Meandering is good, tone mapping is better

This old abandoned church was explored briefly while taking a walking tour in the Jewish Quarter in Paris. (I had other things to get done that day like indulge my other passion , cooking and eating well, and needed to get to E. Dehillerin before it closed that afternoon). The church reportedly was being gutted and going to be rebuilt as shops and a restaurant. What grabbed my eye in the first place was on the other side it opened up to a courtyard shared by several apartment buildings. This courtyard was once part of the convent and rectory gardens. The whole building could be traced back to the 1600's. That little pocket of nature surrounded by ancient to very old man made structures posed a nice contrast.

I spent this morning learning how to get the most out of HDR and tone mapping. HDR is my current obsession and tone mapping was the latest conquest on the old learning curve. I am happy with the final result here, much more so than what I was able to get by using the automated pre-programmed stuff in Photomatix.

Now the details, this is a bracketed shot shot with a 20-35mm wide angle lens at the 20mm setting. I love this lense when I want to capture as much of a scene as possible with maximum depth of field. The base EV was 1/20 second, f8 and an ISO of 400. The other two exposures were bracketed +/- a stop on either side of that base. All were shot in RAW format so I didn't lose a single pixel.

The fun came in when I started to use the Tone mapping plugin for Photoshop. The controls are very user friendly and let you control so many variables that the results are much more what I envisioned when I shot the image as opposed to what the preprogrammed filters allow. The final image here loses a lot when its made small enough for the web, but you get a good idea of what the real deal looks like. Wahoo it sure is fun to learn more stuff.

This image will be with me in its "artist proof" version Friday night where I will be one of 2 artists featured at the Paint n Play 2 open house being run in conjunction with the "Family Festival". The details Friday, April 27, 2007 6:30 - 9PM. 418 S Myrtle, Monrovia, CA 91016. (PnP is located 2 doors south of the theatre in the center of Old Town).

Into action, support the Arts!!!

Giving to the community is what keeps us all thriving. The Monrovia Art Festival Association has a simple mission to bring art and art education to the community. "MAFA" as it is known locally does just that. I do my share within the organization when I can and that includes donating pieces for their use when it is fund raising time.

May 12, 2007 is the next MAFA event : Acknowledge the Arts. In this event MAFA recognizes and awards a local individual or business that supports our mission. In this case its Chris Owens of the Focus One Credit Union here in Monrovia who donates their entire lobby for MAFA Artists to show their work.

The particulars: Ticket price purchased in advance is $25 per person or $40 per person with guest. Cost is $30 per person if purchased at the door. The ticket cost provides for admission and refreshments. Please forward your check to: The Monrovia Arts Festival Association, Post Office Box 92, Monrovia, CA 91017. The Monrovia Arts Festival Association is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization so that means your ticket costs are tax deductible and you get a nice evening with great food and lots of good wine. You may request tickets to be held at the door. And an invitation (click for a full size copy).
The piece I will be donating this year is "English Rose in Blossom". Straight forward photograph and will be on display at the Focus One Gallery later this week until the night of the auction.

Enjoy the song and video too. I found this on a blog I check in on by a local photographer "Citifarmer" , that is quite lively...may well have to be my summer theme song. It's by Tim Armstrong of Rancid fame, the cd "Into Action" is due to be released 5/22

Action.

Visual amuse-bouche

Ages ago (like 1984) there was a B-Movie, "Buckaroo Bonzai" and one of my favorite lines went something like "no matter where you go there you are..." . Travelling opens your eyes up to the world and it sometimes isn't so much the differences but the similarities that strike me.

Meandering around London and Paris there was so much to see and tease your eyes. Its kind of hard walking along these ancient cobbled pathes and not think about who walked in the very path you traversed during the dark ages. Like here in LA graffiti and other urban art like "stenciling can be found", just has its own twists. A few little tidbits for your own visual stimulation....

