Focused…… It’s Quite Clear…
With softball taking up 5-6 days a week, photography remains a second thought. Be back soon!
Just A Little Movement…
…at the boardwalk in Ocean City, New Jersey.
I wonder if the pier in Ocean City has withstood the brunt of Irene.
Daybreak in Blue…
…with a touch of red, orange and yellow.
The quiet ocean and deep blue skies made it quite serene this particular morning in Ocean City. I guess the sea will look much more ominous and become much more destructive over the next few days with Irene crashing the party. I wonder if it will do further damage to this wonderfully photogenic pier, my hope is that it doesn’t.
Glowing During the Blue Hour…
Wow, it’s been a long time in between postings and only managed to comment on a few of your blogs over the last month or so. Hopefully that will change in the next 2 weeks as softball is coming to an end for the high school and rec. season. Allstars begins after that but the games are on only a few weekends over the summer. I hope to contribute more as that time comes!
Anyway, I managed to get a few shots last night during our drive to the beach. This is St. Catherines Chapel in Spring Lake, New Jersey. Many of my followers will remember this scene from 1 or 2 previous postings, but I was never able to get it at this time of day, the blue hour. With the exception of lack of clouds I really like this shot. A 5 shot hdr to show some details in the shadows and add some depth. Finished off in Topaz for some finer details on the chapel.
Hope to comment and post soon and enjoy the summer.
FU…………..Huh?
Ah….now I get it. Wouldn’t want to follow too close behind the person riding this bike.
Shot settings and processing: Tamron 17-50mm at 35mm, f5.6, 1/45 sec and 100 iso. Applied split tone preset in Lightroom and boosted contrast.
Some Things are Naturally Framed…
![](http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4150/5435079000_48c0fff228_o.jpg" width="1600" height="1022" alt="Natural Framing..." /></a> "Natural Framing")
I’m always up for a physical challenge and the mile and a half walk would not have phased me a bit. What ended up making the walk a bit laborious was the soft condition of the sand. I tried walking by the water but the dunes would obscure my vision of the lighthouse so most of the trek was made up, down and along the dunes of Island Beach.
Every hundred yards or so would present a decent look at the Barnegat Lighthouse across the bay and this one really framed “Old Barney” quite well. And since the sky was not very cooperative I though I might use the dunes as an interesting foreground element to help frame the shot. I bring this up because Julie , and rightfully so, questioned my positioning of the horizon in my last post(dead middle of the frame). Prevailing wisdom suggests that you should not position the horizon of any landscape scene directly in the middle and in most cases this seems to be true. But when I experimented with several crops in Lightroom each result seemed to be counterproductive to my intent of the shot. I really wanted to present a photo that showed the viewer the sense of distance the scene provided. Every crop I tried seemed to present too much contraction on the landscape and defeat my original intent. In this shot I did crop a portion of the top but in this case the contraction, I believe, actually brings more focus to the lighthouse, which is my intent.
BTW, I want to thank Julie for bringing up the horizon issue because it gave me an opportunity to explain my thoughts about the shot. Let me know what you think…even if you disagree with me. It’s okay!
Sunshine, Abundant Sunshine…
My day at Island Beach was one of the best weather days in months. It was in the 40′s with plenty of sunshine, a perfect day to be on one of the nicest beaches , IMHO, in New Jersey. This beach, at the southern most part of the park, is one of several that allow vehicle access. On this morning though, not a car or person to be seen for miles.
The beach really is beautiful, no litter, super wide and surrounded by wind swept dunes (to be featured soon). I can imagine during the summer this place is packed….one reason I love to go in the off-season.
I snapped quite a few shots of this beach and picked these two due to the shape of the sun, produced I believe because of the aperture of f9.5. This Sigma 10-20mm really produces some great results within this aperture range. Both of these shots were taken at 10mm which is obviously, even with the cropped sensor, ultra-wide.
Relaxing….
I’ve always enjoyed the beach as a place to relax, do some body boarding and watching my kids play, but since I’ve taken up photography I think I enjoy it even more during the early morning and late afternoon/evening. This shot is a perfect example of the quality of light that can present itself during these “off” hours. I find that I can really take in what mother nature presents and enjoy the calmness of the moment. Plus you just can’t get these great layers with the sun so high in the sky.
On the processing front, most of the minimal work went into obtaining a proper crop, adjusting the dark tones, and bumping the temperature to achieve a warmer overall tone. Oh, I almost forgot that I utilized the adjustment brush to reveal a few details in the sea gull.
Seasonal…
I was just reading Brian Matiash’s blog and in this particular post he was talking about using a distinctively different perspective to separate your photo’s from others. I heeded that piece of advise with this shot and I like the result. This shot is certainly representative of the current season!
Shot settings: F14, 1/20 sec, iso 200 at 17mm
Sometimes You Just Have To Pull Over…
And take a few shots….especially when presented with this!
Shot Settings: Sigma 10-20, f/4, 1/120 sec, iso 200 at 10mm
Perspective 2…
You may have remembered a few previous posts(last year) from the arboretum just down the street from my house. I hadn’t been back in awhile so I decided to make it a point to go back and take some shots…it didn’t disappoint. This time I was concentrating on taking shots from unique perspectives. This one was a must as the clouds started to gather towards the end of the shoot. I forgot to change my aperture and at 2.8 I just missed the focus point.
HDR from base shot of f2.8, 1/1500th sec and iso 100 at 22mm
Discovery
Discovery, originally uploaded by boomer3297.
All the talk in Vegas is about the new “City Center” and so far most opinions are not in favor of the project, naturally I had to see it for myself. It is certainly different but from a photographer’s perspective I loved it. It’s all about the geometric, streamlined look- very futuristic with lots of intersecting lines yada, yada.
This is a 3 shot HDR from the strip side just before the sun went completely behind the mountains.
Blue 2- Sunrise: Sandy Hook
Blue 2- Sunrise- Sandy Hook, originally uploaded by boomer3297.
Same shot as last post just a few seconds later. I noticed that the internet version is slightly darker than my lightroom version. Note to self.
Blue- Sunrise: Sandy Hook
Sunrise- Sandy Hook, originally uploaded by boomer3297.
Color temperature, as we know, leans towards the blues in the early hours of the day. This sunrise in Sandy Hook is no exception.
I gave this shot an abstract look with a underpainting filter and some negative adjustments in clarity. I think it definitely shows better larger, so please click directly on it to see more of the filter effect.
Blue
Blue, originally uploaded by boomer3297.
An absolutely beautiful view of the strip in Las Vegas. I caught this shot as the water turned blue in the pool, well not literally, every few minutes the lens of the pool light would change color.
Certainly not a bad place to relax on a hot day or night.
