And of course there is the Jimmy Buffett/Parrothead corollary – “If God hands you limes, make Margaritas!”

This story below is an example of making lemonade from lemons… or, if you prefer, Margaritas from limes.

Late Saturday night we made the decision to head [...]]]> There’s a saying that goes something like “If God hands you lemons, make lemonade.”

And of course there is the Jimmy Buffett/Parrothead corollary – “If God hands you limes, make Margaritas!”

This story below is an example of making lemonade from lemons… or, if you prefer, Margaritas from limes.

Late Saturday night we made the decision to head to Sand Island (in Bethlehem, PA) early Sunday morning in order to photograph sunrise coming up behind the industrial ruins of Bethlehem Steel. I though it would make a splendid composition and a wonderful image. We got to Sand Island before 0500, about 45 minutes before sunrise. We went to the spot where I want to shoot from and much to my delight, I found the water level in the Lehigh River low enough that I could easily make my way out into the river for the perspective that I wanted. Unfortunately that was the last thing to go right. I no sooner got set up when a train (the plant is dead, well except for the casino built on the brownfields, but the train tracks are still active) headed right into the composition and came to a dead stop. As I waited and hoped that the train would move on I came to the realization that I had misjudged where the sun would rise (bad planning on my part). Oh I was pointed in the right direction but this time of year the sun rises more northeast than I was pointing. On top of that, what little color there was in the sky was totally diffused in haze that was not going to burn off soon. My vision of a sunrise over the stacks went down the drain fast.

As I stood there thinking about the family members (my father, both grandfathers, four uncles) who toiled for Bethlehem Steel, I decided I might as well make a few images before closing up shop and heading home. So I made two five-image HDR series of images –  a total of 10 images. When I got home, I processed the images in Photomatix Pro (for HDR) before going into Nik and processing the image in Dfine (noise reduction) and Viveza 2 (to adjust brightness, contrast, saturation and structure) before moving into Color Efex Pro and using the Graduated Neutral Density filter there in an effort to pull some color out of the sky. It wasn’t working. here’s what the image looked like when I was about to give up.

… then the idea of black and white hit me. I went back into Nik and used Silver Efex Pro to convert the image to B&W and then used the Vignette Blur filter in Color Efex Pro to create the vignetting effect. Finally, I sharpened the image using Nik Sharpener Pro. (Have I said how much I love the Nik Complete suite .)

Here’s the finished product. Much more dramatic. And, I think, a really nice keeper image out of what looked to be a wasted morning. What do you think?

(1/320 sec @ f/5.6; ISO 400; 0 EV)

None of us REALLY do? Oh we plan… and we think we know what’s next but do we really? There is a sense of anticipation just around every corner.

That was the feeling that overtook me as Barb and I were walking down this trail in Jacobsburg State Park [...]]]>

(1/320 sec @ f/5.6; ISO 400; 0 EV)

None of us REALLY do? Oh we plan… and we think we know what’s next but do we really? There is a sense of anticipation just around every corner.

That was the feeling that overtook me as Barb and I were walking down this trail in Jacobsburg State Park this morning. The trail went on with tall, stick-like trees on both sides and then suddenly we are dealt a left turn. What lies around it? We don’t really know until we get there.

The processing of the photo above came to me even before I lifted the camera to my eye. I knew exactly what I wanted to do in post-processing and what I wanted the finished product to look like. Fortunately for me, everything worked out.

The image was made with my Canon 5D Mark II and 70-200mm f/2.8L IS lens, handheld.

Processed with Nik Viveza 2 and Silver Efex Pro starting with one of the old photo presets and making adjustments from there.

(1/100 sec @ f/5.6; ISO 200; 0 EV; FL 70mm)

I mentioned in my “Birches” post that I originally found my way to the top of South Mountain and Lehigh University’s Mountaintop Campus by follow the shroud of fog that enveloped the very top of the mountain. While I devoted most of my attention to the [...]]]>

(1/100 sec @ f/5.6; ISO 200; 0 EV; FL 70mm)

I mentioned in my “Birches” post that I originally found my way to the top of South Mountain and Lehigh University’s Mountaintop Campus by follow the shroud of fog that enveloped the very top of the mountain. While I devoted most of my attention to the birches here as well as later at Trexler Park, I did stop and shoot a few “fogscapes”. This is one that I kinda like. Nothing super-fancy. Just three trees nicely placed and, of course, some fog.

