Posts in Category: automobile
3/26/2012: Mt. Washington and the Whites from the car.
My daughter Kelia drove on the way back from Burlington Vermont, a few weeks ago now, and I had the opportunity to enjoy the views of the Green Mountains of Vermont and the White Mountains of New Hampshire. I also, for lack of a better option, tried some “through the windshield” photography. This is as close as we got to Mt. Washington, the highest point in the Northeast. I zoomed in to avoid the top of the steering wheel on one edge of the frame and the rearview mirror on the other, shooting just one side of the windshield mounted GPS, at an angle out the little bit of windshield right in front of the driver. Sometimes you just get a better image than you have any right to expect! I even like the car on the other side of the interstate, caught in dynamic tension entering the frame.
This is, of course, one of a sequence of shots taken at 4fps. I would watch for a gap in the median vegetation and the oncoming traffic, and shoot off a burst. This image is from one of several sequences attempting to catch Mt. Washington as it passed. The picturesque Vermont dairy farm was just a happy accident…or an example of my amazing skills…whichever.
I did crop slightly at the left, bottom and top to improve composition and to eliminate a distracting power station just out of the frame on the left, and the shadow of the rearview mirror at the top.
Shooting through windshield glass required some creative color correction…and I would like to take credit, but honestly just hitting the Auto Color Temperature button in Lightroom did the trick. I did adjust shadows and blackpoint more than for a normal image.
Canon SX40HS at 153mm equivalent field of view. f4.5 @ 1/400th @ ISO 100. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation.
Interestingly enough, there is probably no other vantage point where you could get this particular image of the farm against the mountains. You have to be in a passing car.
6/15/2011: Cars as Art
One of our rainy day activities in Acadia National Park this week was a visit to the Seal Cove Auto Museum. I am not a car guy in the normal sense of the word. I notice fancy cars but I don’t lust after them (or not much anyway :). Still, I can’t imagine anyone with an eye for shape and color and texture and light not finding a lot to interest them in a world class collection of antique automobiles. What men made right there at the moment when the hand crafted carriage era and the beginnings of the industrial revolution overlapped are nothing less than works of art. At Seal Cove you can see examples of some of the most ornate restored to original glory. They even have bicycles and motorcycles too. What a feast of color and form and function!
Of course, to do any of these machines justice, you would have to get them out of the museum to a place with better light and space to frame them. These are just snapshots…using the ambient lighting, no flash…where something caught my eye as we toured the collection. Just to give you a flavor of the place.
Nikon Coolpix P500 at various settings from 23mm wide angle equivalent field of view to moderate tele at 76mm. Program with Active D-Lighting and Vivid Image Optimization. Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness.