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.

 

U505 Submarine

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

PF Chang’s

For Travelers

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

View Photo Locations in a larger map

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.

 

Climbing toward the Light

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

View Photo Locations in a larger map

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.

Barbed Wire, Cades Cove – Great Smoky Mounain National Park

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

View Photo Locations in a larger map

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

 

Foggy Morning – Cades Cove – Great Smoky Mountain National Park, Tennessee

I woke my poor family up at 5am to get this shot of a foggy morning in Cades Cove on the west end of Great Smoky Mountain National Park. We were staying with family in Knoxville, TN so we had about an hour and a half drive to get to the entrance to the park. When we arrived we were behind about 8 other cars waiting for the rangers to open the gates to Cades Cove. Due to the fog and cold temperatures there was a think layer of  boar frost. There was still a beautiful patchy dense fog hanging over the low lying areas. We drove around for a while because I didn’t want to stop and get stuck behind a long line of tourists driving through. It took a while to get to this spot, but it was worth the early morning. The  Sunrise breaking over the mountains with the fog in the valley was truely breathtaking.

Foggy Morning – Cades Cove – Great Smoky Mountain National Park

Prints and Licensing

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.

Licenses are also available, click contact below

Contact me to order or if you have any questions.

For Travelers

I highly recommend taking the time to visit Great Smoky Mountain National Park. It is one of the few National Parks that do not have an entrance fee. We went in November and it was very cold, however that allowed me to get some different looks than you normally see coming from there. I would love to live in the area sometime in the future and explore all the hiking that the park has to offer.

Below is the map to the approximate location the photo was taken.

View Photo Locations in a larger map

For Photographers

This is a seven shot bracket processed initially in Nik HDR Effex Pro 2. In HDR Effex I used a preset that I created for another Image from Great Smoky Mountan National Park. After saving back to Lightroom 4 I used on of my landscape presets to get the colors to where I wanted them.You can get the FREE PRESETS HERE I then opened the image in Onone Perfect Effex 4 and used the Angel Glow  to soften the fog and smooth it out a little, I also added black from the simple borders collection. This was a fairly short and simple editing process, the exposures were perfect and sharp and the landscape was stunning in every way.

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.

The Debate

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

.
View Photo Locations in a larger map

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.

Three Choices

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

View Photo Locations in a larger map

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.

 

 

 

Berry College Admissions and Ford Alumni Office

This is the Berry College Admissions and Ford Alumni Office, the second in a series from Berry College in Rome, Georgia, I spent a couple of hours there over a couple of different days while on vacation this fall. It seemed like everywhere I turned there was another angle and more amazing light to try and capture. There is enough material at this amazingly designed campus to keep someone busy for a week of sunrises and sunsets. All of the photos in this series were taken in mid November.

Berry College Admissions Office and Ford Alumni Office

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

A map of the photo location

View Photo Locations in a larger map

For Phographers

I took seven bracketed shots to create this image. I processed it initially in Nik HDR EFFEX PRO 2, using the defaut setting.  In Lightroom 4 I used this preset to get a good start on the bringing the colors to where I wanted them. Next I opened the brush tool and selected the color box at the bottom of the panel and selected a nice lively grass color. I then after some playing with the color and different options I finally decided to set the saturation to +20 and the temperature slider all the way to warm. I used this brush setting on the grass to bring it back to life. It was mid November after all, there was still some green in the grass but not what what I wanted for the image to be complete. After closing that brush I selected the brush again and used the clarity brush set at +60 and the sharpness set to +8.

In Photoshop cs6 I worked on the bushes in front of the building. HDR Effex Pro 2 left them a little dark for what I wanted  so I selected the Dodge tool and set it to shadows and gradually worked my way up the opacity scale until I got it to make the adjustment I wanted, I think it was set on 95 at the end. I did the same with the mid tones, and finally used the saturation sponge to bring some green back into the bushes. I also used the sponge to saturate the sunset a little, I think it was set on about 30%. Then I selected the burn tool and worked on the shadows at about 20% to enhance the reflection in the water.

 

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

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.

View Photo Locations in a larger map

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.

Sunrise, I was awakened by the sound of oars in the water of Gordon Creek. I got up and out just in time to miss a local rowing team gliding by on the motionless fog shrouded waters, Five minutes earlier and I could have had a shot of them gliding by. The park sits in corner created by Gordon Creek shallow and marshy and the Chickahominy River, large and busy. The sunrises over the shallow waters of Gordon Creek were amazing, complete with Herons, Pelicans and lots of fish jumping from the water.

