Posts in Category: architecture
8/14/2010
Bush Place Panorama
This vista (or the owner of the house on the point, former President George Bush Senior) is so popular that they have had to build a parking area. Well, okay, there is also a famous local feature right below the parking lot called Blowing Cave, a hole in the rocks that spouts a gout of water and booms at the right tide, but most people discover that by accident when attempting to photograph the Bush estate. It was lovely evening, though windy with the passing front that piled the clouds out there over the sea.
This is is 8 shots, 4 across and 2 down, taken with the iPhone 4 and assembled on the phone in AutoStitch, processed on the phone in PhotoGene (levels and sharpen, some straightening), and uploaded to the web from the phone in SmugShot and Flickrstackr.
From iPhone4 HDR and Pano.
8/11/2010
Saint Anne’s Point
iPhone 4 HDR. St. Anne’s point is photogenic from almost any angle. Here from the back, along the coast on Cape Arundel. The Drama of the sky and sun breaking through clouds (including the rays), the strong silhouetting of the buildings against the light, the detail of stony beach and even the rail of the stair…and then the light on the water, produced, to my eye, a powerful image.
Captured and processed completely on the iPhone. Two exposures merged in Pro HDR. I tried my usual Levels adjustment and sharpening in PhotoGene, but then went back to the original HDR with PerfectPhoto for a different set of tools. Increased Gamma, lightened shaddows, increased contrast, and warmed the color temperature just slightly. Uploaded with SmugShot.
From iPhone4 HDR and Pano.
8/10/2010
Marsh Light
Another shot from my Saturday outing, and another Canon SX20IS and Photomatix HDR. Two shots.
Just a very quiet domestic scene with a touch of wild in the marsh in the foreground, and some drama in the clouds. Or so I hope. The tension between the elements is of interest to me.
From a technical standpoint, the trick was to take both shots with no cars visible on the busy road that passes between the house and barn…and of course I was trying to do this handheld. A tripod would make HDR much easier…but then I’d have to carry the tripod. 
Canon SX20IS at 28mm equivalent. 1) 1250th @ f7.1 @ ISO 80, 2) 1/400th @ f4 @ ISO 80. Exposure compensation dial used to change the exposure by eye for the clouds and landscape.
In Photomatix, enhanced detail, tone mapping blend, with the settings tweaked by eye for the desired result. I am still very much learning to use Photomatix.
In Lightroom, a touch of Fill Light and Blackpoint to the right, added Clarity and Vibrance and Sharpen narrow edges preset. Cropped at the top to constrain the sky.
From Around Home 2010.
6/25/2010
Window Birds
Back at last from the land of low bars (AT&T) and no wifi. Better late than never. This is another window from the same house as yesterday in Rockport Maine. Some have window blinds…some have window birds.
Canon SX20IS at 560mm equivalent. F5.7 @ 1/640th @ ISO 100. Landscape program.
A bit of Recovery in Lightroom. Fill Light and Blackpoint just barely right. Added Clarity and just a bit of Vibrance. Sharpen narrow edges preset. Cropped for composition.
From Rockport Maine.
6/24/2010
About Light and Weathering
An interesting old building in Rockport ME on sunny afternoon. I like the weathered door and what the sun is doing with the shadows, especially of the porch light. I used the long end of the zoom on the Canon SX20IS to frame this snippet from across the street.
Canon SX20IS at 560mm equivalent. F5.7 @ 1/640th @ ISO 125. Landscape program.
In Lightroom 3, Recovery for highlights. A touch of Fill light and Blackpoint just barely right. Added Clarity and a bit of Vibrance. Sharpen narrow edges preset. A small amount of distortion correction and vertical perspective correction applied using the new tools in Lightroom 3.
From Rockport Maine.
6/13/2010
St. Anne’s in Evening Sun
Happy Sunday!
St. Anne’s Church in Kennebunkport is perhaps the best example of the stone churches of Southern Maine. There are many, all built around the same time, by the same denomination, as “summer churches” for the colony of summer residents that was developing along the coast in those days. St. Anne’s sits of a point of land at the mouth of the Kennebunk River, overlooking the stretch of coast to the south. As you can imagine, it has been the backdrop of some pretty high profile weddings over the years. Here, the summer evening sun of Maine, past 7PM, warms the old stone and picks out detail, while the shadows of the trees dapple the already richly textured surface. I across the street, shooting into the church grounds form a good distance. Hence the long focal length…but in hindsight it provided an interesting perspective.
Canon SX20IS at about 200mm equivalent. F5.0 @ 1/250th @ ISO 200. Landscape program.
In Lightroom 3, a touch of Fill Light and Blackpoint just barely right. Added Clarity and Vibrance. Sharpen Narrow Edges preset.
From Around Home 2010.
