Category: Utah

The Stewart Brothers

Here’s another of my BUB International Motorcycle Speed Trials shots taken at the 3 Mile start line. I like this image for so many reasons, the colors, the composition, the expressions of the people, the racer standing in the background and most of all the serendipitous inclusion of the man leaning into the frame. I didn’t include him but just as I released the shutter he popped his head into the picture. I thought to myself “damn that just ruined the shot” so I reframed the shot and did it again. Once I was home and had time to sort the shots from that day I found that I liked this one more than the ones that excluded this guy.

This image was processed in Aperture 3 and Topaz Adjust using the Spicify preset. When I processed this image I was just getting started with Topaz Adjust a couple of years ago. The haloing in the image didn’t bother me then but as I’ve progressed with my processing I’ve begun to try and minimize it more and more.

Salt Flat Storm Panorama

The weather on the Salt Flats can change pretty quickly. This storm moved in early in the day with 60 mph winds, rain and lightning. We had to take down our EZ-Ups and get off the Salt Flats because the storm was going to be very intense. I was on my bike and I wanted to get back to my hotel before it hit but I couldn’t resist stopping and shooting the storm as it rolled in. The wind was rocking me back and I had to put the face shield on my helmet down due to the salt that was being carried on the wind. I got the three shots for this panorama before it got too close for comfort and then I got on my bike and headed for town.

I stitched the three images together in Photoshop CS5 to create the panorama.  After that I took the image into NIK HDR Efex Pro where I used the Realistic (Strong)  preset before returning the image to Aperture for final sharpening and color adjustment.