Tour Eiffel (Eiffel Tower to the rest of the world)

The ultimate icon for Paris is "Tour Eiffel". Amazing in person. In daylight its cold gray steel pierces the skyline and visible from all over the city. With the coming of dusk it changes character. Slowly the incandescent spotlights on various levels uplight the tower bring on an incredible warm glow to the tower. Magically without any notice at that moment the sun drops below the horizon it begins to twinkle...eventually its a virtual explosion of brilliant white flashes all up and down the tower where it looks like a diamond blazing under spotlit jewelers loop. Totally amazing. Totally mesmerizing.

I have always loved night photography since the days I was doing the "dip and dunk" in my parents basement as a kid. Today I have HDR to help me along bringing in an incredible range of detail through out the image with no massive areas blacked out and void of detail or so burnt out they glowed.

I walked each evening just before dusk until sunset along the Siene from in front of my Hotel (Novatel Paris Tour Eiffel). I walked and shot essentially the length of "Quai du Grenelle" from the "Point de Grenelle" bridge where the other Statue of Liberty resides up to the Champs de Mars ReR station and the Bir-Hakeim bridge.

Enjoy this series of HDR images from "La Tour Eiffel" shot over 3 days and nights while in Paris. All are post processed with the help of the "virtual photographer" plug-in for Adobe's Photoshop suite and of course Photomatix

Last of the London HDR done

I finally cleared out the folders of stuff shot in HDR. I am so torn on what to do with this tool in my little bag-o-tools. Whether to go natural or surreal is a path I keep exploring.

The potential to go surreal tended to pull me more last night and down that path I went. HDR captures so much that I went out to exploit the depth of color and took it down the path of the exaggerated colors of the 1930's Kodachromes and postcards of that era.

London was experiencing record breaking temps the week we were there and spring sprung fast. There were literally fields of daffodils, naturalized all over the parks in the city. I shot a few all over the place. The one I worked up to look more like the 1930's postcard done on a Kodachrome here was shot in St. James Park at the end opposite of Buckingham Palace. HDR did a really nice job of preserving the highlight and shadow detail...especially in the brilliant white "Paper White" daffodils which actually were crosshatched with the shadow of a very large tree near by which I made pretty much disappear with the various tools within Photomatix.

The other image also was shot in HDR and post processed in Photomatix, then through the Virtual Photographer plug in for Photoshop CS. It was taken at St James Palace and the tiered sections of the palace and the chimney's made a nice stair step to the clouds above. Sort of an allegorical reference to how the Kings believed they held the job due to divine right.

Anyway...enjoy them and I'm taking a quick lunch break and going back to working on the "Tour Eiffel" HDR series later.

Real vs Surreal

A healthy dose of jet lag added into the mix and I keep wandering back and forth across the two liberally today.

HDR for those of you not following this blog is something I have been exploring a bit lately. If you want more details read the entry's from the last month or so for all the details. Short version is that you shoot your images exposing for the shadows, mid-tones and highlights and then use a program such as photomatix to meld them together giving you a higher dynamic range of colors and grays than can be captured with a single exposure.

HDR users out there have formed into two camps (It perplexes me why we humans do this, but we do). One camp is the "natural" guys who use it to only expand the range of the image while still looking natural. The other group is the "surreal" guys who make use of the program's ability to create surreal images by over emphasising the ranges and how they interplay with each other. Me...I run in both camps like a wild man and a hedge clipper (skip scissors those are kind of light duty risk taking).

So as I sit here in my fog meandering down both paths I worked an image that appeals to me an a few different levels. Both started with the same 3 raw files and were worked up differently. One is more natural, the other is going towards the surreal almost illustrative interpretation of what was there. I shot this overlooking the Edgware Road Station in London just before dawn.

The added bonus is that HDR since it is 3 separate images shot a fraction of a second apart you get some interesting ghosting from images that move. This becomes very noticeable in the long exposures needed at dawn which is why I tend to like the surreal version of the scene better.

Decide for yourself and enjoy two different versions of "Edgware Road Station"

just say "NO"!!!

