Month: December 2012

Review of the SpeedDemon2 blog for 2012 and plans for 2013

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for the SpeedDemon2.com blog which I am sharing as my last post for 2012. Folks in 109 countries have visited and hopefully enjoyed seeing the world through my images. There were 24,000 views and 574 followers which is far more than I expected when I began posting.

2012 was a great year for me. I started this blog and because of that I caught the eye of the Waterfront Development Corp here in Louisville, which led to me gaining access to the Big Four Bridge project. Without this blog I might never have had the opportunities that came my way in 2012.

I thank everyone who visited, viewed and commented on my work and the support they showed me. Stick around folks; I’m planning to explore new techniques and subjects as well as beginning the new year teaching others what I have learned as a photographer and artist.

I plan to launch my first “Route 66 Motography Tour” this spring which will be similar in scope to a photowalk except that we will do it on motorcycles. I have arranged to have two retired US Secret Service Agents join me as Road Captains and navigators. Both men are Motorcycle Safety Foundation certified RiderCoaches with over 40 years of motorcycle touring experience. With their help we will take 12 motorcycle and photography enthusiasts on a “Motography” journey that they will remember for the rest of their lives along Route 66 from Chicago to Santa Monica during a two week ride.

We’ll see the Mother Road from the saddles of our motorcycles as we photograph the incredible sights and vistas that are part of Route 66. Drop me a line if you are interested in joining us. We are limiting the group to 12 motorcycles so that there is ample time to enjoy the ride and get in plenty of photography too. Please share this with your friends; it will be a blast.

Here’s an excerpt:

4,329 films were submitted to the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. This blog had 24,000 views in 2012. If each view were a film, this blog would power 6 Film Festivals

Click here to see the complete report.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas

Click on the image to open it in a new window.

Best Wishes to you all. May this day be everything you hoped for. For me the day will be spent with our family, watching the joy in the children’s eyes, enjoying their company and feasting on my mother-in-law’s wonderful Italian cooking, spaghetti and meatballs.

This image is from a couple of years ago and was taken with my Nikon D50. The D50 didn’t do very well at high ISO and consequently there is some noise in the photo but I liked the composition and the colors. I was using Topaz Adjust a lot back then and processed it with Topaz Adjust and OnONe PhotoTune before finishing it in Aperture 3.

Peace To All…. Nick

 

 

Walker Evans

walker-evans-1

I decided that due to my procrastination on the new hard drive, (due here at my door tomorrow, Yay!), I would use this time to look into the work of one of my favorite photographers Walker Evans. I went to the library yesterday and picked up ten books of his work to read and absorb.

I’m trying to channel something my photography professor had us do when I first stated formally studying photography. One of his first lectures to us was about going to the Louisville School of Art’s library and looking at the vast catalog of famous photographers to find out whose work resonated with us. This exercise opened my eyes to the work of the Farm Security Administration photographers who worked for the US government during the Great Depression. I discovered Walker Evans while researching these women and men and instantly found his work to be so rich in metaphor and social commentary while at the same time being so well composed and well done technically.

I have already finished reading one of the books and realize that I have been following  in Walker Evans’ tracks for much of my photographic journey. I love the way he gave dignity to his subjects and celebrated the working women and men of his day; it is something I have tried to do with my art for many years as well.

My current project on the Big Four Bridge here in Louisville has another component beyond documenting the progress of the work on the bridge. I am also compiling a record of the men who are doing the physical work on the job. I have already amassed a huge collection of images about them that I will edit over the next year to produce a book to be shared with these men and the Waterfront Development Corporation for their archives. My hope is that these men will be forever linked and identified for their contribution to the city of Louisville and the success of Waterfront Park and that their descendants will be able to come to the archive and find out about them and see them as I saw them while they worked.

Be back soon…

I’m waiting for a new hard drive to arrive so I can get back to work. I have filled my 1TB to overflowing and due to the age of my iMac I needed one with firewire ports. I found one yesterday at B&H Photo and they shipped it this morning.

When you overfill a hard drive it becomes very slow and that drives me crazy. As soon as I get it I can transfer my library and get back to work. It’s frustrating but that’s what I get for procrastinating about getting the new one.

Sunrise at Towhead Island

Towhead Island
Towhead Island

Click on the image to open another window for a full screen view.

This image was taken early in the morning last month looking east from the Big Four Bridge. The island in the center of the image is named Towhead Island. It is where the barge operators park barges before organizing them into tows on the Ohio River. On the right hand side are the Louisville Metro Police docks and the University of Louisville Rowing club docks. If you look closely in the water between the island and the police docks you can see some ducks paddling out into the channel and their wakes.

I processed the image in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 to tone map and enhance the colors of the sunrise. I then returned it to Aperture 3 where I cropped it to a panoramic format and finished my adjustments. I applied the definition, vibrancy and sharpening adjustments in Aperture 3 along with a vignette around the edges.