Sunrise at Big Meadows – Shenandoah National Park, Virginia

I wanted to capture Sunrise at Big Meadows in Shenandoah National Park.  When we planned the trip we had planned on camping inside Shenandoah National Park, but when we arrived all the campsites were taken. After a brief bit of panic we found a private campground with space just outside of the park. The good news is it was close enough to get up and catch sunrise in the park. As it turns out it gets cold in Shenandoah National Park in late October. The temperature was at or near freezing every night we were there. So by 6 am our tent was very cold and we were ready to get in the car and warm up on the drive into the park. After driving around and shooting sunrise we would stop and eat breakfast in the park.

After driving south the first morning to look for shots, the second morning we drove north from Swift Gap Entrance toward Big Meadows.  After stopping at a couple of places early before sunrise I stopped at Big Meadows,  and wandered the open space. I think this is my favorite image from my short hour at Big Meadows.

Prints and Licenses

prints

This photo is available for purchase as a limited edition* 16 x 24 print to be matted into a 20×30 frame for $120.

Print will be professionally printed on Epson Hot Press Bright Fine Art Paper

*Limited Edition –  25 print prints available.

Licenses are also available, click contact below

Contact me to order or if you have any questions.

Puzzles

This image is also available as 1000 piece custom Ravensburger Puzzle. After looking a lot of different options for offering my photos as puzzles I chose Ravensburger because of their high standard of quality. I want everything that I offer on this site to be the highest quality possible.

You can purchase this puzzle for $99. This includes shipping to your door direct from the factory in Germany. It takes about 10-12 days from order to arrival of your puzzle. Each puzzle will be individually made and shipped direct to you. Each puzzle is 1000 pieces: and measures 19.5″ x 27.5″.

Contact me to order or if you have any questions.

For Photographers:

This started out as a 6 shot bracket processed in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 from the NIK Collection. I used the default flat setting and then adjusted color in light room and added a simple Black border with a white key  and a touch of Hollywood Glow  in Onone Software’s Perfect Effects 4.

Myrtle Beach – Under the Pier

We stopped at Myrtle Beach last fall the day after Hurricane Sandy passed by in the Atlantic. The night we were there the waves were still rather high, so I really didn’t have an opportunity to get out and look for interesting places. The second evening we were able to walk the beach and see the pier and all the sights along the shore. So the on our second morning I woke up before sunrise and drove down to the pier to try and get some good sunrise shot of the pier and the ocean. It was amazingly beautiful and calm considering that one of the largest hurricanes on record had just passed by. While doing another round of edits of my photos from that trip I came across this shot from under the pier and it caught my eye. I’m not sure why I missed it in the past but I really like the way it came out in the end.

Prints

This photo is available for purchase as a limited edition* 16 x 24 print to be matted into a 20×30 frame for $80.

Print will be professionally printed on Moab Metallic Pearl Paper

*Limited Edition –  25 print prints available.

Contact me to order or if you have any questions.

Puzzles

This image is also available as 1000 piece custom Ravensburger Puzzle. After looking a lot of different options for offering my photos as puzzles I chose Ravensburger because of their high standard of quality. I want everything that I offer on this site to be the highest quality possible.

You can purchase this puzzle for $99. This includes shipping to your door direct from the factory in Germany. It takes about 10-12 days from order to arrival of your puzzle. Each puzzle will be individually made and shipped direct to you. Each puzzle is 1000 pieces: and measures 19.5″ x 27.5″.

Contact me to order or if you have any questions.

For Travelers

You can find the pier just south of the Myrtle Beach BoardWalk and Promenade

For photographers

This image started as a 6 shot bracket from -3ev to +2ev. I processed it in NIK HDR Effex Pro 2 and Onone Software’s Perfect Effects 4. In perfect effects I added a glow and played with contrasts and blending to get the effect that I wanted. I forgot to write down exactly what I did so unfortunately I cannot share the exact recipe with you.

U505

Our first stop on vacation last fall was at the Museum of Science and Industry and Chicago. It is an amazing place with all kinds of character. They do an amazing job with the cinematic lighting, and then make it extremely difficult to capture it by banning tripods. I took hundreds of photos, and got very few that I would classify as keepers. It is just too dark to get a good solid shot without a tripod.

On the flip side I love wandering the museum. They  do an amazing job of drawing a your eye and creating beautiful exibits. This is the U505 submarine in the very bottom of the museum. It is a German Submarine that was captured during World War 2.

For Travelers

You can find the museum and this exhibit in downtown, Chicago. More information is available on their website

For Photographers

I started with a 5 shot bracket that I took hand held resting on a steel railing next to the sub. I processed it in NIK HDR Effex Pro 2 I started with the deep preset and then played around with it to get it where I wanted it. This is straight out of HDR Effex.  You can get the preset I created when processing it here.

