Big Bend Ranch State Park - Shooting for HDR

Over the years, I have learned that discipline is a very important part of photography. Many times I have arrived at my photographic destination at the "right" time, but it feels like I am getting "nothing." I chimp at the photos I've taken and I think I've had a bust.  But then, after I get home and start doing the post processing, I find that my discipline to keep shooting, bracketing for HDR (High Dynamic Range), pays off. 

Here is the final image:

Here are the two images used to create it.

Sometimes my HDR work is intended to depict what my eyes saw and what the camera can not capture in one image.  Sometimes, using the available software, the image moves beyond what my eye saw to an artistic interpretation.  

I recently bought the NIK Software package with an updated HDR Efex Pro 2.  This version is MUCH faster and still gives a lot of choices for the final tone mapping.  I added some sharpening and additional saturation to give that beautiful sunrise glow. For some photography markets, it probably has too much post processing to qualify.  But . . .  I think it will make a good print.

Cape Pine Light

Cape Pine Light is at the southern most point of Newfoundland.  Located along the scenic Irish Loop, it is a 5 mile gravel road drive off the main road to get there, but we were rewarded by seeing the only caribou on this trip.  With gray cloudy skies, shooting for High Dynamic Range (HDR) was a must.  I shot multiple exposures and hoped that post processing would give me a useable image.  I used Photoshop to merge the images and then Photomatix to do the tone mapping.  I then used Topaz products to brighten the reds and make it a more vibrant image.

Cape Pine, built in 1851, is still a working lighthouse.  It flashes white every 5 seconds and is visible for 16 nautical miles.  Michigan Tech has been using it as a pollution research station with funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Science Foundation.

Just north of Cape Pine Line, we spent the night in Trepassey at a lovely hotel, the Trepassey Motel and Restaurant,  that included a dining room with views of the sea.  With friendly owners, good food and comfortable rooms, this would be a good place to spend several days and spend more time along this lovely coastline.

Presque Isle State Park, Pennsylvania

When I was walking the Magee Marsh, I ran into several people and we chatted about other birding areas.  One of the recommendations was Presque Isle State Park in Pennsylvania.  I was intrigued because Michigan has a Presque Isle River in the Porcupine Mountains that is a wonderful place. So as we planned our route south and east, we chose to visit Presque Isle State Park.

We arrived late in the afternoon and after looking at the map on our iPad, we chose to drive the perimeter.  Once again, we had found a place with many opportunities. Near the city of Erie, it has many opportunities. We saw joggers and bicyclists. There were opportunities for sailing, canoeing, and kayaking on Lake Erie.  There were both shoreline, pond, and forested areas for birding.  It is the only surf sand beach in Pennsylvania. Because of the many habitats, it contains the greatest number of the state's endangered, threatened and rare species than any other similarly sized area in Pennsylvania.

To my delight, we discovered a lighthouse!  It was late in the day and the sun was obscured by clouds. I knew the lighting wasn't the greatest, but I try to be disciplined in my photography.  So I shot both horizontal and vertical, changed positions, and shot for HDR.

Here is one of the original in the sequence I shot for HDR:

Nik has just come out with new HDR software, HDR Efex Pro and since I do a lot of HDR, I bought it the day it came out. This was my first chance to play with it.  

HDR Efex Pro program is a photoshop plugin. You choose which images and it combines them. There are 33 preset choices as well as manual choices so you have a lot of control as to how your final image will look. Here is my first attempt. I liked the stormy day look and I wanted the sky and clouds to be dark enough that the light from the lighthouse would show. This is how the image emerged from HDR Efex Pro:

 

I usually play with my Topaz plugins: BuzSim and Topaz sharpen. Here was my first attempt and I think I went too far with the BuzSim:

Here is my second attempt using the same HDR conversion - less strong effects, but still enhanced with Topaz BuzSim & Topaz Sharpen. I didn't add the lens flare on this one that made the other light shine more.

