I went out again tonight to take photos of what looked like a promising sunset. It did turn out to be okay, but we have a temperature inversion that is getting pretty strong. When this happens the pollution from the cars, fireplaces, and businesses gets trapped in the valley. It creates an ugly layer of smog. This photo was to be a five exposure HDR of the sunset, but with all the smog in the air the photo ended up having a gray covering of what almost appeared to be digital noise. So instead of fighting this one I again decided to play around with Snap Art. This is a factory preset for a medium colored pencil drawing. I then went into the sliders and made a few adjustments on the coloring.


This plugging does make the photos appear to be abstract, but it also gives them another look and feel.

Let me know what you think.

~wr~

Tonight the clouds were setting up for a beautiful sunset. I came home from work with just a few minutes to get down to Utah Lake. As luck would have it I got stuck behind a train crossing that was not working. I quickly made a detour and made it just as the sun sank behind the mountains.

This photo is located at the mouth of the Provo River. The sunset turned out to be a dud so after processing I decided to edit it using Snap Art. For this photo I adjusted my tripod so that the camera was inches above the ice and took a three frame seven exposure panoramic. The photo had some interesting aspects to it even though there was not a lot of color. The dead reeds on the right, the log on the ice, and the reeds on the left all give the photo character. I like how this one turned out with the plugin. So next time you have a nice looking photo that has dull color try to use one of the great plugins that are available.

Good news! After posting yesterday’s blog I submitted it to HDR Spotting located at:
http://www.hdrspotting.com/EditorsPicksHDRPhotos

This morning I received a pleasant surprise as it had been posted on the feature page and on the editors choice page. Please take a few minutes and take a look at this new web site. It is full of great HDR photos from many talented photographers.

Thank you for visiting my site today. If you like what you see please share it with your friends and family.

~wr~

I am currently working on a major update to this page I hope to unveil it in the coming weeks. In the meantime you should start seeing some minor improvements to the current page.

Here is one of my favorite photos. I decided to take my daughter for a drive. She had been cooped up in the house for several days since her knee surgery. I took my camera along just in case it looked interesting. This photo was taken on the backside of Timpanogos Mountain. It is a two frame five exposure HDR. By the time we had arrived here it was quite dark. The exposures ranged from 1.6 seconds to 25 seconds. I was quite pleased with the results.

I called this one Sleeping Lady due to the Indian Legend (actually made up by a BYU professor for Family night activities). To make a long story short the male and female were in love. The female was to be sacrificed for the good of the tribe. Through there struggles on the mountain they demonstrated their love for one another in front of their god. Both ended up dying, and their god took great pity on this love story. Mt Timpanogos contains her heart in a cave (National Monument), and her silhouette forms the top of the mountain. Her hair is streaming down towards the great yellow part of this photo.

I like this photo for the colors. They work well together.
I like how the pink ice curves and meanders across the water towards the yellow sunset.
I like the reflections of the mountains on the water and the clouds on the water and ice.

This is the photo I will submit to HDR Spotting.

Thank you for visiting my site.

Let me know what you think.

~wr~

Tags: Panoramic

So today the saga continued. I decided to spend the night at the hospital with my daughter. This was good since the nurses didn’t check in very often, and midway through the night she needed more medicine. Shortly before going to sleep I noticed that three rooms down from where she was staying there was a man in a room receiving tons of extra special attention. In his case it was the wrong type of attention. His room was being guarded by two police officers. Even though they were there I was glad to be next to my daughter during the night. In the next day or so I hope to have the HDR Spotting photo up with an explanation as to how I took it.

In the meantime I thought I would share a recent photo from a professional lab. This is one of the place settings from my daughter’s upcoming wedding. This is a five exposure tonemapped image using photomatix light. It has a slightly green tint due to each of the flowers being light green.

To get this photo we set up a constant soft light box and a spot light. The light box gave a soft cast over the entire photo while the spot light highlighted the rocks. Additional light was cast from the fake candles. The polished rocks were scattered around the candles and the main jar was filled with water.

I like how the water and round jar make the flowers appear bigger than they really are.
I like the soft glow in the candle holders.
I like the scattered rocks.
I would like to reshoot this and adjust my camera settings for a more accurate light.
I would also like a different cloth on the table so the image appears smoother.

Total cost for each center piece is $15.

Thank you for visiting my site today. Let me know what you think and please share this site with your friends and family.

~wr~

Yesterday I had plans for my daily photo blog when life happened. My plans for the evening were to watch the TCU-BSU football game and edit a new photo I took for my recent invitation to HDR Spotting. This is a recent new webpage that displays some of the best HDR photos that can be found on the web. The actual address is http://www.hdrspotting.com/

Back to my plans I had just sat down to watch the game when my wife and daughters said it was time for family time. So being a semi smart husband I turned the tv off and listened as my 6 year old daughter began her presentation. Shortly into her presentation she let out a terrible scream, followed by tears. Our 17 month old had bitten her. After several minutes of tears and mom and dad not doing the presentation right she was again able to proceed.

At the end of her presentation I made a quick look at the clock. It was halftime. I thought ok...I can finish editing the photo for the blog and HDR Spotting and watch the second half. At this point my teenage daughter was hunched over in pain. I took her to the dr. who diagnosed food poisoning. By the time I purchased the medicine and got her tucked in bed it was 12:30. I thought no blog, but at least she is okay and on the road to recovery.

Then at 4 a.m. my son woke me up, because the teenager was in terrible pain. After consulting with her, she felt it was not much better. She would wait for the next time she could take the medicine. At 5:30 her pain had increased and we decided to go the hospital. By noon she had been diagnosed with appendicitis, she had the surgery and was resting in her room.
This photo was taken near Bridal Veil Falls in Provo Canyon. The mountain on the left is Cascade Mountain. In this area of the river there are several waterfalls that cascade off the mountain. For this shot I used a tripod and made five exposures of each section. This photo took 10 different pictures to put together.

Thank you for visiting my site. I hope you enjoyed the short narration and the photo.

~wr~

Tags: HDR

This photo was taken in the exact same location as last nights. Instead of looking directly at the sunset I turned the camera 90 degrees. This mountain is called Cascade mountain, and in this location there is a waterfall around every turn. This is a five exposure HDR.

The Specs:
Tripod with cable release
iso 100
24 mm
f/22
five exposure

I like the color of the sky.
I like the snow on the trees.
I like the patterns of the rocks.

Let me know what you think.

~wr~

Tags: HDR