First Day

Opening day for the 2016 racing season at Fort Erie Race Track. We had a great day at the track, with my boys and my grandson. I got some great images of the races and track people, they are hilarious.

Clinton's Big Ditch

Rode my bike from Niagara Falls to Tonawanda today. I shot four images and made this panorama of the Erie Canal. The Erie Canal divides the twin cities before it empties in to the Niagara river. I liked the reflections in this image.

This is my daughter Christina. She is my stand in model so I can adjust my lights for an upcoming portrait session.

On my way home from a bike ride today I made this image. This is shot from the Lindberg Ave. bridge looking south over Cayuga creek. I focus stacked three images at different focal lengths and merged them with Photoshop CC. I used a R-72 infrared filter on a Canon Powershot sx50 hs.

Lockport falls wasn't much of a falls, more like a cascading stream and that's being kind. I really like this place when the water is flowing so I think I will wait for some rains then make another attempt at this one.

Part of the Spring Waterfall Workshop of 2016. Clarendon falls.

Erie Canal

I found this old building along the Erie canal. I liked the reflections in the water. It almost looks painted. The early morning sun gave this scene a beautiful warming effect. It reminds me of possibly what the canal looked like in the 1800's. I had to crop the image to a 1:1 ratio because the surrounding scene had too many modern structures and wouldn't give this image the same look.

Medina falls - B&W

Akron Falls

Waterfall Workshop 2016.

Holley Waterfall

The key to a successful waterfall image is getting the water blur just right. On this shot the water was half blown out highlights from the sun and half in shadow. I used f-11 in aperture priority on seven bracketed exposures. I then added 4x neutral density filter and exposure compensated the the camera with a -2. This allowed me to composite the images in HDR and save all the highlight and shadow details. The blur in the water will automatically happen with this technique.

While in Medina I made this photo along the Erie Canal. I focus stacked four images to get the railing sharp from front to back. Waterfall workshop 2016.

Same waterfall as below but a different angle. I used a 10x neutral density filter to blur the water and knock down the light.

Spring Waterfall Workshop 2016

Today was a big success for our annual springtime waterfall workshop. Six waterfalls and decent weather. All the waterfalls had good flow except Lockport was a little weak. Here is a shot of Akron falls. I will be posting many images from this set. I took 589 pics and did some experimental things that I will explain as I show them.

Bald Eagles

Saw this on Dpreview today and thought I'd give it a try. It's called the Orton layers effect and you can read about the process here. Dpreview.com An interesting process, not sure how much I'll ever use it, but it's another tool in my arsenal of post processing works.

American Bison.

The King of Beasts

Another shot of Tiberius the lion from yesterdays trip to the zoo. He seems to be quite the poser. I love the way I can bring out all the details in his face with Aurora HDR Pro.

Wilson

A small country store in Wilson, Maryland takes you back in time.

A simple two image panorama of Martin's Mill covered bridge. I used a Canon Powershot SX50hs with R-79 deep red infrared filter.

Martin's Mill

Martin's Mill Covered Bridge in Greencastle, PA. Built in 1849, Martin's Mill Covered Bridge is Pennsylvania's second longest covered bridge.

Different view of McGees Mills covered bridge using deep red R-79 filter to get the infrared effect. Five separate images merged in Photoshop CC to make this pano.

McGees Mills in May

I walked down the banks of the Susquehanna river to get this shot of the McGees Mills covered bridge. I used a R-79 red filter to get the infrared effect.

Seven image pano of McGees Mills covered bridge ( circa 1873 ) over the Susquehanna river, Clearfield County, Pa. The image is pretty much as I saw it except I removed the telephone pole that obstructed my view of the bridge.

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.