fixes that by blending frames set to expose the highlights and shadows in with that done for the middle tones.
To get these shots I shot "RAW" and bracketed +/- 2 stops...or EV in todaysDSLR lingo. I used Adobe's CS5 to do the HDR file generation and tone mapping for "photorealism". If you look close at the images areas that were completely dark such as inside the engine cowl you now have detail. Ditto the tops of the planes that were blown out because of the direct light from the skylights above have detail too. It even helped bring out details from a black plane that was in the shadows. Its all good.
I haven't stopped photographing nor my art. The art has taken a side burner while I focused on a few other projects. Most with SoCalAutoBlog, but also busy with documenting the creation of an Art Bear for the 125thanniversary of Monrovia CA where I happen to live. To see the raw images from these projects do stop in at my flickr sets.
The image here was that of a 2011 Chevy Cruze Eco that GM lent me for a few days to enjoy and review for SoCalAutoBlog. I took it up into the San Gabriel Mountains near Crystal Lake as part of its test drive and of course for his photo shoot...great locations all over the place up there for just that.
This image was shot with HDR post processing in mind. I knew there would be harsh shadows and steep contrast and I knew bracketing and using HDR would calm those evils and give me details across the board. I used Adobe's CS5 to generate the HDR files from the 3 bracketed images and do the tone mapping as well.
This image would have been nearly impossible to capture without the aid of HDR post processing? Why you ask? Well the "wall" behind was actually a bank of white plexi that was back lit and several stops brighter than even the spot lit car. Shooting it bracketed +/- 2EV solved the problem when I used those files to generate an HDR image.
The final image was then tone mapped with Photomatix. After that it needed no other post processing 'cept for some minor color correction work.
The car is the Mistubishi i-MiEV (electric car) due on sale later this coming year. More about the car on So Cal Auto Blog.
I love the insanity of this camper. So much stuff they had to bring along a mini-van to hold the extra. I have no idea what the story is behind this is, but that festive banner flying on the main camper tells me this is a fun crowd not some down and out of luck scenario.
The image was shot purposefully with HDR file generation in mind by bracketing the exposures 2 stops +/- from average. The HDR file generation was completed with the help of Adobe's CS5 that I also used for the tone mapping. Tone mapped for max saturation and definition between the various shapes so it took on a lot of blocks of color emphasizing the surreal nature of the setting itself.
IT will be in the satchel of goodies for you to peruse at this coming Thursday (10/14) Artists Reception at Bolt Barber's in Los Angeles. For those that forgot the details it is set for 7-9:30PM at Bolt Barbers, 460 S Spring Street (5th and Spring) Los Angeles CA.
Shooting with just the existing natural light is a challenge. First you have to decide how much detail and noise you are willing to accept for a higher ISO. Why the higher ISO need...you don't always have the benefit, or permission even, to use a tripod let alone "brace" yourself on something if you are in a museum or similar setting. The higher ISO allows for a faster shutter to eliminate camera shake, but it does so at the expense of image quality as the ISO climbs.
Bracketing is the salvation of shooting with a window providing the light.
Thank goodness for tone mapping being able to be applied to an image to bring all tones captured into range that can be displayed on your screen or printed image material.
For this image of the captain's desk on the Queen Mary I didn't have the benefit of being able to use a tripod or brace myself on something. I knew I was good for relatively slow shutter speeds (1/10 second) so I set my ISO at a moderate 800 and bracketed 1 stop each way from metered.
The final image was cleaned up for color balance, a bugger when you have sunlight streaming in from a window coupled with regular incandescent lighting through the use of Adobe's CS5 color tone and color filters. After that was done the image was tone mapped to bring down the bright window to a more acceptable level and bring in some more of the shadow details. Low light image rescue completed.
This won't be among the images at Thursdays Bolt Barbers Gallery Reception. There will be ample images on the wall and in my trusty satchel for you to peruse. The gallery is located within Bolt Barbers, 460 S Spring Street, Los Angeles CA. The reception is 10/14/2010, 7-9:30PM.
I kept it "photorealistic" not surreal. The scene was surreal with the sun lighting the bottom of a clearing thunderhead at sunset that it didn't need any further digital help.
To have some detail in the shadows this was shot with rain drops falling bracketed +/-2EV (stops) and the resulting RAW files were run through Photomatix for the HDR file generation. The resulting HDR file was then tonemapped in Adobe's CS5. A little color correction was in order to remove the too much orange reflected from the clouds and voila "Cemetary Sunset" was created.