 Since I like to play with several choices when I'm doing HDR, I went over to Photomatix and used a different set of images, vertical this time and created this image. Once again I went beyond the Photomatix and used the Topaz BuzSim and Topaz Sharpen for artistic effects.

 Here is a different version on roughly the same original images, using Efex Pro but without adding Topaz.

I don't know yet which of these will be my finished images. I suspect when I get home with my larger calibrated screen and more time, I will revisit these and perhaps start over until I decide which ones I like the best. I suspect that I'll have more than one finished product - a dark brooding look and one with a bluer sky.

North Point Light, Milwaukee

As we were studying the map as we explored Milwaukee, I saw North Point Lighthouse.  Since I am fascinated with lighthouses, naturally I had to go find it and try to photograph it.  Over time, trees have grown up around it, making it a challenge to photograph, especially since we weren't going to have a lot of time in Milwaukee.

I figured that I would need to combine multiple exposures to get something I would be happy with.  The "front" up able had the deep shadows from the western sun filtering through the trees.  The "back" below was backlit.

The original lighthouse was built in 1855. Shore erosion in the 1870's required a new lighthouse to be constructed.  Finished in 1887, it was first lit in January, 1888.  Beautiful Lake Park was being planned around North Point Lighthouse.  As the trees grew in the park, they obscured the light and the U.S. government discontinued funding in 1907.  In 1909, money was funded to raise the tower and the work building an additional 35 feet was finished in 1913, making the tower 74 feet high. 

I went back after dark to see if the night lights would create still another view, but at least the night I was there, the lighting wasn't dramatic. 

This lighthouse is in such a pretty setting, I felt it well worth my time to stop, photograph, and enjoy seeing it.

Canada's North Woods

The road through northern Quebec and Labrador goes through some really pretty boreal forests with bogs, ponds, and streams. As a photographer on a road trip, I found myself frustrated because I was seeing pretty landscapes, but under dull gray skies and unfavorable lighting. We weren't in our camper and there were not many places to stay even if we had had time to linger in this wilderness. But I found myself wanting to capture this subtle beauty with my camera.

I took this first shot more as a memory photo. I suspect it was handheld (if you look close, it slightly motion blurred). The setting was pretty, but the lighting not favorable. But I wanted memory photos if nothing else. I actually think this is at Gagnon, a town that ceased to exist. All that is left are some paved roads, an island dividing the road into four lanes, curbs, sidwalks, and parking lots. The buildings are long gone. Considering that the road is gravel before and after Gagnon, it really makes you wonder what happened. When we got back to Texas, we googled Gagnon and discovered that when the nearby mine shut down, the town was dismantled. In retrospect, I should have taken more pictures around Gagnon, lighting or no lighting, because it was interesting and poignant.



As we neared Churchill Falls late in the afternoon, the sky cleared and I knew I had a chance to get some photographs. We got our accomodations taken care of and headed back along the road where I had seen some ponds that might make good reflecting pools for the sunset.

I could tell that the scene was going to difficult to capture the beauty I was seeing. Straight photography would make me choose between the delicately colored sky and the details in the forest and the pool.



So i carefully shot for HDR - shooting sequences of three or more exposures to capture the beautiful delicate colors in the sky and the beauty of the pond. In post processing I needed to go beyond the Photomatics and Photoshop's high dynamic range mreges, because there was a breeze and the combined images had blurred tamarack trees. By choosing an exposure that was close, I could go in, select trees that were not motion blurred and place them where they belonged in the composition, giving me a scene that was true to what I had seen, but what straight photography couldn't produce.



Finding another possibility in this group of ponds, ordinary photography with one exposure produced this:



Shooting multiple exposures, combining them, some artistic filters from Topaz produced an image much more like what my eye enjoyed.




I was so pleased when we woke up to sunny skies. I finally had an opportunity to capture the feel of northern Canada with this shot at Ozzie's Brook, east of Churchill Falls.