Category: Architecture

HDR Ohio River Bridges Project

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Ohio River Bridges Project Downtown Span #2
Ohio River Bridges Project Downtown Span #2

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 After a couple meetings with Walsh Construction I have been granted access to the construction sites after I complete the required safety training.  This week I will be going through safety training with Walsh Construction to familiarize myself with the safety procedures that I will need to follow while shooting the Ohio River Bridges Project.

I am excited and honored that they are allowing me to shoot onsite and really looking forward to getting started. It is a huge project and has over 50 individual spans that I will be following for the next three years as the project proceeds. I will be able to document the progress and the men and women who are building the bridges from now until the completion of the project.

I hope you will stick around as I record the day to day work that goes into a project of this scale and the men and women who will be doing the work. I intend to show as many facets of the job as possible from the construction workers to the engineering support teams and the folks who run the office side too. I’ll be shooting most of the work in HDR and I’m sure that there will be many discoveries as I try new software and new camera techniques throughout the next three years.

Angel’s Envy

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Office of the Angels
Office of the Angels

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I really like to shoot buildings that are in a state of deterioration and neglect because they contain so many textures and interesting details. I enjoy the beauty of things as they weather and deteriorate and I strive to share that beauty with the world. The Japanese term Wabi-sabi, which means to appreciate and accept the forces of transience and imperfection and find the beauty that exists in the state of impermanence, is often applied to this type of photography. 

I was down on Main Street last week to photograph the construction taking place as the Ohio River Bridges Project begins to take shape along I-65. While shooting the cranes and the activity around them I also started shooting the Vermont America Building as it exists today. This image is from above the door at the old Vermont America Building which has been closed for many years but will be reopened in the future as Angel’s Envy Distillery. This building is slated be renovated as the main headquarters for Angel’s Envy Distillery.

I used a three frame bracket set of +2, 0 and – 2 EV at ISO 200 to create this HDR image. I processed it in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 to merge and tone map the image. I also created my own preset from these adjustments so that I could experiment with other versions such as monotone or black and white without having to go through the merging process again if I wanted to try applying them to the image. In the end I settled on this version as the one that best captured my vision for the image. I then returned the merged image to Aperture 3 where I completed the finishing touches such a sharpening and straightening.

 

 

 

 

Big Four Bridge Silhouette

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Louisville's Big Four Bridge after a day of thunderstorms and rain.
Big Four Bridge Sunset

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Not much to say about this image except that I like the bridge silhouette against the remnants of a summer storm that was passing through Louisville. I captured the image from the east side of the ramp leading up onto the Big Four Bridge. It’s from a single frame and simple processing in Aperture 3 was all that it needed to finish it.

Reflections of Louisville

Posted on by Nick Roberts
The Highlands Reflected in the Leatherhead Front Windows.
The Highlands Reflected in the Leatherhead Front Windows.

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I have been trying to represent each of the eclectic business districts of Louisville in a single image for a couple of weeks now. I tried various angles but each time I wound up with too much pavement  in relation to the amount of architecture. While shooting one morning last week I discovered that I could show businesses on both sides of the street by using the reflections of one side of the street in the shop window across the street.

I shot all the images in this post in three shot brackets that I merged in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 and then finished them in Aperture 3. I built a preset in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 that I used on all these shots so that I had a consistent feel to the images. By using the preset I could quickly get the HDR image where I wanted it and then take it back into Aperture 3 for final processing.

Plehn's Bakery and Jimmy John's Deli Reflected in 60 West Windows in St. Matthews.
Plehn’s Bakery and Jimmy John’s Deli Reflected in 60 West Windows in St. Matthews.

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I used the same processing for the rest of these images.

St Mathews Hardware Window
St Mathews Hardware Window

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Highlands Businesses Reflected in Leatherhead's Front Window.
Highlands Businesses Reflected in Leatherhead’s Front Window.

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St. Matthews Reflected in 60 West Front Windows.
St. Matthews Reflected in 60 West Front Windows.

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Doo Wop Shop Facade With Highlands Businesses Reflections.
Doo Wop Shop Facade With Highlands Businesses Reflections.

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Doo Wop Shop Facade #2
Doo Wop Shop Facade #2

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Black and White HDR

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Untitled
Untitled

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Sometimes simple is better….

I like using NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 for preparing black and white images. Using the bracketed exposures really helps intensify the textures and contrasts within an image. After merging the three exposures -2, 0, and +2 EV I returned the image to Aperture 3 where I applied a B&W setting with a blue filter. Some sharpening and contrast adjustments were applied and a slight vignette was used to finish the image.