Behind The White Door

Canon 60D, EF-S 18-135mm, f16, ISO100, 18mm, HDR, 6 Exposures

Another unlocked door that I could not force myself to open. This is one of the side doors to the Decatur Train Depot and as you can see, the latch is completely open and the door was even a bit swung open, but the thought of going inside never really crossed my mind. Being pretty unfamiliar with my surroundings, I was a bit uneasy about being in this area on my own as it was, so entering a building I knew nothing about was not very attractive to me.

Come to find out, there was a photographer at this location earlier taking pictures for the city. He was using one of those old 12 x 12 film cameras and lost one of the frames for it. As I was walking around the building, his assistant came up and asked had I seen it and explained what they were doing. He even showed me some iPhone pics of the guy taking pics with this monster camera. Apparently, the inside is very cluttered with several dead birds laying around. Sounds like a perfect place for HDR, but not to be on this trip. Who knows what might come about in future trips?

Tower Reflection

Canon 60D, EF-S 18-135mm, f10, ISO400, 18mm, HDR, 9 Exposures

Man, it's good to be back online again! Well, I was never really offline, but my macbook was int he shop for a couple of days and I had no access to my images, so I could not post anything! I needed the break though and now my Mac is rolling again!

Today's image is another from my first morning in Decatur, AL, where the rain had just went through the town, everything was damp and the skies were very overcast, but very active. Plenty of puddles to find reflections in, but none were very big, this being one of the bigger ones!

There used to be a daily train that ran from Decatur to Albany, AL, supplying goods from the local businesses to the nearby town. The tracks are still there, but the train is no more! The town of Decatur decided to keep much of this old town, well, old, so they put down red bricks to hold the tracks in place while still providing a decent driving surface for vehicles.

I'm not really sure what the tower is at the end of this street, but I liked how it reflected in the small puddle by the tracks. Also liked how the fast moving clouds looked with the tower stationary in the sky. It's just a cool little street in the old part of town that still has some of the character of the original Decatur days!

The blur of the background is intentional - a planar focus bug was applied to the front part of the image to bring it to attention and a slight blur was applied to mid and background areas.

The Shed

Canon 60D, EF-S 18-135mm, f8, ISO100, 21mm, HDR, 9 Exposures

Most times, when I take a picture, I don't necessarily have the finished image in mind other than the composition. The editing process is usually pretty fluid, does not have a specific end point and take different turns along the way depending on how I see things in the computer versus what's in the frame. On this image, though, the finished image was already in my head before I even snapped the brackets.

This little shed sits behind the Limestone Bay Trading Company and Restaurant in Mooresville, AL. The leafless hardwoods against the rather dramatic sky really framed this old shed beautifully and took me to a different place in time that called for a rather contrasty black and white frame with a lot of texture in both the shed and the clouds.

Even though the end point was already given, the process for getting there was not totally known. It started with the Casablanca black and white preset to give the dark shadows a bit more richness, then a Dark Glow was added to the sky and trees for a softer look, even though dramatic. Boosted the texture on the shed and applied Just Enough Darkness to darken up the shadows just a bit more. Sharpened up the shed in aperture and applied a strong vignette as well as an edge blur to finish it off.

It might be a bit overdone, but I really love the aged feel to it and the mood. The one element that I really like is the lone, tilted light over the door. For some reason, I am drawn to that light. Would love to go back someday and shoot it at night with that light on, being the only illumination in the frame. Who knows, it could happen.

Tallulah's

Canon 60D, EF-S 18-135mm, f5.6, ISO400, 20mm, HDR, 4 Exposures

This image presented itself after I was finished photographing the Old State Bank and its surroundings. My car was parked in front of Tallulah's, but it was too dark to really see what the building looked like when I arrived. When leaving though, the age of the brick building really became evident and combined with these creative windows really made for a cool frame.

I loved how the paint from previous signs and advertisements bleed through the red brick in spots - there's no telling what this building has been in the past, but you can at least make out the yellow CAT letters to the right of center, so it could have been a parts store or farm implements or who knows what. Now, Tallulah's appears to be a hair salon who's owner has a creative bug for decorating bricked up windows! Makes for good contrast against the rest of the weathered grit!

This image also could have been processed without the HDR process, but once again, the textures are key to the shot and HDR loves textures! Only needed 4 frames from -1 to +2 to get the full range, but it seemed to be enough to bring out the image. Used several filters in the Perfect Photo Suite to spruce it up.

Sunrise and Shadows

Canon 60D, EF-S 18-135mm, f22, ISO100, 18mm, HDR, 9 Exposures

This image was obviously not a recent shoot with the green grass and leaves on the trees. Sometimes on my commute to work I have to pull over and take some shots - such was the case for this image. I loved how the rays from the just risen sun created those beautiful long shadows from the evergreens lining this gravel road. I've tried to take pics on this road before, but never really liked how it looked through the view finder, until this day (Oct 4, 2011).

On another note, my 18-135mm lens somehow got a scratch on the outside glass, so I had to take it back to The Geek Squad and see if they will replace it (I have the black tie contract). I figured that this was a good time to get the camera cleaned also, so it was sent off as well. As result, I am without my DSLR, likely for a couple of weeks unless they decide to replace the whole kit, which could happen. I must have needed the break though, because I have not really ben troubled with it missing. Surprised, but glad to have the time away to clear the head and maybe build up some creative juices!

Letters

Canon 60D, EF 50mm f1.8, f4, ISO100, 50mm, HDR, 5 Exposures

As I've mentioned many times before, one of the best uses of HDR is to bring out textures in an image and I absolutely love how it works with this one, especially with the black and white treatment. The vintage feel is quite fitting for the frame and I really like how it makes the mailbox seem much different than yesterday's post of the same subject.

Right As The Mail

Canon 60D, EF 50mm f1.8, f4, ISO100, 50mm, HDR, 7 Exposures

If you Google 'Mooresville, AL' and click on images, you'll see many pics of its historical post office at the corner of Lauderdale and High Streets. When seeing it in person, it's easy to understand why so many pics have been taken of it. It's a fully operational post office and has been since around 1840 (some of the axe marks on the wood date it to that time), with the most attracting element being the small mailbox located on the Lauderdale side of the building. The classic blue and red colors and large, raised letters really make this guy stand out and demand to be photographed.

There are many pics of this box floating around the internet, so I was inspired to look for a different way of framing it. After looking around the scene, I liked the way the street light looked in the background as the wood slats from the post office directed your eyes back to it. Problem was, the light was one of those new, low energy lights that was as far from classic as it could be. To make it go away, I fired the brackets at f4 so that the mailbox was completely in focus, but the background was blurred enough to lose the shape of the light.

On the plane ride back from Alabama Friday, I watched a year old webinar from onOne Software, hosted by Brian Matiash, on stylizing HDR images using Perfect Effects. Even though I have been stylizing HDR images for a while now and also using Perfect Effects, this webinar brought on a new way of approaching the image and attacking the stylizing process. Got to hand it to Brian, he's got some great skills, both for taking/processing images, and teaching how to do it!