Off the topic of my normal stuff, odd discovery is that just like the "Hunchback of Notre Dame" Paris today is overrun with Gypsy's. Am tossing out this tidbit as a commentor-blog pal noted he will be in Paris in a few more weeks. Here you go Wil...even what they look like.

When I first visit a new city I like to pick up a local tour to get a lay of the land and a feel for how things work. Interesting enough but the guide made it clear to heed the signs in Paris regarding "pickpockets at work".

He let us know that Paris is overrun with "Gypsy's" (his term not mine) from Romania that wear long skirts, travel in packs and approach tourists, especially us American varieties and present us with a card asking if we "speak English". Its a twist on the "I'm a deaf mute variety.

His instructions were to tell them "NO" loudly and clearly and to walk away.

Essentially if you take the bait they watch where you keep your money when you pull out your wallet to give them the odd Euro. Since the travel in packs the others watch where you kept your cash and when you start to move they swoop in and take it from the last hiding place you kept your dinero.

Sure enough when we got the Eiffel Tower (sounds like 'tour effay el' in french for a quick phonetics lesson) they were there in hoards. They were in a group of about 4 going from corner to corner presenting their card, getting some donations from suckers outside our group.

Not sure how it started, but we got the bright idea to sound off "No" in a 3 stooges harmony. We all laughed and it frustrated the hell out of the Gypsy's and their pals in the background.

So much for your education on street smarts in Paris, I have lots of work to do, LOTs and I need to get busy.

Wow Europe was incredible...

The travel gawds smiled upon us this last week in Europe...London was gorgeous and a warming trend started when we arrived. From the low 70's to nearly 80 by weeks end in Paris. All the spring bulb's were up and showing off their color...fields of daffodils, tulips all over the place. This visit only reaffirmed my view on London being one of the most charming and friendly cities. Paris certainly is a close second for this crazed American that can speak "tres un peu francais" and found no difficulties communicating with anyone.

HDR is fun, you can certainly do a lot with it in terms of presenting both "natural" and the "surreal". The couple I worked on today addressed the natural world, quite nicely I think in preserving details in the shadows. In the case of the "London Eye" it even does a nice job in keeping details in the cloudy sky. Saturation certainly wins across the spectrum in both.

Anyway jet lag is taking its toll and after downloading and sorting images I am too beat to do much more today.

Enjoy "Houses of Parliment" and "London Eye" for a teaser on the images done this last week while on "holiday"

Art supporting the other arts...

No secret that I support all the other non-profit art groups out there. When I was approached by Jill Maglione, Vice-president of the "Happy Hour Theatre Group" for a piece to be auctioned at the upcoming fundraiser I not only said yes...but offered up some ideas on how the group can raise money.

The "Fundraiser Fete" by the "Happy Hour Theatre Group" is set for April 6, 2007 @8PM. It will be held at the NoHo Actors Studio, 5215 Lankershim Blvd (at Magnolia), North Hollywood, 91601. Reservations and more info can be had on this gala event by calling 818-206-4050.

It promises to be a fun and cheap evening at only $10/person. That gets you drinks, munchies (they were fancy and called it hors d'oeuvre even). There will be local artists present, art all over the place, live music and a special performance from a Magic Castle magician! And...there will be raffles and door prizes too. Go, "Dress to Impress" as their invitation says and have a great time.

Also...a final tidbit, since "Happy Hour Theatre Group" is a non-profit group as defined in 501 (c)(3) your $10/person is tax deductible.

I'd be there as it really sounds like fun, but alas I'll be half way to London. At least if you go you can see one of my pictures taken in the Yosemite Valley at sunrise a few years ago "Merced River Fog"

Tired and Hung

Am all nicely hung at the Monrovia Coffee Company. Good news is that I have 3 nice groups of three and space for a single impact piece. AM likely going to run with the first HDR of the Monrovia train station as that should stop people nicely in their tracks. Hanging it around 8AM Tuesday so if you are an ambitious soul come out and see me!