Among the spots I hiked was the Elephant Rock's State Park in the Ozarks of Missouri. It is an interesting are where gigantic boulders of granite were exposed after eon's of weathering. On any given day you come across way to many hikers to call it solitude, but even with them in the rocks its a pleasant way to spend some time, they just have a habit of being around to "ruin" shots of the rocks one wants to get for use arty reasons.
All of these were shot bracketed +/- 2 stops (ev's in the digital realm, but what the heck am old school) and from there the RAW files were blended into an HDR file using Adobe's CS5. The tone mapping was also done with CS5 and done so to maintain a photorealistic as opposed to surrealistic image.
Enjoy 3 images from Missouri's Elephant Rocks State Park.
I shot this from a balcony at the hotel we stayed at for a basketball tournament this last weekend. Pardon the noise....I used a high ISO setting to keep the shutter moving fast(ish).
I did the tonemapping with Photomatix...I like its controls better still than CS5 for capturing fine detail and the ability to micro control contrast.
The surreal tab in the HDR menu blasts contrast and details, leaving an end result not unlike how one would imagine a nuke blast looks. I kind of like it.
I've been sitting on this one for a little while, mostly because there were some huge power lines running through the sky that I just couldn't get rid of in old CS2, or at least delete them believably. In CS5 and the "content aware" fill as you use the "band aid" to remove them its another story. An otherwise distracting element rendering an image you want can be saved in CS5. (I should note the proper name for the band aid is "spot healing brush" with 3 other tools available in a drop down available by right click).
Wow. Just wow. Finished the tutorial regarding HDR ghost removal as well as the one on "surrealistic" options. CS5 is just amazing.
Now, please don't get me wrong, but the ability to remove ghosts is as important as keeping them in. Why...solves out of registration issues. The plus side is if you want them there you can keep them there by simply not checking the remove ghosts box...that way objects in motion can remain in motion as a blur and ghosted if its important to the image.
This file was one I knew that had a lot of loops to toss at CS5 to see how well it would handle a variety of issues. Simple drop downs and I had a "surreal saturated high contrast" image and the ghost tool removed the moving cars that otherwise were blurred headlights streaking by. Changes the whole feel of the picture to have cars simply frozen in time and the blurs removed. It was just an experiment, but I liked the results.
Love them cars. Enough to start an auto blog. Naming it is the question. "FrazGOES" is used over at metblogs and already has a snazzy logo. I considered "auto meanderings" and decided that wasn't quite right. Suggestions from facebook friends suggested "frazgo-agogo", and "frazgo goes". Ideas from you?
I'm still working on the series. I love the nonchalant character on the mobile while the others are busy building what would appear to be a wall of some sort.
This was purposefully shot bracketed with HDR generation in mind. The HDR file was generated within Photoshop CS2 and then tone mapped in Photomatix. The color was left as is from the diorama which only adds to the bizarreness of the final image.
I'm not quite sure why, but the auto manufacturers tend to love to give you either red or silver cars for their ride/drives at press events. Arrest me red, perfect for a performance car especially when a member of the press is trying to get a feel for its potential while running it through its paces. Especially on marked routes where you can't deviate cops love to sit and wait. No, I didn't get nabbed but is a concern when in a red car with MI MFG plates on it.
The other color they like to give is silver. Looks great, but it is hard as hell to photo without completely blown out highlights on large expanses of the car. IT also picks up the "blue sky" too well in the shadows which makes color balancing a bugger. The latter you can only do so much with a photofilter in CS2. The former, you can actually do a lot with by bracketing your shots and generating HDR images. At that point you can get shadow detail back, but more importantly control the white clipping and keep the all white highlights smaller and more natural in apprearance.
Of course being able to control the contrast and micro contrast makes it possible to highlight the cars much more differently than a straight image. Gives you the chance to drift into the surreal too which I like to do to make the car stand out more in an illustrative manner.
All of these images were shot with low ISO (200) for minimal noise and maximum detail. They were bracketed +/- two stops from average. The RAW files were run through photomatix for the HDR file generation as well as tonemapping. The final image was put through virtual photographer to clean up the cyan hue (some were shot on an overcast morning) and give them the punch of the old uber saturated contrasty Cibachrome print material.
'Nuf said, enjoy the images from a day with Ford/Mazda and Volvo and their LA 2010 Model Reveal.
A stencil artist went a bit nuts down at the old Monrovia RR station. (Someday to be the new RR station once urban light rail is up and running in the LA area and the bigger priorities are met). I can't get to upset with stencils being put on temporary shutters like plywood and the like. Its a classic no harm no foul situation. If it were in the side of someones business or fence around their home I'd have issues, but here its all temporary and adds just a wee bit of character to the otherwise barren plywood.
