Tag Archives: HDR

Old Car City USA

Feb
11
2013
by Jessy | 0 Comments

This past weekend I packed up and headed to Old Car City USA in White Georgia.  It’s about 6 hours away but well worth the drive.  I love my cars, and I loved this place.  There are acres of cars and random buildings.  There are cars with trees growing through the grills even!

Everything is for sale or trade, but I would just pay the extra and take your camera for a few hours and enjoy the experience.

*Please note, a few hours will far from cover the amount there to photograph.

Being from Florida now, I was not prepared for the 37 degree weather, but once I saw the place I just could not leave.  Dean, the owner, was very nice and gave advice upon entering and didn’t rush me out the door when I was late to go.  There was a lot of crawling over vehicles and under trees to get to some decent shots that I wanted but the entire experience was more than worth the time and effort.  I left feeling cold, dirty, and very tired, but I am ready to go back, for a few days.

 

So many things and so many opportunities for more photos, or something to buy and fix up.  you can still see the glory in what once was of these amazing cars.  I know there is a photo workshop coming up that RC Concepcion has been talking about.  I would message him and find out the details to go.

While you are there keep your eyes open for amazing HDR opportunities as well as any other edits you can do to increase the dramatics of a photo.  With cars and shooting, the secret is in the details.  I can only hope that I get a chance to make it back out to Old Car City USA some day soon for a few days….

 

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Selected by the judges as a community favorite

Mar
05
2012
by Jessy | 0 Comments

It seems that the same images are coming back again and again getting more and more well known in various photography communities.  My Cathedral picture taken at St. John the Baptists Cathedral in Savannah Georgia has now been “selected by the judges as a community favorite” per the email I received from ViewBug!  Its the same HDR image that won the HDR Photomatix contest on FaceBook.  I have also sold 3 copies of this images thus far…and finally printed one for myself.

Once again this is completely amazing to me and I feel so honored to have someone even like some of the images I have taken, let alone for them to win something.  The best thing of this is it keeps giving me more and more motivation to get out and take more images.  On top of that is creating and excitement to see what people will say about various images and takes on the locations that I shoot.

I hope I can keep getting all the criticism I have been, good and bad, it has definitely help me to grow in the photography field!

Thank you again to all of you that vote, view, and provide feedback (good and bad, without you bad ones I don’t learn anything!), its what helps me to keep growing as a photographer.

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A Barn in Kansas

Feb
25
2012
by Jessy | 0 Comments

Growing up there was this barn on the side of the highway by my little town.  It becomes one of those landmarks that lets you know you are close to home.  As I got older and started seeing things a little differently the barn become something more.  I always wanted to go look inside, see what’s there, etc.  Finally, last year at Christmas I asks my Dad to take me out there so I could take some photos.  This only prompted him to say “You mean to XXX’s barn?”  Of course we knew the family that owned it, if only I would have asked earlier.

I was able to get some great images of it with the snow all around, and I have found I am partial to the black and white, that must be how I’ve always seen it in my head as a child.  The barn is nearly 100 years old so I think the black and white is fitting.  For the images below, you can see them larger here.  I used a few presets that I have in Light Room and then of course tweaked them a little, I’m never happy with pre-sets.  I did import a few of them into Topaz BW but I decided that I liked them better straight from Light Room.  Take a look and let me know which one is your favorite.

 

 

This is the first image I completed.  This is HDR using Photomatix, I love how the sun turned out…

 

 

 

 

 

This is an image of the back of the barn.  Something about how the door was hanging from the hinge and resting on the ground drew my attention.  The red with the sun hitting it was so bright and beautiful!

 

 

 

 

 

 

An image from the side in the snow path of the trucks and tractors.  Just to the right was a huge snow pile that I did clime up a little to get a different perspective.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This image is my favorite.  I used a few presets from Lightroom then  kept tweaking them until I was happy.  something about that old Black and White photo is how I have always seen it in my head.  It gives this image some of that old story and mystery to it.

 

 

 

This is a different Black and White process I did.  I love the sun as the focal point, but you cannot ignore that barn.  I think this makes a unique panorama of the whole place.

 

I will be putting these up on my fine art america site but I am still looking for another printer that is a little cheaper.  Fine art america charges so much and I get so little as I try to keep the costs reasonable.  If you have suggestions let me know! 🙂

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Processing old images

Feb
08
2012
by Jessy | 0 Comments

I once read an article by Trey Ratcliff at StuckInCustoms.com where he mentioned that you should not process your images for a year after taking them.  This gives you time to learn new things and process them in a way that you are happy with.
Did i listen to him?  NO!  But, I did learn a  valuable lesson from all of this the other week.  While I am too impatient (yes, me, impatient…I think my parents told me that at least once a day growing up) to wait a year to process after taking them I have been going back and re-precessing a few old images.  The images below are not necessarily the exact files that I processed the first time but they are in the same group of raw files from the same day.