A couple quick snaps from my trusty Che-ez Snap blogger. The quality is pretty precocious...enjoy it for what it is...all glorious .3MP under $20 (at that price its worth it for the usb plug). You get the point...my images on a wall...

More good news, I run at the Coffee Company through 6/9/07.

Prepping, packing, even a little shooting...


Show prep goes well have 3 more to get the wires on so I can hang at 3:30. As I mentioned a couple of days ago I am hanging today for a 3 month run at the Monrovia Coffee Company. The information:

April 2 - June 1, 2007

Monrovia Coffee Company, 425 S Myrtle Ave, Monrovia

Weekdays 6AM-10PM, Weekends 7AM-11PM

It was such a nice morning I had to go out in the garden for a break, camera in hand of course. The Bearded Iris I shot is from a rhizome brought to this country by my mothers, friend's grandmother from the Ukraine at the turn of the last century. This hardy old stock Iris puts the hybrids to shame. This Iris has cuttings and offspring from all over the United States from where it was first planted in Michigan's Upper Peninsula (yes...I'm a yupper by birth). Here in So Cal it naturalizes so fast it has to be seperated and replanted every 2-3 years. If you want cuttings...ask me in the fall!

Anyway Enjoy a couple shots of "Peach Blossom" and "Bearded Iris".

Twilight skies are still blue!

I found another reason to like HDR this morning while working over images I shot last night. Just after sunset there is still some very intense blues in the sky and Photomatix HDR actually does an awesome job of preserving those tones, or at least has the data there so you can pull it out and manipulate it for the final image. I was out from shortly after 8PM, about 45 minutes or so after sunset and those images captured in the first few minutes of shooting had skies with some really intense blues. By 8:30 the images were lacking that blue but picked up a very strange, almost cyan hue from the direction of downtown LA which is a nice recording of the light pollution emitted by the metro area at large.

What I am totally digging is the surreal images that can come out of this entire process. The color of light provided by nature vs man is just another extension of an area I've been exploring for a while. HDR has opened up a few more ways to communicate what I see. I really like the way it over emphasizes color contrasts....rich blue skies and a radioactive glow to that man made, or added by man to nature by accident in the form of light pollution. This is a path I do believe I will meander down a bit more and explore in the coming weeks.

I do see the potential to explore more at dusk as the range of colors and natural contrast has the potential to produce some really striking images, especially if I can capture a moon rise. Imagine...details across the scene the way your mind interprets it as opposed to limiting the detail in shadow or highlights because your recording media can't capture that wide of a range.

All this is really a cool tool. It really mucks up the debate between the silver vs digital photographers out there though. There are belligerent camps on both sides proclaiming what is or isn't photography anymore. For me its the same, just different tools to produce the final image. Both groups do their share of manipulations in camera its how they post process in film or from a digital image that differs.

The final image works or it doesn't. My deal is that if the image stops someone in their tracks whether it be an unaltered photograph (whatever that is) or one that is several combined and altered digital image, it worked!

I can tell you this much though, if I were to shoot on film this bracketing would have cost me a fortune in materials and lab fees before I even got to the point where I could start printing. Thank gawd for those 8Gig or better cards too as RAW files are huge.

Anyway enjoy a few of my shots from last night. Wound up exploring more the relationship of color and the man vs nature hard edged intrusions.

Double up on the Starbucks and lemon bars...its going to be a long night

I started with a Meyer Lemon tree so overloaded I needed to do some harvesting. What better way to get a sugar buzz and use up a dozen lemons that that. I used Ina Garten's Lemon Bar recipe from Barefoot Contessa...its the SUGGA BOMB!

I did it and glad I did. Tired, but the first of the images from tonight's shoot down at the Monrovia Train station with an eye towards exploiting HDR has me totally amped. (Having a Venti Sumatra and a lemon bar helped).