Image made with my Canon 5D Mark II and 24-70mm f/2.8L lens, handheld.

It has been a very slow weekend from a photography perspective. I have been sick since Thursday and with the snowstorm on Saturday, I haven’t gotten out to shoot at all. So I may have to pull from the archives for something to post to the blog this week. But before I do that, let [...]]]>

It has been a very slow weekend from a photography perspective. I have been sick since Thursday and with the snowstorm on Saturday, I haven’t gotten out to shoot at all. So I may have to pull from the archives for something to post to the blog this week. But before I do that, let me indulge in a little bit of creative silliness. I did spend a few minutes out in the backyard yesterday and I happened to have my iPhone tucked away in my pocket. So in the few minutes that I was out there, I did end up making a few images.

When I got back into the house just a few minutes later, I dumped them on to the iMac and started to play around with processing using the Nik Complete suite of plug-ins for Photoshop. Here’s what I came up with.

This image is of three Maine Harbor Bell wind chimes that we have hanging from the corner of the garage. Processing was with Nik Dfine for noise reduction; Nik Viveza for brightness, contrast, structure; Nik Silver Efex Pro for the conversion to black and white and the antique sepia look; and finally just a touch of Sharpener Pro.

It’s not the Mona Lisa but it was fun to create.

Yet another image from last weekend’s trip to Sandy Hook, NJ. I was drawn to this scene by the way the ice had formed on the rocks. After getting home and processing the image, I found that I wasn’t really pleased with what I had. There was, believe it or not, too much blue. Blue [...]]]>

Yet another image from last weekend’s trip to Sandy Hook, NJ. I was drawn to this scene by the way the ice had formed on the rocks. After getting home and processing the image, I found that I wasn’t really pleased with what I had. There was, believe it or not, too much blue. Blue sky, blue water, it all seemed to detract from the ice on the rocks. So I decided to work on a black and white conversion and this is what I came up with.

I use Nik Viveza and Color Efex Pro to whiten the whites and brighten the brights. Then I went into Silver Efex Pro to make the conversion beginning with the “high structure” preset and making adjustments from there. Finally, I added a yellow filter to the black and white conversion with the final result what you see here.

Image made with my Canon 50D; 24-70mm f/2.8L lens; and tripod.

Creativity and the creative process itself are things that many have sought to explain. During the course of my undergraduate and graduate education which was in psychology, I crossed paths many times with those much more learned and much more famous that me who wrote volumes on the creative process. But sometimes it is the [...]]]>

Creativity and the creative process itself are things that many have sought to explain. During the course of my undergraduate and graduate education which was in psychology, I crossed paths many times with those much more learned and much more famous that me who wrote volumes on the creative process. But sometimes it is the pithy little saying that really stick out in one’s mind.

I just completed reading a short e-book by photographer extraordinaire David duChemin entitled “The Inspired Eye: Notes on Creativity for Photographers”. It strives to be a practical guide and really is. And it is full of pithy little quotes that I pulled out and jotted down. One that I really liked read:

“Creation is risky stuff. It’s at the whim of lunatics with a bad habit of asking, What if…?”

Well that sentence really hit home because, as anyone who has been following my blog for even a short time will know, that’s where I really find myself. I don’t travel to the far ends of the world to make images that could appear in National Geographic. Rather I putter around my own backyard for the most part, look around me and ask What if…? What if I do this or that? Can I turn the everyday, the ordinary into something extra-ordinary.

This image is just another example of trying to do just that. It was early afternoon on New Year’s Day and we decided to go for a walk along the Cinder Banks, an area close-by along our local creek that is left over from the heyday of the local iron industry. I decided to travel light and just took along a single camera and lens – the 30D and the Lensbaby Composer. As we turned down one of the wide trails that lead to the banks and to the creek, I first saw the potential for a wonderful composition. There before me was the tree and brush lined path covered in snow and taking me and my eye right off into the distance. Then I quickly saw all the footprints of those who had walked this path before us and almost decided to just pass on making the image. In the final analysis, I decided to make just one image before moving on.

