Gadget’s Airstream Chronicles

But everybody else is doing it, so why can’t I?

See, it’s been months since someone mentioned HDR to me.  I’d never heard of it, considered it, pondered the possibilities, etc.  But when I found the first sites by Ben Wilmore, Trey Ratcliff, and several other well known photographers I found some very consistent shots.

• Heavily contrasted subjects.
• Interesting cloud formations.
• Cool buildings.
• Amazing night shots.
• Oh yeah……and “THE OLD ABANDONED TRUCK.”

Heck, if all the masters of HDR shoot the old abandoned truck I’d better take a whack at it as well, right?

The key problem…..I hadn’t found the right truck.  You’d think it would be easy.  Spot an old truck across a field and run up to shoot it.  The problem…..getting “shot” for doing it.  Barbed wire fences, testy bulls, giant “No Trespassing” signs, or freaky folks sitting in front of the old truck.  It’s not as easy to find that truck as I first thought it would be.

This whole line of thinking reminds me of an outing with Mike of “I am Mike” fame.  The lone tree shot by moonlight.  I don’t think I ever told the whole story, and maybe I will someday.  All I can tell you is that fence hopping occurred, we wandered into a cow pasture in the middle of the night with 4 people, hand guns were in packs for snakes (I had no hand gun), and several cows made a bee line for us while we tried to take photos.  In the end, I ripped my favorite pair of shorts on a barbed wire fence, I underexposed my photos, and we all ended up on the Granite Dells shooting moon reflections in Watosn Lake.  Ah yes…..all for photos!

Today I hopped zero fences.  My shorts are fine.  No cows made a beeline for me.  And nobody in today’s party was packing a handgun for snakes.  Overall, things went well.  My other friend Mike (different one) brought me to his parent’s place.  Horses, cows, miniature horses, and “the old truck.”  Ah, that worked out well.

Many other photos are sitting in Lightroom right now.  I still have to sort.  Some wonderful shots including one shot that got ruined by a nosy horse nose actually getting put on my lens while I was shooting.  Needless to say I pet the horse and then wiped the lens off (yup, horse snot).  Apparently horses can be hams too.  3 horses in the shot totally messed up by one horse’s nose.  I think it was bothered not to be in the photo.

So, you’ve seen the obligatory “old truck” HDRs.  Since that’s all satisfied I can move on to other subjects (until the next cool old truck I see).

This entry was posted on Friday, June 13th, 2008 at 8:17 pm and is filed under Arizona, Digital Photography, HDR, Photo of the Day.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.