I just got back, downloaded it all from the trusty cam and loaded one image to see if HDR would do for night photography that I hoped it would. IT did! I got a final image that first appears flat as so much detail is recorded across the board from absolute black to white...can't help that as the lighting is crap....sodium vapor on one side, fluorescent in some shops, HID or incadescent bulbs on the cars. Its really extreme contrast. HDR pulls it all together so you have great detail across the board though the raw HDR is very flat in terms of contrast. Post processing helps control the colors and all the shifts due to the light sources and wow.

The interesting thing for me was the surreal haunting images you get at night anyway. HDR really just takes it to the next level.

For you techies the base exposure at ISO 400, shot raw with a relatively large f~stop of 5.6 and exposure of 2.5 seconds. I used the Canon EF20-34mm wide angle zoom and the effective focal length for the shot was 32MM, manually focused. (I love the elongated perspective of that lens). The bracketed exposures at 2 stops over and under were .6 and 10 seconds.

So here is the first of the series shot at the train station. Love abandoned buildings, like shooting them at night...and HDR makes the images even more surreal and haunting. Anyone wanna take a run up some of the ghost towns on Route 66 the next full moon? Image those old places with a rising or setting moon. Moonrise Hernandez Ala Ansel Adams may get a run for its money.

Anyway...enjoy "Monrovia Train Station" while I finish sorting and HDR'ing some more images. (If you want to see the jpeg average for comparison...ask and I'll send you a down sized).

Show prep is tedium defined.

Man as much fun as it is showing somewhere, getting ready is the killer. I open Monday evening at the Monrovia Coffee Company. Only 2 more to mats and 3 images to frame. Wahoo...that is a chore.

Am excited too, Paint N Play where I have 3 pieces hanging wants to showcase me and my art one Saturday evening in April when I return from vacation. I'll keep you posted on that one as I plan to do a lot of night shooting in Paris and London using HDR. Could have some interesting things to show at that event!

Just to make it easy on you where to see my stuff real time. Let me know if you are going and I'll arrange to meet you there and even spring for a cup of coffee:

February 1 - April 30, 2007

Paint N Play Gallery

418 S Myrtle Avenue

Monrovia, CA 91016

Tues through Sunday 12pm - 8 PM

April 2 - June 1, 2007

Monrovia Coffee Company

425 S Mytle Avenue

Monrovia, CA 91016

Weekdays 6AM-10PM, Weekends 7AM-11PM

After being stooped over my work bench all day cutting mats and framing I need to get out and do some shooting, enjoy the near full moon in and around Monrovia. The old train station is still as decrepid and charming as ever maybe I'll make it down there tonight. Certainly there is some potential for HDR to be maximized down there!

Stay tuned and catch you all later!

ROSES!!!

Rich Color

Rich Scents

Saturated color, muted color there's such a range of color and visual excitement in the spring garden. 2 Austin English Roses, 1 climber and 1 hybrid tea. I hope to see it all peak before I leave for the UK and Paris in 2 weeks!

Nurturing the other passions...
AKA taking care of my inner gearhead. Sometimes I just need to switch gears and let another "hobby" (which is another polite way to refer to an obsession that costs a fair amount of money) take over for a bit. Its these other sidebars that make us human and keep us going.
Today was just a gorgeous morning, sun up early, warm and I just had the urge to drive. Not my daily driver but my nice old antique Buick. I pulled of the car cover gave it a quick wash and a polished up the chrome then off I went for for a zip around town and on the freeway to scare some old ladies, small children and the odd dog. Added bonus is I set off a couple of car alarms on some rice rockets as I cruised Old Town Monrovia.

You see, this old car that was bought from my neighbors estate is a wonderful 1972 Buick Centurion "Formal Coupe". The restoration included keeping the "Pasadena Senior Center" sticker in the rear window, stock color, stock everything or at least period correct. Well, I stuck to that plan for the most part. The inner juvenile delinquent ruled and off the GS455 cranking out 330HP are 3" pipes running through flowmasters. NOTHING will ever sound as good as a big block V8 when the four barrel opens up on the freeway. Nothing.