I shot this image with the thought of HDR post processing. I shot it bracketed 2 stops either side of average and used photomatix for the hdr file generation from the initial raw files. That was then tone mapped and run through virtual photographer to remove the blue cast since it was all shaded.
Every now and then something happens that shouldn't. Something that you could not have done if you had tried.
This image is a couple of accidents in sequence that I wish I knew how it happened. Briefly I accidently clicked on one image from a series of 3 exposures. The "wrong" image was of an entirely different subject matter. Photomatix doesn't allow out of sequence images to be opened and blended to create an HDR file. When you use something out of sequence you get an error message from the program advising you that all images not the same or different enough in exposure and you have to reload the files you want to use. It stops you dead in your tracks.
Here it had not only an out of exposure sequence image, but one not even part of the xif tagged sequence yet photomatix accepted it and blended the 3.
When the HDR image file opened imagine my surprise. I haven't had that happen since back in the day when I would sandwich slide fill and print it on cibachrome, or purposely double expose an image before advancing the film. Here I did it and can't duplicate it!
Anyway I took the file, tone mapped it and ran it through virtual photographer. Now if I knew how to duplicate this I would as I really do like the results.
The video from YouTube is what gave me the idea for the title, a little explanation after the vid.
Note the image above, its part of the "Duck and Cover" series that I will be installing 1/3/09 at the Focus One Gallery here in Monrovia.
I wrote about this image and a few others in the series a while back. I accidentally started a series of HDR photos of dioramas that I worked into very surreal images almost refreezing the moment. Shooting it I knew that the spots and floods used were all different colors of light which I used to move it further into the unnatural. I did that by exaggerating the color shifts. They may have started as a photograph but the quickly morphed into something other than a simple recording of a scene.
There was a quality to the images that I wound up exaggerating that reminded me of the pictures of the A-bomb tests from the Cold War era. I have to admit I struggled with what to call the series.
At the risk of severely dating myself there was event in particular that struck a note in me when I was in Kindergarten. It was the Cuban Missile Crisis. I don't remember much of the details but I remember being in South Dakota at the time visiting my great-grandmother. My Mom's cousin whom we stayed with and all the adults were glued to Walter Cronkite and the TV and worried aloud what it all meant. Thankfully history records well how it ended.
In the weeks after that I have memories of being told about "the bomb" and how to "Duck and Cover" to save ourselves in the event the bomb came. (Reality check, in the UP of MI at the time we were well outside of striking range, and if we were hit we'd be a glowing ash regardless if we did the duck and cover or not). Many years later I watched the film "Atomic Cafe". Watching that film I remembered that video from my childhood.
I did a quick little YouTube search and found the video that matches a sound track I had found a while back.
Duck and Cover the series will be 4 images. They will be framed and matted artists proofs, done as if on old fashioned deckle edged glossy photo paper, just like you would have found the pictures done up in your granny's photo album back in the day.
Once opening reception details are ironed out, I'll post here and you all will be invited.
Before I lived in LA I was introduced to the Southwestern part of the country with a short stint in Las Vegas. My folks were transferred there while I was in college and after graduation I went there to start the job searching.
I quickly fell in love with the desert. And the mountains. I loved the huge expanses and the many colors of the year. One of my favorite spots still is Red Rock Canyon west of Las Vegas in the Spring Mountain Range. Of course now its only a few minutes drive from the edge of the city compared to back in the early 80's when it was a half hour drive across open desert. Fortunately the Canyon is in a National Forest and protected National Monument now so it will never be built up and will remain wide open.
December 26 I had the pleasure of doing something I have not done in years. Drive the scenic loop around the canyon and just enjoy the vistas. This time around I had the added treat of watching a snow squall line pass from Mount Potosi across the southern reaches of the canyon. What drama in the sky. I had to capture that storm and photo'd it from several areas in the canyon until I got just the shot I wanted. I love the drama of the sky and how HDR and tone mapping could bring about the feel of an one Dutch masters painting of a sky in a photo based image.
The scene was shot bracketed +/- 2 stops from average with the HDR file generation done with Photomatix. The same program was used for the tone mapping. The final image was then post processed with Virtual Photographer for that old timey Kodachrome feel.
This pic is the subject of a post I did for metblogs. In short LA has such a gorgeous long summer fall and winter are compressed into a few weeks starting sometime around Thanksgiving, and thankfully, done with by the end of March. As a result our autumn blends right with Christmas and few notice the fall color and focus on the yard art etc., for the holidays. It didn't however skip my notice.
This image was shot 3 frames bracketed with photomatix generating the HDR file, as well as the tonemapping. The final image was post processed in Virtual Photographer to replicate the over saturated colors found on the old 'chromes printed on cibachrome print material
