Tag: Alabama

Alabama Morning

Alabama Morning
Alabama Morning

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These images are from my trip down to Alabama a few weeks back. While exploring the countryside I came upon this old log building that has become a piece of Americana. The owner of the property is obviously into collecting old signs and old gas pumps. The sky was full of clouds that were remnants of a thunderstorm that went through the night before while off to the east the sun was breaking through and illuminating the cabin and the surrounding area. In the distance the sky and horizon were still dark and foreboding. The light was bright enough that I was able to handhold the shots and that allowed me to move quickly around the scene.

I processed this image using NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 for the merging of my three frame bracket set.  My bracket set was -2, 0 and +2 EV.  After I tone mapped the image I made some adjustments to vibrance and contrast in Aperture 3 and then I took the image into OnOne Perfect Effects 4 where I applied a vignette using the Big Softy preset.

Alabama Morning #3
Alabama Morning #3

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This is another image from the same shoot. I loved the way the sun was lighting the buildings and the field around them while in the distance the horizon and sky were still dark. I followed the same basic procedure for processing this image as I did in the one above but I spent a little more time in OnOne Perfect Photo 7 playing around with Perfect Effects where I once again added the vignette using Big Softy preset as well as experimenting with some of the other adjustments that Perfect Effects has available.

Alabama Morning #4
Alabama Morning #4

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In this image the sun went behind some clouds and it really softened the light. I shot a handheld three frame bracket at -2, 0 and +2 EV and merged them in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 before taking the merged image back into Aperture 3 for final processing. The change in the quality of the light creates an entirely different feel to the scene and I didn’t feel that Perfect Effects 4 would be of any benefit on this image so I finished it with Aperture 3.

 

Rusted Relics

Rusted Memories of a Bygone Era
Rusted Memories of a Bygone Era

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While I was down in Alabama I took a drive out past the place where my Grandparents lived. The old house is gone now and I drove a little further down the highway to see if there was anything that might make a good photo along it. I came upon a log cabin, sitting in the middle of a field, that is covered in old metal signs and has several old gas pumps in the yard. This image is a detail of one of the pumps.

As is my practice today I shot a three bracket set of images for HDR processing. Another advantage of shooting brackets is the near certainty that one of the images will be a good exposure if I need something quick for a deadline. I don’t often need to do that but it sure is handy when the need arises.

The first thing I did was merge the three frames in NIK HDR eFex Pro 2 for tone mapping and detail adjustment. I used one of the Realistic presets as my starting point. I then took the HDR image into OnOne Perfect Photo 6 where I used a few different effects to add a vignette and enhanced some of the color. On e of the nice things about Perfect Effects is that it allows me to create layers and apply the effects in varying amounts. By stacking a few effects and adjusting the amount of each one from zero to 100% it is possible to get the feeling I’m looking for. After I had the image nearly finished I returned it to Aperture 3 where I adjusted the shadows and highlight, contrast and sharpened the image.

Keep Out
Keep Out

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This bird house seemed such a great subject with it’s weathered texture and the sign below it. I ran it through the same basic process and settled on this final version. I’m glad I started exploring the OnOne Perfect Photo 6 Suite again. In the future I will be using it more often when I want to convey more emotion than using only HDR techniques affords me.

A Couple of B&W Images from Decatur, Alabama

Inside King Cotto's Temple in Black and White #1
Inside King Cotton’s Temple in Black and White #1

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This image was first created from a three frame bracket -2, 0, and +2 EV that I merged in NIK HDR Efex Pro to tone map before returning it to Aperture 3 where I converted it to Black and White and applied additional contrast and sharpening.

Inside King Cotton's Temple in Black and White #2
Inside King Cotton’s Temple in Black and White #2

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This is simply a different crop on the first image in this post.

One final thing I want to share is this link to my HDR Workshop here in Louisville later this month.

http://outdoorphotogear.ticketleap.com/nick-roberts—hdr-photography/

I know it’s probably shameless self promotion but I really want to help other photographers and artists to develop their own HDR style.

King Cotton’s Abandoned Temple

King Cotton's Temple
King Cotton’s Temple

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Tuesday I was down in Moulton, Alabama to attend my maternal Aunt Helen Parker’s funeral. She had a long life of 94 years and though it was sad to know she had passed on it was also reaffirming in the way the passing of a loved one draws a family together. Aunt Helen had started her life as the daughter of sharecroppers in the Alabama cotton fields but through hard work she and her family rose into a comfortable middle class farm life. She, as so many others in the south, had worked hard and risen above the tough times that almost all rural southerners endured especially through the Great Depression. Throughout her long life her faith and love for her family strengthened and supported her through the loss of two husbands and many others in her large family. Aunt Helen ended her life surrounded by her nieces and nephews who all loved her dearly. Her life was one of persistence and compassion and we will all miss her and remember fondly her lilting “I love you” which she always said when she hugged us as we were heading out her door after a visit.

On my way to Moulton I passed through Decatur Alabama and saw these large buildings alongside the railroad tracks on the west side of the city. I had never been down that particular street before and in all the times I had travelled down there I had not seen these unusual structures. I am always drawn to abandoned industrial sites and decided that on my way back home I needed to stop and photograph them. When I asked my cousins what they were they told me they had once been part of a large cotton oil and cotton meal manufacturing complex.

When I arrived there I found a business office in another building nearby and asked if I could go in and photograph the place. The receptionist said that they belonged to the city of Decatur and that she didn’t know any more about them. I decided that I would find an opening in the fence around them and see for myself what mysteries they held. The sky was heavy with cold gray clouds and a light mist was falling as I unpacked my cameras and scouted for and found an opening in the fence around the property. The wind was pretty strong and the metal on the buildings rattled and creaked; it was as if the buildings were speaking to me telling about their earlier days as productive structures now left to decay and eventually return to the earth.

I shot everything that day in a three frame bracket set of -2, 0, and +2 EV. I then merged them in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 before finishing them in Aperture 3. In some of the interior shots I went into OnOne Software’s Perfect Effects and played around with some of the many presets. The images below are from that experimentation and application within the Perfect Photo 6 Suite from OnOne after being merged and tone mapped in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2. I like the way that the two software programs complimented each other and allowed me to bring out the greens that the moisture inside these buildings had created by feeding mosses and molds on the corrugated steel. My final processing with all these images was in Aperture 3 where I used various adjustments and completed the sharpening prior to exporting the final images you see here.

Inside the Temple #1
Inside the Temple #1

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Inside the Temple #2
Inside the Temple #2

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Inside the Temple #3
Inside the Temple #3

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Alabama Morning

Alabama Morning

These Fords were in a wrecking yard in Alabama a couple of years ago. The cars I find in the southern states have a much different patina of rust on them than the cars out west of the Mississippi River do. The climate in the south is much more humid and therefore the rust is more agressive. The oxidation process creates a much rougher surface which in turn traps more moisture that then eats away at the metal more aggressively.

I liked the way the early morning sun was lighting the scene and how it really emphasized the texture on the 1949 Ford in the foreground. The contrast of the smooth chrome and glass in the headlights really caught my eye. The cars are framed to in a typical rule of thirds composition and the rust on the roof in the background draws the viewer’s eye back in the scene while reinforcing the colors of the cars.

There wasn’t much I needed to do in processing to get this image finished. I used a little of the Spicify preset in Topaz Adjust to punch up the texture and saturate the colors before returning the image to Aperture 3 for final sharpening and output.