By the time you are reading this post my family and I will be just beginning our next adventure. We are moving to China to teach English in a Local University. We love to travel and explore and experience new places and cultures. You can follow our adventures as I have time to post about them by click on the travel tab above.

My family loves the beach, sand, sun and water. So we drove from Panama City Beach to Okaloosa Island, one evening to see the Island and the beach, on the way back we were hungry and craving Chinese food. Well my wife and I were, the kids will eat rice and maybe noodles. So we stopped at PF Changs to eat. I walked in took one look around and knew I had to go get the camera and tripod. I have love HDR images of the interiors of buildings. There are a few restaurants that I am dying to get an image of, the one closest to us in Omaha, is the Cheesecake Factory.  I love all the work and planning that goes into creating the atmosphere. I think all of this in theory is there to make you think what your eating is more expensive and fancier than it really is. But anyway, I really liked the look of the place, so I hauled in my tripod and camera bag and took a couple of bracketed sets while we waited for our food. If you want to see some more great interior HDR work check out RC Conceptions blog

For Travelers

A great place to stop for dinner if your in the area, the atmosphere is great after dark.

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For Photographers

This started as a six shot bracket processed in NIK HDR Effex Pro 2, I started with the “dramatic” preset that comes with the software, then made some changes to make it less grungy and noisy looking. You can get the preset here. I then exported it to Onone Software’s Perfect Effects 4 and added the “Glow Baby Preset” to smooth out the long exposure noise and clean up the tones a little.

Staircase, Savannah Riverfront, GA

When planning our fall road trip this summer we knew we wanted to see and explore Savannah, Georgia. We did not plan out our camping site in advance, so we had a  little trouble finding a place to camp. However we did find a place and were able to spend a day wandering through Savannah. We made sure to include the riverfront area, in our walk through the downtown, historic area. There were all kinds of amazing shops with artwork, candy, foods, and all forms of tourist memorabilia.

There are a couple of these winding curved stone stair cases that lead down to the warehouse area by the riverfront. We found a guy making roses out of palm leaves, he gave the kids and my wife each a rose and we gave him a donation for his generosity. Definitely a better way to buy a keepsake in my opinion.

Prints

This photo is available for purchase as a limited edition* 16 x 16 print to be matted into a 20×20 frame for $80.

Shipping to US addresses included

Print will be professionally printed on Moab Pearl Metallic Paper

*Limited Edition –  25 print prints available.

Contact me to order or if you have any questions.

For Travelers

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For Photographers

This started out as all my HDR images do, with a tripod. I think I have mentioned before the importance of a tripod. For shots like this you need the stability it provides to keep all your images the same.  I manually focus these shots in live view then I take my exposures manually adjusting the shutter between each exposure. This one was six exposures total from -3ev to +2ev in 1ev increments. This might be a little over kill but I don’t plan on being back there anytime soon and I want the shot to be there when I get home.

I combined the exposures in NIK HDR Effex Pro 2 and used the default setting, with all the detail in the image the NIK Software wanted to add more detail than I wanted for the first pass.

In Lightroom 4 I added two of my presets to get the colors to pop the way I wanted. You can get those presets for free here. This image sat at this point for a while waiting for inspiration to hit. Then Peter From posted a video tutorial on adding light rays to a photo and I realized that this is exactly what this image needed so here is the link to his video it is an excellent tutorial. To finish off the image cropped it square and add a black border in Onone Perfect Effects 4

Cades Cove,  Great Smoky Mountain National Park

While driving around  Cades Cove,  Great Smoky Mountain National Park, We stopped to wander through the historic Dan Lawson place. This is the view looking away from the Dan Lawson cabin across the center of the Cades Cove.  This was taken early in the morning,  in the middle of  November. The frost was amazing, I think the temperature was just hovering around freezing. The fog hanging over the mountains shielded the frost from the sun, keeping it alive well into the morning.

Prints

This photo is available for purchase as a limited edition* 16 x 24 print to be matted into a 20×30 frame for $80.

Print will be professionally printed on Epson Exhibition Fiber Paper

*Limited Edition –  25 print prints available.

Contact me to order or if you have any questions.

For Travelers

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For Photographers

This is a 5 shot bracket processed in NIK HDR Effex Pro 2 I used the “deep preset” to darken and bring some extra vibrance to the scene. After saving back to Lightroom 4, I added my Lightroom 4 preset “ U505″ I made some brush adjustments and adjusted the blacks then added my” Smoky Mountain River” preset. You can download both of these Lightroom 4 presets for free here. I finished by fixing dust spots in Photoshop CS6.

