Tag Archives: photomatix

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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ViewBug Hallway Photo Contest

Nov
25
2011
by Jessy | 3 Comments

The winners of the Hallway Photo Contest on ViewBug were announced today.  I did not win, however I did receive honorable mention!

The photo is below but you can also check it out on viewbug.

 

Eastern State Penn Prison hall

Won Honorary Mention on November 25, 2011

The additional information requested by an provided to ViewBug is as follows.  Once I see the updates on their blog I will link to that as well.

1. Where did you take the photo and what equipment you used (be specific by giving us the technical details)?

Taken in Philly at Eastern State Penitentiary

Nikon D7000 18-105 f/3.5-5.6 lens

ISO 200 – no flash
exposure 1/10 sec at f/5.6
Altered in Lightroom, then made HDR using Photomatix
2. What inspired you to take that shot?
The entire place had a dirty/creepy feel to it but everything we toured through had been cleaned up and didn’t seem to show the history you felt.  At the center there is a central point that 7 hallways all lead out from.  One of them was completely barred off as they had not yet begun renovations on that hall.  Pushing my lens through the bars to just get the hall, and not the bars, I finally saw what I had been feeling during the tour and took several shots.  When editing the image I kept playing with turning it sepia or black and white.  Nothing seemed to fit, then I happened upon the purple hue and it worked.  It kept with the light and airy yet creepy feeling that I had when I was there.
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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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