I will be there, but not driving this Chevy
EHW Photography will be at Caffeine and Octane tomorrow morning from 7A-11AM at 12600 Deerfield Parkway, Alpharetta, Georgia. I'll be selling photos, and hopefully capturing a few new ones to share! Over 600 people and their autos usually attend. So if you want to see classics, hotrods, and modern special editions come on down!
-ehw
A little memory of childhood fun
Walking through Old Car City an International Harvester pickup sat thinking of glorious days long past...and I thought of shifting my first gears at the age of 7 or so...
See we once had a 1970 Scout, made by IH. It was the fancy model with dual gas tanks and a four speed manual transmssion. It ran on anything according to my Dad. It was pretty smooth going to school down Poverty Lane (yes there is such a road in West Lebanon, N.H.) It was so smooth in fact that my Dad could drink his coffee in an open cup while changing gears!
I know you are now asking how do you drink coffee nicely when you are driving a stick shift? Well that is of course easy when you deploy your optional automatic child transmission to shift on command. I think my Dad was WAY ahead of his time. I mean this transmission was voice activated! "Second! Third! Fourth!...slowing down now Four, Three, Two.......stop...First!" Google car eat your heart out!
I was the proudest second grader on the planet when I got to school. Not only was my Dad the ONLY Army officer in the state, the only one to understand how to build a Army standard bunker...but I was the ONLY child shifting gears of an automobile!
-ehw
P.S. As for the image this is my first image in the Fall Collection. After reading the HDR Book by RC (www.aboutRC.com) I went back to work on several older photos. Using new ideas, tools and skills many images found themselves re-invented...and much improved. That is the beauty of digital and art...it can grow with you if you challenge yourself from time to time to not live on your laurels. This will be available for purchase on 12x12 metallic floating mount for $115 by the end of the week. Larger sizes available on request...I promise you will not be disappointed..Why later? I am awaiting the proof copy right now to make sure it is just the way I want it!
While at Old Car City a two weeks ago I had some fun with hubcaps! Yes those fancy things on your wheels! As with all chrome and HDR I found the hardest two challenges to be removing the HDR blues and keeping myself out of the reflections. I have a lot to learn in both areas, as with everything else experience and review will help me get better in the future.
Now many of you are proficient in Photoshop so removing this blue tint from chrome is not too hard if you know the six mask, layer, etc tricks available in that venerable program.
I on the other hand do not "know" photoshop. I can still get the blue out pretty easily though using two other tools I have on hand OnOne Perfect Effects or Nik ColorEfex.
To get rid of the tint Perfect Effects simply go to the color masks and select Purify Highlights, and then on a second layer select Purify Shadows. Move the sliders left and right to get the effect you want. Don't want it on the whole photo? Select brush in and apply like you would in Photoshop.
In Nik ColorEfex simply select the White Neutralizer, go into the additional modes and select wedding dress. Move the sliders to suite. Done....
I use these not as stand alone options, but as round trips to and from Aperture. You can do the same thing in Lightroom.
Ok that is the tip of the day.
-ehw
Up in Old Car City I enjoyed a trip down memory lane, and I found myself wanting to shoot photos of my grandfather's cars. One grandfather (my DjaDja) had a Cadillac. My other grandfather (my Pappap) like Plymouths. After previously finding the Caddies, I went searching for a few Plymouths.
This hood ornament was on a Plymouth, and it is one I never remember seeing in the 1970's. It was long gone before I could remember them. I thought the ornament was stunning, and it gave the appearance of crystal inside the chrome still perfectly smooth to the naked eye. This Puritan soldier from Plymouth still looks fierce and ready lead people to the new world!
When I took my class with Bill Fortney, Jim Begley and RC Conception both discussed ways to purify the HDR Chrome in Photoshop. For whatever reason, HDR turns a lot of chrome blue. So the way you deal with it is to brush away the blue and doing a mask operation. Now first I don't own photoshop, and if I did I've never been able to understand the language of Photoshop. So I turned to my OnOne Perfect Suite 8 and its filters. I found with a quick application of Purify Highlights, either by brush in or whole photo, I got pretty much the same effect as six actions in Photoshop.
Cheating? Yep. At least to the Photoshop experts out there. Perfect? Probably not. Can I live with it? You betcha! In the end it just goes to show you there are a lot of good tools out there, just find the one you can understand and exploit the best!
-ehw
P.S. Fujifilm X-E1 with 60mm macro.
This Long Haired Lady still looks elegant up in Old Car City. I really wish I could see this car in its glory. I love the long lines, the grace it would have sliding through the air, and the roar of the engine. Even today you can clearly see the blue of the sky reflecting in the chrome at this partly bright sunny day in North Georgia.
Working in the cold weather my camera did just fine, and the battery did not crash. What I did find a bit harder was staying comfortable with all the layers of warm clothes I had one...and realizing I forgot my most vital accessory for serious rolling around...my knee pads.
About 16 years ago I fell down a Georgia mountain in the cold of winter while in the Army. I smashed up both of my knees, and they got good infections. Today I still feel the soreness, especially on cold winter days like this one. So forgetting my knee pads really hurt my movement up and down with the tripod.
In order to really work a scene well, a great photographer once told me to get high-low-middle-near-far-get front-back-rear and anything else. You have to experiment. It does not mean you have to click the shutter at each spot, but it does mean you have to observe each spot and think through the opportunities it can offer. As with any skill, experience and creativity will drive the end result far more than the equipment available.
So the moral of the story is, I think I captured a good composition. I still wonder however how much more I could have done if I remembered the knee pads and worked this scene even harder.
-ehw
P.S. Fujifilm X-E1 with 14mm, F/18 on a seven shot jpeg EV Comp setting processed through Nik HDR efex Pro2 and touched off in Aperture
Last night I ran out with friends to grab a bite to eat and I was longing for my lovely wife to be with me. I knew she might enjoy the sights, sounds and a little treat...
Oh well just under 42 hours or so and I'll be with her and the four little people I love so much! Time does make the heart grow fonder...but that happens to me after 8 hours at work! I hope when I retire from my second career I can merge family and work a little better.
-ehw
PS X-20 with post in Snapseed. Fun composition. I did open up the shutter on purpose to get the movement of the cars. Snapsee continues to amaze me with fun tools and output.
One of the effects of HDR photography is also to bring out textures and color in a very realistic way.
I took this photo and had some fun with it in HDR Efex Pro 2, then ran it through Color Efex 4. Sharpened to taste and called it a day.
RC Conception pointed out to us on the second night that the purpose of HDR is to get a good product to finish in post processing. He found many people shot, process and don't finish.
It would be like writing the first acts of a play, and then walking away from the final act.
I called this Bel Air Glamor because the Glamor Glow filter seems to be all the rage in many a circle today, and I wanted to try it out for myself.
If you want to see some really extraordinary HDR check out both RC Conception's website and Jim Begley's. Both are true master artists with this technique.
Check them out at www.aboutrc.com and www.wowphotoshdr.com.
-ehw
-ehw
A lovely day to shoot in Northern Georgia..Day Two of His Light's Old Car City HDR Workshop.
Check out www.billfortney.com to see what it is all about...It is heaven sent for photos and the soul.
More later..in class now!
-ehw
Heading back into the evening class...put wanted to post something from this morning. Six miles of trails and seventy years of cars to photograph! I only covered two small yards so far, and they are full of fun shapes and images just crying to be photographed. I am of course the only Pentax shooter here! So my stuff does not get borrowed much for some reason.
Getting ready for critiques tonight and learning from what I've done and failed to do...
More tomorrow!
-ehw