The highlight of this day turned out to be the the graffiti-laced rusty shed that I posted a few days back. I still really love that image.

This image, the first made that day, wasn’t even processed. I just left it to wither on the vine so to speak. Then last night I was sitting through another in a series of Nik Software webinars – this one on Silver Efex Pro – and afterwards, as I thought about pulling up an image and trying out a bit of what I had just learned, this image came back to mind. I kinda knew what was in my mind that afternoon as I looked at the scene and I knew that the image, in its original form, wasn’t cutting it. So I went to work. I became that lunatic asking What if? Fifteen to twenty minutes later, I had created an image that was much more in tune with I was experiencing while standing out there on the path. And this is it.

Let me know what you think, if you would.

1/250 sec @ f/11; ISO 800; +1/3 EV

I have already added this image to the Home Page on my Website. I thought I would also post it here for those of you who only visit my blog. It was actually my wife’s idea that I use this image to promote my website with a message [...]]]>

1/250 sec @ f/11; ISO 800; +1/3 EV

I have already added this image to the Home Page on my Website. I thought I would also post it here for those of you who only visit my blog. It was actually my wife’s idea that I use this image to promote my website with a message like “Visit Me on the Web at www.itsmynaturephotography.com”. I just may end up doing that! For now, it adorns my Home Page with the heading “Welcome to My Corner of the Web”.

This image was made on Sunday morning at Giving Pond, Delaware Canal State Park, PA. There were dewy spider webs everywhere but finding just the right one was difficult. I wanted a clean subject – two branches with the web strung between them. Nothing else. I didn’t want extra branches and twigs cluttering up the view. And I wanted a good, solid, diffuse background like the water of the pond would offer. Conditions were foggy with the sun (which would offer backlighting) just beginning to break through. The background is indeed the pond.

I did very little post-processing. I darkened the background from gray to black and sharpened the dew drops. I also desaturated the image but there really wasn’t much to desaturate other than the tiny reflections in the droplets.

Image made using my Canon 50D and 300mm f/2.8L IS lens w/2x TC ; tripod-mounted.

Hope you like it!

Today was a hectic day. I came home from work early because I had to take my mother for a medical consultation. I got back from the consult with just enough time to grab a bite to eat with my wife before running off to a photography club meeting. Somewhere in there, I grabbed about [...]]]>

Today was a hectic day. I came home from work early because I had to take my mother for a medical consultation. I got back from the consult with just enough time to grab a bite to eat with my wife before running off to a photography club meeting. Somewhere in there, I grabbed about two minutes and went out in the backyard and made a few images of our flowering Star Magnolia. 

Here’s the catch. I went out with my old (but in excellent condition) Canon Rebel XT that I am thinking of converting to Infrared. For a lens, I used a $69 Canon 50mm f/1.8. I decided to set up the XT for black and white before heading out. I shot this image at 1/4000 sec @ f/4; ISO 200; 0 EV. I really could have/should have stopped down to f/8 or f/11 but I didn’t. This is an example of what I came up with. Background, by the way, is the sky.

I made a series of color close-up images of a dark pink rose earlier in the week. Try as I may, I just couldn’t get the color to look the way I wanted it. So I finally just gave up. Tonight I went back to the images from that shoot and began to wonder what [...]]]>

I made a series of color close-up images of a dark pink rose earlier in the week. Try as I may, I just couldn’t get the color to look the way I wanted it. So I finally just gave up. Tonight I went back to the images from that shoot and began to wonder what they would look like as a black & white images. So I started to play with one of the images in Photoshop and this is what I came up with. 

Image made with a Canon 30D and Sigma 150mm f/2.8 Macro lens, tripod mounted. I didn’t use any flash but rather relied on ambient incandescent light.

EXIF: Aperture priority; 2.0 sec @ f/16; ISO 100; -1/3 EV; Pattern metering.

To be honest, I don’t know what I think. I like it better than the color version but I’m not feeling like the b/w image is knocking my socks off. Maybe that’s because I am not used to b/w or maybe because it is just a lousy image. Your thoughts?

(This image is Copyright Ed Vatza 2009. Usage without my prior written approval is prohibited.)