Gadget’s Airstream Chronicles

As most readers know by now, I’ve been playing with Photoshop, HDR photography, and my own photo techniques a lot over the past few months.  Each thing that I’ve toyed with has been totally separate from the other things….

What the heck does that mean?

It means that my HDRs are strictly HDR.  No Photoshopping.  It means that what I’ve learned about working a photo over in Photoshop has remained totally theoretical.  I haven’t had enough time to break out marginal shots and see what else I can do with them.  And it means that my strict “normal” photos haven’t been Photoshopped or HDR’d.

I tried to do an HDR of a human being not too long ago…..it didn’t go so well.  The model in question will never look the same in my eyes!  Talk about exaggerating features!!!

Since I’ve finally had a little downtime I decided it was time to combine all the lessons learned into one big ball of wax and see what’s what.  Additionally, I recently finished a Ben Willmore training DVD which left me saying, “Ah, I knew he did something else to his shots!”  Sure enough, he did!

Now, what follows below is completely experimental, incomplete, and I don’t even know if I like it.  For those following the blog who are offended by the bending of photographic reality, turn back now!  I’ve really gone a little over the top!

Sunday morning I took a very early ride into town to shoot around the square and Whiskey Row once more.  My first lesson about shooting in Prescott is a really easy one….

Weekday mornings there aren’t any cars downtown at 6 a.m.  Weekend mornings the square already has people on it at that time, cars are littered here and there along the road, and more people stare at a guy with a tripod and ask things like, “Do you want to take my picture?”

The answer to that question is more often than not, “No.”  If it is a yes, it’s a yes with caveats.  The caveats being things like, “I’d love to take your photo provided you’re standing at the other end of the block staring into the sun.  That way you’ll just be a silhouette.”  Not long ago in Jerome an extremely drunk biker “chick” asked if I’d take her picture.  I told her I only did landscapes!  Worked well, she shrugged her shoulders and walked back into the bar!

Sorry for the tangent.  The morning proved to me that if I want to shoot in town early I should pick something with a Wednesday or Thursday flavor.  I’ve learned a new lesson.

I did manage to get a few series along the Row without people.  Further, I got a series of the Palace Restaurant that I thought might make a neat HDR.  The first photo here today shows the Palace shot with a 0EV.  Basically, what you would get it you put your camera on fully auto at the time.

In total, I took 5 frames of the Palace that morning.  -2EV, -1, 0, 1, and you guessed it, 2.  After watching Ben Wilmore’s DVD I had a few new ideas about additional exposures, getting over exposures almost completely over exposed, and making sure I had lot’s of blinkies on the high end.

You might not know what blinkies are.  That’s ok.  They are non-communicable, and you’re completely save from them.

After combining the shots in Photomatix I came up with a darker HDR (I’ve been toying with the darker styles lately), and it’s the second photo in this post.

If you haven’t noticed lately, I’ve been pushing the HDRs a little more.  Bottom line, I just want to see what happens.  And after all the reading I’ve done combined with tutorials and the fun training DVD I’ve learned it’s ok to push a photo for the sake of curiosity.  You never know what you might end up with.  Then again, sometimes it’s better to have a more true to life photographic style for a print…..  In the end it’s all up to you and what you’re looking for at the time!

Doesn’t that all sound fun?

Now, the HDR came out pretty neat.  But there were a few things I didn’t like about it or the originals.  First off, why are power lines everywhere?  Actually, I know why, but why do they need to show up in my shots?  Gotta deal with them.

The second issue….the haloing around the lamp post.  Pushing an HDR image you’re bound to get halos.  The question is what to do with them?  In some cases they’re cool, and in others they look out of place.  Maybe I could explain this one away by saying there was a guy behind the lamp post with a flash light (same guy who asked if I wanted to take his picture).

Since there were a few items I wanted to fix in the photo I decided it was time to apply all the fun stuff from Scott Kelby’s books and from Ben Willmore’s training video.  And HDR that’s been pushed a little plus Photoshop!  Ah, a high tech adventure.

I started into Photoshop this afternoon looking to brush out the power line, and tone down the halos.  But then I thought that would be too simple.  I needed more!  How about changing the sky completely?  How about something other than blue mixed in with the clouds?

As you can see, the editing went a little over the top.  An orangy reddish sky, additional haloing above the building (like the sky’s glow was being generated by something behind the building), the power line gone, and the halo around the lamp post toned down.  Ah, the halo isn’t gone, the guy behind the post is just using a less powerful flashlight now.

My editing experiment isn’t over, and the photo isn’t “perfected”.  I’m sure many folks won’t like this one.  That’s ok, it’s just my experimental piece.  I’ll be working on it more.

By the way, there’s one glaring issue that’s a problem with this current edit.  Can you see it?  It should stand out like a sore thumb.  Take a look.  If nobody points it out in comments today I might clue you in tomorrow.  Or maybe I’ll do another post of the “final” edited version when I’m done with it.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 4th, 2008 at 4:21 pm and is filed under Digital Cameras, Digital Photography, HDR, Photo of the Day, Photoshop.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.