When I parked at the Dan Lawson cabin, I was first interested in the old barn and cabin at the site, but the view across the cove was just too amazing. I decided to include the fence in the frame to add a foreground element to give the image a sense of scale and dimension. I chose to keep the image dark and moody, to reflect the feeling of the chilly, early morning. I chose to leave the colors cool and on the blue side of the scale, again to portray the chill and the ambiance of the scene

Berry College Architecture – The archway revisited

Sometimes you come upon a scene and every angle seems to be just as interesting and amazing as the last. That is the way it was with this archway at Berry College, in Rome, Georgia. I started with from the perspective, that I showed last week, and worked through a progression,  This is the second in the progression, it shows a pair of benches in green space near the building. It caught my eye and made me think of a gentleman’s duel. Not with pistols but a duel of the minds, a debate. It inspires visions of top hats and tails, and passionate political dialogue.

Prints

This photo is available for purchase as a limited edition* 16 x 20 print to be matted into a 20 x 24 frame for $80.

Print will be professionally printed on Epson Exhibition Fiber Paper

*Limited Edition –  25 print prints available.

Contact me to order or if you have any questions.

For Travelers

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For Photographers

This is an 8 shot bracket processed in NIK HDR EFFEX Pro 2.  I used the default settings and saved it back to Lightroom 4. In Lightroom 4 I added one of my favorite landscape presets which you can get for free here. In Photoshop CS6, I used the lens flare filter to add light to the lamps, I will try and post a tutorial on how I created this effect in the near future.  Then I burned the shadows and mid-tones to add definition to the walkway. and the shadows outside.

In OnOne Perfect Effects 4 I added a mixture of Autumn Effect, Return of the King and Dark Contrast. I finished off with the clarity brush in Lightroom 4 at the default setting, on the stone columns, and the walkway. Finally I added vignette 1 from the standard Lighroom 4 effects presets.

Berry College Architecture

Berry College Architecture is is the 3rd in the series from Berry College in Rome, Georgia. This is the walkway between the Ford Alumni Office and the Admissions office. I was so enthralled with the grand scale of the buildings and the reflecting pools I almost forgot to walk over and take a look at this archway. After wandering through I set up this shot to showcase the amazing brickwork in the high arches.

Prints

This photo is available for purchase as a limited edition* 16 x 24 print to be matted into a 20×30 frame for $80.

Print will be professionally printed on Epson Exhibition Fiber Paper

*Limited Edition –  25 print prints available.

Contact me to order or if you have any questions.

For Travelers

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For Photographers

This is a 7 shot bracket from -3ev to +2ev, my camera does not have built in HDR bracketing so all of these are shot on manual mode to make changing the exposure as easy as possible. I also shoot all my landscapes on manual focus and check the focus by zooming in on the live view setting just to make sure that everything is as sharp as possible.

This was initially processed in NIK HDR Effex Pro 2, I started with the sinister preset and then changed the settings to get where I wanted the image to be. You can get the NIK preset in the download with the Lightroom 4 preset that I used on the image here.

To finish I burned the shadows in Adobe Photoshop CS6 to bring out a little definition.

I also added light to the fixture on the ceiling, by using the lens flare filter in Photoshop CS6. Then warming it in lightroom.

Ford Dining Hall – Berry College – Rome, GA

We Spent some time in Rome, Georgia on our road trip this fall. While there I was introduced to this amazing place, Berry College. The architecture on the main campus is absolutely stunning. We took a quick walk through the campus one afternoon, but the light was less than ideal so I made sure that I went back at sunset a few days later. They have a huge campus and I think I must have seen 50 different portrait photographers doing family photos that evening.

I found this colonnade and had to get a shot of it. there are actually two of them on either side of Ford Hall. They connect the residence halls to the dining hall.

Aragorn’s Colonnade

Prints

This photo is available for purchase as a limited edition* 16 x 20 print to be matted into a 20 x 24 frame for $80.

Print will be professionally printed on Epson Exhibition Fiber Paper

*Limited Edition –  25 print prints available.

Contact me to order or if you have any questions.

For Travelers

You can find Berry College in Rome, Georgia. I highly recommend taking a driving and walking tour of the campus. They have a 27,ooo acre campus, with an insane amount of wildlife wandering around. There are hiking trails, ponds, an old mill, a beautiful church and a retreat center.

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For Photographers

This is a 7 Shot hdr from -3ev to +2ev. I process this initially in NIK HDR Effex Pro 2. I started with the deep 1 preset then made changes to get the image to the base Wanted to start from in Lightroom 4. In Lightroom 4 I added the Gandolf’s Chair preset. You can get both of these presets here in a convenient zip file.