I have a love hate relationship with sunrise. I love photographing sunrise, I hate waking up before dawn to make sure I can get the shot I want. It has taken me awhile to work up the motivation to get up consistently, especially on vacation. It just goes against nature to be on vacation and get up early. In the past year or so I have come to the realization that if I want to be able to take the shots that I want to hang up on my walls, I have to act like I am getting paid to get up and take those shots regardless of if I am or not.

I spent a good hour or so wandering around the grounds of Chickahominy Riverfront Park. Eventually I wandered away from the waterfront and found the fog hanging over the driving range in the park. I found this triangle of posts with another line of posts fading into the background.

Sunrise at Chickahominy Riverfront Park

This is the only perspective that I shot this scene from. Is there another angle to shoot it from? Probably. Do I regret not shooting any others? No, when I was there is how I saw the scene and I immediately knew how I wanted the shot to look. I’ve heard people talk about whether a photo is a realistic depiction of a scene, and debate the importance of it. I want my photo to depict the my reality of the scene. I want it to look like I felt standing there. Most of the time we take a photo , go to show it to someone and say “It really looked much more spectacular in person”.  I want to be able to say, I looked just like this and I want the feeling of being there to transfer to the viewer of the Image.

 For Travelers

We stayed at Chickahominy Riverfront Park while we were visiting Colonial Williamsburg. It is a nice place to camp if you are visiting Colonial Williamsburg. We spent so much time at Colonial Williamsburg that we really didn’t do much at the park, but they do have a nice swimming pool, driving range, boat ramp and lots of space to camp. It is about a 20 minute drive to Colonial Williamsburg from the park and about 10 min to gas, groceries and restaurants.

For Photographers

This is a Six shot bracket from -3ev to +2 Ev. I skewed it to the dark side because I knew I wanted a darker image that felt like early morning. I processed it in NIK HDR Effex Pro 2, Lightroom 4, and Photo shop CS6. You can get the NIK and Lightroom Presets here. After applying the preset I used the clarity brush to add a little definition to the fog, and used photoshop to remove dust spots and so some dodging and burning, specifically I did some dodging on the highlights to bring some detail and color reflection back into the fog.

 

Smoky Mountain National Park Waterfalls

About two weeks ago I was in Smokey Mountain National Park photographing some of its waterfalls, cascades, and streams. When we arrived it was cold, around 30 degrees, with a beautiful low hanging fog. As we drove up Hwy. 441 towards Newfound Gap we began to see a light dusting of snow begin to appear. At first it was almost like fairy dust on the leaves overhead, but the higher we drove, the heavier the snow became. It was a truly magical drive.

For Travelers

On Wednesday we hiked up the trail at the end of the road past the Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont.  To get to the trail take Tremont Rd. off of Laurel Creek Rd. Stay to the right and take the road all the way to the end. It is a narrow gravel road most of the way but the drive is amazing, and low on traffic. I didn’t see another photographer the entire drive up or on the hike. There were a few other hikers, but no other tripod carrying  photographers to jockey for a position with.

On the hike up you pass a large cascade.  Farther along the trail you reach the only waterfall on the trail. It is not an extremely large one but the stream above and all the rapids that lead up to it create an amazing sound and atmosphere.

Waterfall along the trail at the end of Tremont rd. Great Smoky Mountain National Park

Print Information:

This photo is available for purchase as a signed limited edition* 16 x 20 print ready 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 Photographers:

I shot a lot of different variations of this trying to get the best composition. I am finding that the LCD on the back of the camera does not always allow me to judge what composition I will like best when I begin processing. So I take a lot of shots with small changes between each one. This was shot with a Sony A-580 with a Tamaron 17-50 lens and a Pro Master Variable Neutral Density Filter.

I processed it in Lightroom 4.2. You can get the preset I created during the editing of this photo here. The preset does not save all the brush work so I’ll explain what I did in a little more detail.

After doing the main color adjusting and toning that the preset will provide I used the clarity brush at about 70 with sharpness set to about 8, to bring out the details in the water and the rocks closest to the water. I added a vignette manually in the post-crop vignette box at the bottom of the develop module. I tend to use the color priority vignette on my photos, I think it provides a more subtle vignette that blends with the image a little better.

