Niagara Falls State Park

View of the upper Niagara rapids. I used a 10X neutral density to slow down my shutter to 2 sec. to blur the water. I also made a two exposure panorama of the scene and merged the images together in Photoshop CC.

On a recent trip to the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts I took a few indoor pics. The lighting can be challenging because the room is a lower ambient color temperature ( 3400K ) than the skylight color temperature (5250K ). The trick is to balance the two light sources to make an image close to what the scene really looked like. You could take two separate images at each color temperature and blend them together in Photoshop. I didn't have a tripod with me so I only took one picture and blended my image with Aurora HDR Pro to get the same effect.

High Key Portraits

Proud grandparents with their three grandchildren portrait. I used the Nikon CLS feature for this shot. I have one SB600 on a David Zeiser shoot thru umbrella on camera right at +1 power. One SB600 bouncing off the white wall behind the camera at -1 power and one SB800 bounced off white ceiling over head for hair light at 0 power. All three flashes are triggered with a SB900 on camera used as a master to the other remote set flashes. With this system I can control the light output of each light to get the rounded modeling on my subjects and still maintain good light on my subjects faces. Nikon D3, iso 400, 1/160th at f-11.

Grape Hyacinths

I used twenty one images focus stacked in Zerene Stacker to make this image. Iso 80, f-8 at 1/400th sec.

Little Stone Chimney

Circa1750. Read about the chimneys history here.

This tiger image lacked photographic impact. The color and contrast is flat and needs a pick me up. I used Aurora HDR Pro to bring out the contrasts and added some layers to bring out some colors in the textures.

The image now has photographic appeal and with the added enhancements makes my image pop.

Sleeping lion basks in the morning sunlight.

Mother and baby.

This How We Do It...

A lot of my friends ask me how I like to finish a picture. I always tell them it's a matter of preferences of what the photographer likes. Some like a more realistic image while others like over saturated or HDR effects in their works. The truth is, what ever makes you happy is the best application for you. I constantly change or try out many different techniques in my post processing because I like to keep up with the new and changing soft ware and my personal tastes change over time too. Generally I prefer a realistic look with a slight touch of extra color and detail. Here is the way I usually approach my work.

I upload all my images to Adobe Camera Raw and make a back up copy for safe keeping. I use one copy for post and I look for an image with pose that pleases me. I find with animals, pictures with eye content with the viewer make great choices. I then check to make sure the image is razor sharp especially in the eyes. I then open the image in the raw converter.

In the converter I make adjustments to exposures and any minor cropping I decide. I do not like to crop a lot. I mostly do it to assist the composition. In this case I didn't have enough reach with the 400mm lens I was using so I had to crop more than usual. I also set the sharping and noise slides to 0. These need to be applied later on.

I now use Aurora HDR Pro to bring back the highlights add any color saturation and detail. Constantly switching from 100% to fit viewing mode to make sure any changes I make do not destroy the image quality of the pixels. I find I can really get the 3D effects I like with this application so I have incorporated in to my main process. Here is where most of the magic is done. I add my sharpening and noise reduction here. Once I am satisfied with my image I open it in Photoshop CC.

Here I clone out any unwanted items that will distract the viewers eye. This image had sunlight reflections in the background I felt needed to be eliminated.

Here is a thing I like to do. I rotate my image 180 degrees and add a soft layer mask that lets me lighten or darken any areas I want. This technique shows me if my composition is working and lets me blend in or out the subject matter to make my image pleasing to view.

I save the image to my files, then resize the image for the web.

Here is the finished image. Hope you enjoyed reading this and I hope it will help you become the photographer you want to be.

Eastern Rosella

Siberian Tiger

A trip to the Buffalo zoo today was productive. I got some great shots and will be posting them here as soon as I get them processed.

Just monkeying around with some older zoo pictures. I will be going to the Buffalo zoo soon and I want to do so animal studies in depth this year. So I am brushing up on my process here. I really like the way Aurora HDR Pro handles these files better than ACR does.

Asian Elephant > Buffalo Zoo

King of Beasts

Lion, iso 800, f-5 @ 1/160th, -1.3 exposure comp. 400mm. Not my usual method of post processing because I used way too many software programs and way too much time doing it. Adobe Camera Raw > Photoshop CC > Aurora HDR Pro > Photoshop CC > Light Zone > Photoshop CC. one hour of time. Although the finished product is nice I am not convinced its reasonable to spend this amount of time on one image. Anyone else have thoughts on this?

View of Niagara Falls from the Prospect Point viewing area.

Becoming an Artist This is a great Facebook group for people who want to become an artist with their photography. Just looking at some of the creative images that people are shooting is inspirational enough to follow here. Today billions of photos cross the internet and if you plan on making a showing here you need to break out of the box and this site will show you how its done. Trey Ratcliff uses his off the wall humor and casual shooting style in this funky lounge as he calls it to motivate your imagination to create beautiful images. Give it a look and see for yourself.

Penny Close up

Macro using Canon powershot SX50HS fitted with Raynar 250 close up filter. Extended to about 200mm to keep the entire penny in the frame. This combo is capable of zooming in very close if needed.