Then I took the image into Photoshop CS6, chose the burn tool and selected shadows and set the exposure to 50% and worked on the dark stones in the path to darken them and add detail. Then I changed to the midtone’s and worked on the light stones on the to do the same. Finally I switched back to shadows and changed the exposure to 10% and did a little work on the columns and the door.

The last thing in did in photoshop was to add a light to the light fixture on the ceiling. I selected the lens flare filter from the render menu, next I selected the 50 to 300mm zoom setting and moved the placement to the center of the light fixture and set it to 50%.

After saving it back to lightroom I used the brush with the temperature set as warm as it will go and the tint set to all green to brush the light back to a nice warm yellow color.  Finally I set the brush to green tint and exposure of plus .60 and almost as warm as it will go and brushed the grass to get the greener color that I was going for.

Skidaway Island State Park

We camped at Skidaway Island State Park this fall on our east coast road trip. We took a sunset walk along one of their nature trails. I really love the look and feel of the area, the trees are all covered in hanging wisps of moss. there are marshes covered with prairie style grasses with the occasional palm tree sprinkled in among the trees.  We found this bench and tree on the hike, I immediately fell in love with this tree, it made me think of a mystic fantasy forest.

Prints

This photo is available for purchase as a signed limited edition* 16 x 24 print to be matted into a 20×30 frame for $80.

Print will be professionally printed on Epson Exhibition Fiber Paper

*Limited Edition –  25 print prints available.

Contact me to order or if you have any questions.

For Travelers

Skidaway Island State Park is just east of Savannah, Georgia off of hwy 204

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For Photographers

This is a 6 shot HDR processed in NIK HDR Effex Pro 2 I started with the artistic black and white preset them modified it to match the what I felt the image needed. The final finishes were added in Lightroom 4, you can get both presets here

Sunset Road

Take a drive with me down Sunset Road, on sunset road the sun is always glowing just above the horizion.  The grass is green and lush on both sides of the fence. The air is clear and fresh, a gentle breeze blowing from the south.  Horses graze in pastures behind barbwire fences along the road. The drive is forever peaceful, and your seat is always comfortable.

The road is calling.

Have you followed the a road for the sake of adventure, to chase a dream? Was it as amazing as you hoped it would be? I have found that sometimes it is even better and sometimes it is a little less amazing that I had hoped. They say life is what you make of it so I’m going to keep driving down roads looking for amazing things.

Sunset Road

This photo is available for purchase as a signed limited edition* 16 x 24 print to be matted into a 20 x 30 frame for $80.

Print will be professionally printed on Epson Exhibition Fiber Paper

*Limited Edition –  25 print prints available.

Contact me to order or if you have any questions.

For Travelers

You can find this scene just north of Beatrice, Nebraska on Hwy 77.  It is on the northwest corner, of Hackberry Rd and Hwy. 77.

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For Photographers

This is a 7 shot HDR processed in Nik HDR Effex Pro 2. I used the default setting in Hdr Effex pro because I wasn’t sure how I wanted to process the image and didn’t want to be locked into a certain style and look. By using the default I was able to start with a flat image, leaving my options open. It took me a while to decide how to I wanted this to look. I finally decided on some initial edits in Lightroom 4, you can find that preset here.

I thought I was done but I decided to take it into OnOne Perfect Effex 4 where I added a little Holywood Glow, and little of Spring from the landscape effects.

The Power of sharing.

Today i got to thinking about the power of sharing. Not sharing a cookie, but sharing in the terms of the internet, Facebook, Google+, and Twitter. It occured while browsing facebook over lunch that the majority of items and posts that get shared on facebook especially are nothing more than chain letters. The subject varies, the most common are subjects are politics, cats and fake vintage posters with witty sayings on them.

Why am I writing about this? Because I have an alterior motive. I want to use the internet to grow a business and I want your friends and family to be able to do the same. It all starts with the click of a button. However it is not the button  you think it is.

Moving Beyond the Like Button

I really appreciate the interaction/likes that I get when I post my art. However Likes are not what I Need to make my business grow. I need Shares! I did a little non scientific research on facebook and google+ before starting on this post. I went through the 5 to 10 people who I regularly see in my feed.  What I found is this: most people that I interact with on facebook and google plus have only 40 to 50 friends/contacts in common with me. If I post a photo, or my wife writes a post about her new book that came out this week,  or my friend Magdiel posts a photo of his, or my friend Bradley Jensen Posts a photo,  there is a reason we are posting/sharing these things with you our friends. In my case I want to sell prints of my photos so I can afford to the upkeep on my camera and computer to continue to create things, if I post photos from my latest portrait session I am hoping to connect with other people in the Facebook/Google+ universe that might want to book me to shoot their portraits. The same is the case for Magdiel, he wants to sell prints to help fund his cost of producing art. My wife wants to get her books in front of more people so she can afford the costs of publishing her books and sharing her ideas and dreams with others. Bradley Jensen wants to book wedding, and portrait photography clients. These are just a few of the people that I know, I know that there are hundreds more and chances are, you know a few that I don’t.

