Tag Archives: downtown

Black & White, HDR, WordPress Photo Challenge

Weekly Photo Challenge: Green

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Moments after learning about this week’s Weekly Photo Challenge, I was in my car heading to a meeting in downtown Salt Lake City. As usual, I had my camera bag in the back seat, so once my meeting concluded, I took a short walk around Temple Square, shooting things that were green.

My initial idea was to get a great shot of a traffic light sporting some green, but I saw so many other cool shots of green, that I ended up with more than just traffic lights.

111812 WPC-Green

During my quick excursion, I had my 55-200mm lens hooked up so I could get close enough to objects without standing in the middle of the road. I put my camera on AV (aperture priority) so I could have better say in the depth of field.

For a couple of the shots, I tried bracketing a series of three photos so I could merge them together using Photomatix and capture a better dynamic range. Of the four photos above, can you guess which two are HDR? The traffic light, along with the white snow melting in patches to reveal the green grass below.

For the traffic light photo, I converted the three bracketed photos to a single HDR photo, converted it to Black and White using photo shop, then imported the photo in color and used that to make the green light green. I felt that offered more contrast to help the green light pop out a little better.

Green lent itself to so many options, and I still have another idea up my sleeve, which I will probably photograph later today and share tomorrow. Stay tuned for that one.

~signed, Carltonaut

GoPro, WordPress Photo Challenge

Weekly Photo Challenge: Everyday Life

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How many days do you hop in the car and drive somewhere? Is it to or from work? The grocery store? The gas station? The movie theater? School? Chances are, most people’s lives involve driving, either directly or indirectly.

With those thoughts in mind, I share this photo with you as part of the Daily Post at WordPress.com Weekly Photo Challenge – Everyday Life.

091812 Everyday Life

I really don’t have any specs to share on the photo (aperture, shutter speed, focal length, etc.) because I simply opened up my sun roof, held my GoPro above the car and let it snap a few dozen photos. Yes, I was driving on a one-way street in downtown Salt Lake City at the time and was convinced that drivers around me were giving me weird looks. But I promise I stayed in my lane, used my blinkers as needed, and made it safely to my destination. Oh, I hope I didn’t jinx myself for my next drive in the car!

~signed, Carltonaut

Travel

Fishing boats in the Old Port

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I lived in downtown Marseille for three months back in 1999. It’s a very old city, founded in 600 BC. I know this because there is a stone etched with that date on the inner-most part of Vieux Port (Old Port), just before heading up the Cannebiere and further in to this massive city.

Still not familiar with Marseille? Have you read The Count of Monte Cristo? The opening scene is Dantes’ boat, the Pharaon, returning to Vieux Port in the shadow of Notre Dame de la Garde, after rounding Chateau D’If, which sits less than 2 miles from the port’s entrance.

I spent a lot of time walking near the port, talking with folks from all walks of life and cultures. So when my wife and I went back to Marseille so I could show her the sights a few years later, I had to show Vieux Port to her. Here is one of the many sights we saw during a late-afternoon stroll along the east side of the port.

Vieux Port

I don’t have any details on the camera settings, but still thought it would be a fun travel photo to share. I would love to get back to France as a tourist and take the time to savor not only southern France once again, but do so with my family.

~signed, Carltonaut

Just for fun

UTA’s Trax in downtown Salt Lake

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I’ve seen many shots where the moving subject is clear and crisp, and the non-moving objects around it are blurred. Well, this was one of my first attempts to take a photo like that, and I think it turned out better than I thought it would (but it took me a bazillion shots and a lot of time to get this one good shot).

Downtown Trax

This photo was taken a few years ago on the corner of Main Street and South Temple in downtown Salt Lake City. I decided that a corner would be best, because as the train makes the turn, I could follow it better than if it was passing in front of me on a straight path. I consider it luck that a pedestrian with a backpack happened to be standing between me and the train, because he made a nice feature of the photo.

I’ve been interested in trying this shot again now that I have a Neutral Density filter (ND4) that would allow me to try a longer exposure. This initial shot was taken on a very cloudy day around high noon, but either early in the morning or later in the day (or even a night shot) may lend itself to a new take on this photo. The trick will be finding the time… or maybe it’s more of “making the time!”

~signed, Carltonaut

 

HDR

3 questions to consider when shooting HDR

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Earlier this week I wanted to try and see what all the HDR photography was about. I had seem some that were really awesome and I was hoping to get some that I thought would compete with the stellar ones I had seen. Well, after an hour shooting inside the Joseph Smith Memorial Building (yes, I have used other photos from this in previous posts, but this was the true HDR I was attempting with this one), I had some shots that I later took into Photoshop CS5 to merge together and see what appeared.

Here is the result.

JSMB_HDR

I like it, but I don’t at the same time. Here is a cross comparison of the HDR photo and the one with a more normal curve histogram.

JSMB_HDR_Pre-Post

The HDR photo has a second floor that is pink in color. The bottom floor isn’t as white as the non-HDR photo and has a sort of green tint. I do like how the furniture on the bottom floor looks in the HDR photo, along with the chandelier, but overall, I maybe have a few things to learn about HDR. I guess I had to start somewhere.

Here are the three things I think I will need to consider next time I try HDR.

  1. Does the view I am shooting have a dynamic range, or is lighting already pretty consistent?
  2. As I capture the three shots (-2, 0, and +2), how do the histograms of each photo look? (if I understand correctly, the -2 histogram should spike on the far left, the 0 have a sort of bell curve, and the +2 spike on the far right)
  3. Should I use Tv, Av, P or go all manual (including focus) so I have more control over the camera and what “normal” light it wants to use?

So, photography is a lot of trial and error – I don’t know if many people get it right, right off the bat, but I think I am willing to try again, just in a different setting that warrants more of a HDR look.

~signed, Carltonaut

Alphabet Photo Challenge, Just for fun

E is for Entrance

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When I started thinking about what I wanted to shoot for this weeks alphabet photo challenge with CTE Salt Lake City, the revolving door entrance at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building (JSMB) in downtown Salt Lake City came to mind. Weird, I know. But it worked.

Finding a time to get to JSMB was the biggest challenge, but when I got tired of adding air into one of my car tires that apparently had a slow leak, I called Big O Tires and brought it by early this morning. It was going to take an hour to fix the flat and do an alignment, so I walked the block-and-a-half to the building and set up shop on the Mezzanine level.

My biggest concern was getting a shot of someone and posting it to the blog, without getting their consent. To avoid this, I went TV priority to set a slower shutter speed. This would also allow for movement in the revolving door. Here is the photo I thought was the best out of all the ones I took.

E is for Entrance

TV Priority | 1-second | 5.6 | ISO 100

I didn’t like the ones that had blurred people in them (check out the outtakes here). I REALLY didn’t like the ones that had no blur in them – they just looked stale. This one had the right amount of blur, because you can tell it’s a revolving door in motion. It was a matter of luck to catch the door in that 1-second where the blur was mostly symmetrical. So while photography is a matter of skill, I also think it’s a matter of luck.

~signed, Carltonaut