A bit of history for you. The Buick Centurion was marketed as the "bankers hotrod" and mid-range in the Buick line up. It ran for only 3 years (the first oil embargo of 1973 brought an end to it). 1972 there were some 110,000 units sold (of a production run of over a million Buicks that year). Of them only 35,000 were the "Formal Coupe" and very few survive. 1972 there were two 455ci V8's available (that's 7.5Litres to those of you who don't know what cubic inches are anymore). One was the standard 250hp through a single exhaust, the other was the GS (Gran Sport) with 330hp through true dual exhausts. My car has been authenticated and is registered with the national Centurion registry. http://www.buickcenturion.com. More of my car with hits testicular ornamentation can be found there too: http://www.buickcenturion.com/1972/frank_z/
Its now back on my driveway waiting for another excuse to head out this afternoon just to blow out the cobwebs...and at 3.50/gal for premium it does a lot of sitting these days.
Enjoy "Da BU"....

Hiss clonk hiss clonk hiss clonk

The sound of the trusty old printers is slowly putting me to sleep. Getting maximum dpi on the trusty old inkjet takes for ever to get a lot of big prints done. But I am on the final print.

I open at the Monrovia Coffee Company on or about April 3 or 4th. This is an interesting venue to show case art for the members of the Monrovia Art Festival Association. Lots of foot traffic, a gracious host who doesn't charge us a dime to hang in her business. No gallery commissions either does it get better than that? Maybe but its the closest thing to nirvana I have had in a while. Tentative run date is April 5 through June 5, 2007. I'll post a note here when I am installed and the run dates.

In prepping this show I am keeping with the rule of 3's. 3 themed groups with 3 images in each. AM working with a floral group, an impressionist landscape group (this sorta boldly crosses more to digital art than straight photography) and a Monochromatic Color Spot group. Most of the images in the show are those I have blogged in the last month or so...that means a lot of really fresh stuff being hung.

The latter group is one I have been exploring for a while and most of the images were very well received (IE I blew them out the door) at the fall Celebrate the Arts in Monrovia. So I worked them a bit differently. I've even switched papers to a nice matte finish that tends to have a much nicer saturation with the dark tones as well as a cleaner finish in the highlights. Suits what I need for these images much better than traditional glossy paper or the watercolor papers I use.

Anyway "Henhouse Eggs" is the last to roll off the printer today!

Icons and graffiti

Venice has this really cool area where local graffiti artists can paint to their hearts content on some short concrete walls and cones that remind me some how of the Moai from the Easter Islands.

The palm tree is one of the icons of California cultivated in tv and movies...you've seen it, palm tree lined streets, palm tree lined pools, palm tree lined beaches...you get the picture.

Add in some color and they change their character completely. At Venice today there is an area where even the trees weren't safe from the graffiti artists cans and they became more than an icon, they became art all onto their own right playing into the scene.

One thing that struck me while meandering about was this scene were an elderly woman was parked on the edge of the basketball courts under the palms. I can't tell you why the scene haunted me, but it did and I grabbed a shot of it too.

Without out further blather on my part...LA Icons, the palm trees

Water sports and surfer stuff

Shooting surfers and others playing on the water on a bright sunny day is a challenge as the contrast is so much higher than your media can record you run the risk of losing shadow details completely or blowing out your highlights. Shooting on a gray end of winter day solves the contrast issue...there is next to none, but you loose color saturation and your color shift blue. All an easy fix in the day of photoshop.

Shooting things out in the water are tough as you don't have the usual elements like trees or buildings to set up framing and provide visual cues to scale. You do get lines running about, converging or splitting that help you frame and come up with cues that the viewer uses to establish scale. Allowing waves to curl, bend on their own and wait for the right moment to snap the shutter is time consuming but it does make the difference in the final image....drama for the idea draws the viewer in and that is your reward. Of course, just watching the waves is a nice way to relax so the image can be the added bonus.

Enjoy the Venice Beach surfers and boogey boarders from earlier in the day today.