So Here’s the Deal

I want the best for my friends, I want them to succeed with their businesses and to be able to share their art with others. So what is the best way for me to help them? Click SHARE!! The share button multipliess the reach of a post, of a photo, of a painting. If I click share then my 400+ friends have a chance to see it, maybe I don’t have the money to buy a print or a book, but by Clicking SHARE , I pass the oppertunity along others. If one of my friends shares, it gets sent to that many more people, and so on down the line.

My challenge to you

My challenge to you is to SHARE at least one post from someone you know that is trying to build a creative/art business or  is doing it as a hobby and would really like to get it in front of more people.  Help promote a humanitarian project that is doing good in the world. I am going to try to do the same. I have a tendancy to be lazy and use the like button because it is quick and easy. I PROMISE that your creative friends will appreciate it much more than Mitt Romney or Barack Obama.

I was able to go camping with my family over labor day weekend. When I woke up on Saturday morning I was able to take some time to wander the campground, the campground had some antique farm equipment in a maintenance lot. I spent a good amount of  time exploring the area and looking for good compositions. I really like the look of weathered metal and machines, maybe growing up on a farm with lots of old machines has something to do with that. This is a Ford 900 tractor.

Palmer-Epard Cabin- Homestead National Monument, Beatrice Nebraska

I recently had to travel to Beatrice, Nebraska for work. While there I decided to stop at the Homestead National Monument. Initially I was disappointed when I arrived because there was just this one lonely cabin and really nothing else interesting to photograph. So I tried to make the most of it. I went out to the monument as close to sunset as I could, I really like including the sun in my photos when I can. So I knew I wanted the sun to have an impact on the image. I decided that the glow was a more interesting element than having the sun in the image. After wandering around for a bit I decided on this composition because of the leading lines in the sky and the Hint of sun poking around the right side of the building.

6 bracketed shots, processed in NIK HDR Effex Pro 2 and Lightroom 4.

I took this while waiting for the fireworks to start last night. It has taken me all afternoon to get this processed, my computer is a couple of years older after wading through this.

This is a 45 shot HDR Panorama, I took 5 shot brackets from -2 to +2 set vertically. I processed the brackets in NIK HDR Effects Pro. Then added noise reduction in Lightroom, since I turned it off in camera. I also added clarity with the adjustment brush on the buildings. When I shot all the images my sensor was very dirty so I took each individual HDR image into Photoshop CS6 and used the spot healing tool to fix the dust spots.
Once I had all of them clean I merged them all into the panorama with Photoshop. The final .tif file was over 2gb. I cropped it down to edit out a lot of water and sky that did not add to the photo.

We took a short walk to enjoy the warmer weather today a Platter River State Park near South Bend Nebraska. The late afternoon sun was perfect for the small waterfalls along the creek there. The kids had a blast playing in the mud and jumping on the rocks.

A walk in the woods

While on our road trip this summer we stayed with some friends in Washington. One of the days we were there they took us out to the coast to Deception Pass State Park. The kids had a blast playing in the ocean. I love bridges and thought this perspective on the bridge was quite stunning.

Deception Pass Bridge, Deception Pass State Park, Washington

I managed to get this shot just before the crazy thunderstorm hit on our last day in Yellowstone National Park. We hiked down to the top of the lower falls that you see in the photo below earlier in the day. And just before I took this shot we hike down to the bottom of the lower falls on Uncle Toms Trail.  which is basically as set of steel stairs that takes you down to the bottom side of the falls, not clear to the bottom but close enough to feel the spray. This was taken from Artist’s Point

Brewing Storm - Lower Falls - Yellowstone National Park

I seem to run photos through in sets when I am busy. this is an old mail coach also from the Durham Museum. The kids had a great time seeing all the Exhibits in the Museum. The museum houses a large collection of historical photos and en extensive coin collection that are really neat to see as well.

The Old Mail Truck

The main entry hallway to The Durham Museum in Omaha, Nebraska. This building used to be the train station in Omaha. It now serves a museum showcasing the history of our country’s western expansion

The Great Hall - Durham Museum Omaha