To finish the image I spent some time burning and dodging to direct the eye through the photo and minimize distractions on perimeter.

Google has just launched a new App for Android phones and tablets as well as Iphone and Ipad. It is a content aggregator service that allows you to optamize your web content for smaller touchscreen devices. I found a few photographers on there from over on google plus, I learned of the launch from Trey Ratcliff from www.StuckinCustoms.com via his Twitter feed.

I spent a couple of hours submitting my website and my wife’s website to Googlefor inclusion in the  new Currents App last night. The first problem I had was trying to find a way to access the site. It did not come up on searches for the most part, so after a 15 or 20 minutes of messing with search terms I found it.

So to start you go to www.google.com/producer

After logging in with your Google ID you are set to begin

You will need to find your rss feed address. to do this you first go to your website in your browser click the view tab and select source

Once the window opens with the html source code click on the edit tab and select find

When the search window opens enter RSS in the search field and click next

the search will highlight the rss reference in the source code. Make sure that you do not use the comments rss, it will not deliver any content to your edition. In the photo above the wrong text is highlighted, it should be the one above it that says www.lovingsimpleliving.com/feed/ so your should look like WWW.yoursitename.com/feed/.

Copy and paste this address into the rss section of the google currents page as shown below.

 

After this I had trouble, I was not able to scroll down with the mouse to click continue I had to hit the tab key to take me to the next dialog. You can also add  your YouTube channel or account to Google Currents as well just insert your channel name in the space and it will sync it.

Once you click create you are taken to this screen where the real fun begins

 

Now you can edit how your Edition will appear on Google Currents. The First tab is for  adding a name and description  Here I have added a the title of my Wife’s website,  loving Simple Living, I also added a description that she wanted.  Next I uploaded an Edition Image that is displayed as the Icon for your Edition in Google Currents. The image has to be very small, in square format, somewhere between 64 and 128 pixels in width and height. Anything else will look bad. you can also add an edition Splash Image, I added one for my Edition but never saw it come up anywhere, so do what you like.

On this screen you can also choose whether or not to ask subscribers for their e-mail addresses and you can set up google analytics to track your views on here. I was only able to make it add these stats to my current site stats, it does show you the visits as views of a separate page so you can track you progress. In order to set up google analytics you will need to enter you google analytics tracking id It is usually in the form of   UA-12345678-9 it can be found easiest by selecting the old version of google analytics at the top of the page then copying and pasteing the UA code into the blank in Google Currents Edition settings

Next we are on to the Sections tab

Here you can choose to add content, edit how it will look and see what it will look like on all the different devices. If you entered an rss feed at the very beginning it will show up here as your first section. By clicking on it in the left column you can edit how it appears to others, edit the section name and make changes to background colors.

After editing the name of your section, you can change how it will appear to your subscribers by choosing a layout option. You can choose which option you want and you will see how it will appear to subscribers on their devices. you can choose different formats for tablets and phones and you can also change the background color. To change the background color you need the hashtag formated color code for web, you can find them at  http://www.web-source.net/216_color_chart.htm scroll down the correct codes for each color will be formated like this #808080, this is the code for neutral gray, the color I chose. I chose neutral gray because my Edition is mostly made up of photo, and neutral grey works well to make colors in photos look their best.

Now you can add other content by clicking on the other types of feeds. At first I added a separate photo feed, but then after looking at it on my phone I decided to stick to one section per addition. it seemed to clutter the screen. I also tried setting up a table of contents but that also seemed to clutter the Edition and make it look less attractive.  So my advice would be to create separate editions for separate content.

Now comes the fun part, You get to verify that you are the owner of the sight that you are creating an edition for. It should be an easy process but, I found it difficult and harder than it needed to be. I will do my best to help you figure it out. The easiest should be to verify with Google Analytics. I originally pulled my content from my Feedburner Rss, and that got my content there but then when I went to verify my site it tried to verify feedburner instead of my site. So as long as you pull your feed like I showed you in the beginning you should be able to verify that way. If not they give you a few options that will also work but require a little more work. In the end I had to pull the html code from google analytics and insert it in the header of my website just above the close of the head section. shown in screen shot below

Once you have verified your site you can publish your content, as far as I can tell this sends your edition to Google for review. It took over a month for my wife’s edition to appear in the listings on the Currents App. My site is still pending as far as I can tell, the only communication that you receive is an email notifying you that the edition has been published.