These images were taken about a year ago the day after I purchased my Nikon D7000 just so I could bracket and do HDR.  I of course processed them immediately, and learned Photomatix on the fly.  Knowing nothing about bracketing, hand holding for the images, and using these photos as my first lesson in Photomatix I would say they turned out well.

      

 

The images above have been sold and even won a few contests, but his weekend with some of the new things I learned from watching HDR tutorials by Brian Matiash and Trey Ratcliff I was able to produce images that impress me more.  The level of realizim is closer to what I prefer for these scenes while still capturing the dramatic affect.  I was also now able to see more images out of the series that I wanted to develop becasue my experience of composition has grown to better understand what I want/need and had in those images.

       

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Storm Breaks Image Sold!

Jan
25
2012
by Jessy | 0 Comments

I sold my second print on Fine Art America!  The image is an HDR of two people down the beach and the amazing clouds as the storm was breaking up.

Check the announcement page here: sale announcement

This image was taken the day after I purchased my amazing Nikon D7000.  Of course I got the camera just so that I could bracket and learn how to do HDR.  I barely put the camera down anymore, I have learned to love it so much.

I woke up very early, then had to wait for the storm to end.  Being paranoid about such an expensive piece of equipment I could not get myself to go to the beach with it still raining.  As soon as the rain subsided I was out the door and at the beach trying to figure out the bracketing.  I finally figured everything out and was getting some amazing shots of the pier when I noticed two people way down the beach, the clouds above them, and the sun breaking, it was just perfect.

Once again this sale is just amazing to me and I thank all of those that have been with me through the process, I couldn’t have done it without all of you!

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Selling Photography #2

Sep
13
2011
by Jessy | 1 Comment

I have been playing with the FineArtAmerica site some more.  I think I’m starting to like this and the printing options are impressive!  It also has a great community of other artists that reiew and provide feedback on your art.

Check out some of the HDR here:

hdr art

FineArtAmerica also offers some different logos, and slideshows that you can place on your site to lead people back to your FineArt site. Below is a copy of one of these and if you notice it links to my FineArt site to purchase images. One thing that I do not like is that I cannot incorporate this into my site or remove/alter menu items to go back to my own site. A perfect example of this is the blog, I am not one to copy/paste to another blog, but I do not have enough time to work on 2 blogs.

Sample “slideshow” for FineArt

Art Prints


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Photomatix Contest Winner

Aug
17
2011
by Jessy | 1 Comment

I entered a Photomatix contest on Facebook a week or so ago and I found out this morning (August 17, 2011) that I won!  You’ll have to check it out on Facebook.  This should link directly to the page itself, just read the caption at the bottom.

Award:

Editors Choice Award

 

Prize:

Photomatix Pro Bundle


 

Photomatix software is used for HDR images. It has a great de-ghosting affect and has several presets that will get you very close to the result that you are looking for and leave little work to follow.

The image that won the contest is the inside of St. John the Baptist Cathedral in Savannah Ga.

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Feature Photo

Aug
17
2011
by Jessy | 2 Comments

I have to share as this is my first ever featured photo!  In my previous post I spoke about ViewBug and today (August 17, 2011) the photo below is the second featured photo on ViewBug!  (out of 4, not too shabby).  I have also included a permanent link to the photo in case if you want to see it and see the amount of feedback that you are able to get on a single photo.

http://www.viewbug.com/photo/1273350

 


This is an HDR creation (one of my first) taken at Jacksonville beach of the pier. It had been storming that morning and I had to wait till about 9am for the sun to start coming out to get the breaks in the clouds that you see. The beach looked beautiful that day.

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HDR eBook

Mar
01
2011
by Jessy | 0 Comments

Finished another ebook last night.  There was a lot of great information about the 10 mistakes when creating HDR images.  I saw many things that I have done and some of my images have all 10 of the mistakes!  This weekend I am going to re-do some of my images to correct the mistakes that I have made and I will post them concurrent of each other to help show others, and myself, the reasons, and small changes that can be done to make an “OK” HDR photo a “Great” photo (well hopefully they turn out great)!  This is a practice that I am going to start here on this site and continue to do to help myself learn and remember techniques as I keep attempting to be a photographer.

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