6/10/2010
Bush’s Through Reeds
Lovely warm evening sun, storm off the coast, the Bush estate in Kennbunkport (Cape Arundel), and a few reeds in the foreground. Moderate telephoto to frame, flip out LCD to get the low angle.
Canon SX20IS at 85mm equivalent. F4.0 @ 1/320th @ ISO 80. Landscape program.
Recovery for the sky in Lightroom 3, Fill Light for the reeds, Blackpoint right for intensity (gently in Lr3 as the tool is works much faster), added Clarity and a touch of Vibrance. Sharpen narrow edges preset. Cropped slightly top and bottom for composition.
From Around Home 2010.
4/16/2010
NYC Reflections
The city that lives in glass houses! Still at Bryant Park but looking the other direction…up as opposed to down. I am always fascinated by the abstractions caused by buildings reflecting in the glass facade of other buildings. Don’t know why, but there it is. I have some shots closer in, of the reflections themselves, but this wider shot has a lot of interest for me.
Canon SX20IS at about 38mm equivalent. F4.0 @ 1/250th @ ISO 80. Landscape program.
In Lightroom, a bit of recovery for the sky, Blackpoint just right, added Clarity and Vibrance, and Sharpen landscape preset.
From NYC 2010.
3/26/2010
Laudholm Farm, Wells ME
As I mentioned yesterday, the Laudholm Farm Trust has a cooperative agreement with the Wells National Estuarine Research Center which helps to off-set the cost of maintaining the land in its undeveloped state, in a location where the commercial value of the land is relatively high. They have also been able to preserve the farm buildings, and Laudholm Farm is certainly one of the more picturesque New England/Maine coastal farms.
This shot looks back along one of the maintained trails across a meadow…golden in this season. In a few months it will be green and alive with Bobolink song. I got down low again to catch the golden grasses as foreground, and cropped from the top to place the horizon for this view. It improves with size. You might want to try it larger on Wide Eyed In Wonder by clicking the image above. It should open to the largest size you can view on your monitor.
Canon SX20IS at 28mm equivalent. F4 @ 1/800th @ ISO 80. Landscape program.
As I mentioned a few days ago, I am coming to trust the Landscape program on the SX20 to produce exposures that allow me to process in Lightroom for the effect I am after. In this case, Recovery for the sky (but not much), Fill Light for the foreground, Blackpoint right, added Clarity and just a small amount of Vibrance. Sharpen landscape preset.
From Around Home 2010.
3/22/2010
Walker’s Point, Kennebunkport ME
(This is going to be a story of second thoughts, so do read all the way to bottom.)
For those in the know this shot will be instantly recognizable. It is the summer home of George W. Bush senior in Kennebunkport ME. We were out enjoying some after-supper sun, which, of course, we have not seen in many months in Maine. The sea was still running heavy from last week’s storms. The light was just this side of golden. This looks like a 28mm shot, but it actually cropped from top and bottom from a shot taken at closer to 35mm.
It was a particularly difficult exposure problem, since the foreground, which had already fallen partially into shadow in the late sun, was so dark and the midground and sky so very bright. Exposing for the foreground would have given me a white sky. I struck the best balance I could in-camera, and hoped to recover some of the range in Lightroom.
This is another shot that improves as you enlarge it. I really recommend clicking to open it a larger size.
Canon SX20IS at about 35mm equivalent. F4 @ 1/320th @ ISO 80. Landscape program.
Some Recovery in Lightroom for the sky. Quite a bit of Fill Light to open the deep foreground shadows. Blackpoint to the right. Added Clarity and just a touch of Vibrance. Sharpen landscapes preset. Cropped from the bottom to eliminate deeper shadow, and then from the top for composition.
And that is good as far as it goes.
Of course…as I looked at this image all set for posting, it occurred to me that it might be improved. Surprising how often that happens. I suddenly saw that dueling Graduated Filter effects might scrub some exposure from the sky and point, while picking up some more detail in the foreground. So I opened Lightroom once more, made a virtual copy of the image so I didn’t mess up the original edits, and took that into the Develop module. I rolled back the Tone edits I did on the original so I could work from something more like the file as it came from the camera. Then I opened the Graduated Filter Effects panel and pulled down a GFE from the top of the image all the way to the bottom. I used that to reduce Exposure quite a bit and Brightness just a bit. Then I added Clarity and Sharpness to that filter. Next I pulled up a GFE from the bottom to mid image. I used this one to increase Exposure and Brightness and add considerable Clarity and Sharpness, plus a bit of Saturation and Contrast. Finally, I exited the GFE panel, used a touch of Recovery on the whole image to darken the sky even more and some Fill Light for the foreground shadows. The Fill Light was mostly so that I could slide the Blackpoint slightly right to increase overall intensity. And this is what I got.
And that, folks, if memory serves, is much closer to the scene as it appeared to the naked eye on the evening I took it. It is certainly much closer to my mind’s-eye-view of what it ought to look like.