Had to dig into the archives for a picture. Had the portfolio review last nite that I will write up later.
San Francisco Ferry Building
This is the San Francisco skyline as seen from Treasure Island. The center spire is the recently renovated Ferry building of the Port of San Francisco.
Coot
Another from our recent visit to Treasure Island. I have not processed my ‘cityscapes’ yet.
View of Coit Tower
Coit Tower is lit up and toward the right side of this picture. I guess a barge went by while shooting this image. This was taken from Treasure Island near the lookout point.
This is my new blog styling. My last design was panned with comments like ‘not pretty’, ‘not wide enough’, ‘what changed?’. So I went back to the design board for this one. One of the blogs, that I read regularly, is Superhero Journal. This design is inspired by Andrea’s blog design.
Treasure Island Marina
On Saturday nite, Chip and I went out with the camera club to take pictures of the San Francisco skyline from Treasure Island. While waiting for the sun to set, I wandered over to the marina. This is very abstract and the motion is because the exposure was 15 seconds. I have not work on the skyline shots but think that I have a nice shot of the bay bridge and Coit tower that will be posted sometime soon.
Infrared Portfolio
Note: This portfolio has been replaced by Woodland Quiet.
As those who have visited my blog recently, I have been working (and struggling) to put together an infrared portfolio. I still need to name the portofolio and write an artist’s statement. I have learned a lot just from getting ready for the review. I reviewed my images from the last 4 months and was very surprised to find several good shots that I never processed. On the flip side, the images that I liked at the time do not look good to me now. Finally, I have found out how much cropping can improve an image.
Thanksgiving in Sunol
Chip and it went out for a quick trip to Alameda Creek. We went wading along the creek. I planned a creek shot but this little still life caught my interest instead.
Alameda Creek – alternate composition
This is an alternate viewpoint to this earlier shot.
Photo Friday – Imperfection
HAPPY THANKSGIVING
This morning, I dragged myself out of bed with a pounding sinus headache. I was zoning out on the BART train platform waiting for the train to let us on. I watched this blackbird looking shiny and perfect just hanging out on the roof. Every once in a while, the blackbird let out a half-hearted mellow chirp. It made me smile, then I realized it was a good photo op. For me, the imperfections of the caulk just add to the picture.
Alameda Creek
This is another find from the archives. For one thing, I think that cropping can make a huge difference. Also, I think that Pixmantec’s Rawshooter has hugely improved my infrared work. Using Rawshooter, I can get much closer to what I want for the final result. Here are my Rawshooter steps for infrared images…
- First, I need to set the white point because infrared images come out of the camera with a strong magenta cast. I can get my raw files close to neutral. Somewhere between 1800-200K. Photoshop’s camera raw lowest color temperature is 2000K.
- Next, I use auto exposure which gives a good starting point.
- Most infrared images need more contrast so I use the built-in Strong Contrast curve.
- I can fine-tune the shadow and highlight contrast independently. Usually, I add more shadow contrast and less highlight contrast.
- While converting to a 16-bit TIFF, I do raw sharpening. My images enter Photoshop with a nice crisp look without any over-sharpening.
DorothyPhoto 