Category: Waterfront Park

Ironworker

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Jackie Alpha on the Big Four Bridge Project
Ironworker Jack Alpha

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This image was taken from a man lift inside the Big Four Bridge last week. The man in the photo is Jack Alpha he’s an Ironworker who let me use his safety harness to ride up into the upper structure of the Big Four Bridge as part of my continuing project to photograph the men who are doing the work to convert the Big Four Bridge from an abandoned railway bridge into a pedestrian bridge linking Louisville, Kentucky with Jeffersonville, Indiana. Jack is repairing the handrail that runs along the top of the bridge and in this photo he is anxiously waiting for me to get done with my photos so he can get back to work.

This is a straight photograph with minor adjustments to White Balance and Sharpening. I used Aperture 3 to edit it and the only thing I needed to do to get it right was to set the white balance by picking a neutral gray which was easy since the concrete deck has a full range of grays in it. I then chose a black point from the man lift and a white point from the arrow on the man lift. Using these three points nailed the colors in the image and all that was left to do do was sharpen it.

Morning On The Ohio River #2

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Cloudy Morning

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I have been trying to catch the sunrise each morning from the Big Four Bridge. Yesterday I arrived at the bridge at the same time that a cold front was moving in from the southwest. The weather forecast was for rain to start by 10:00 am and the sky was very active as the front progressed.  I decided that it might be interesting to shoot the river and the Kennedy Bridge as I watched the clouds build up.

I set up my tripod looking west from the ramp going up to the Big Four Bridge and captured several five exposure bracket sets of the Kennedy Bridge. Back in the studio I opened the morning’s shoot and found this image. I usually try to get several variations of my subject when I shoot as I have learned over time that the best way for me to evaluate a composition is in the studio on the monitor. I chose this image because I liked the way the handrail swept into the frame.

I used all five exposures +2, +1, 0, -1, and -2, which I merged in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2. I used the default preset in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 as my starting point as I started my tone mapping. I liked the way the sky and bridge had turned out but the lawn had acquired an over saturated green tone that was in conflict with the blues and grays of the rest of the image. I dropped a control point into the grass and desaturated it slightly to get it back to what I saw as I shot the scene. I find that these control point adjustments work well when there is a marked difference in the colors in the image where they are applied. In this case the green was so distinct in the image that it worked like a charm.

I returned the merged TIFF image to Aperture 3 where I adjusted the vibrance very slightly and applied some sharpening before exporting it as a jpeg for the web.

Above the Big Four Bridge Again

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Above the Big Four Bridge
Over the Bridge

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This is another shot from above the Big Four Bridge. In the background is the Kennedy Bridge that carries Interstate 65 across the Ohio River.

Big Four Bridge

Posted on by Nick Roberts
A View From Above The Big Four Bridge
A View From Above

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Yesterday morning I was given the opportunity to ride in the man lift to the top of the Big Four Bridge. Even though I am very scared of heights I jumped at the chance. It wasn’t nearly as frightening as I thought it would be. The guys on the job gave me a safety harness to wear that would keep me from falling off the bridge and away we went. Tim, the guy operating the lift, was very comfortable and his calmness made the trip easy. At first I was content to just be even with the top of the bridge but after a few shots there I asked Tim to lift me higher so I could shoot down on the bridge. We spent 10 minutes or so while I looked for my compositions and shot a few quick studies of the scene from there.

I’m heading back there this morning and I may even get the courage to walk out on the bridge itself. As I write this I wonder if I’ll be able to step out of the basket on the lift or if I’ll have to content myself with shooting from the safety of the lift.

Blue Moon of Kentucky

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Blue Moon of Kentucky
Blue Moon of Kentucky

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I went down to the riverfront yesterday morning to shoot the arrival of Hurricane Isaac in Louisville. Usually after a Gulf Coast hurricane moves inland it comes up the Mississippi River and then drifts east through the Ohio River Valley. I expected the sky to be rather dramatic and I was really hoping to capture the sunrise. I shot several images from Waterfront Park looking east and liked what I was getting. I applied my adage of “looking behind myself” to see if there was anything going on in the western sky when I saw the blue moon, a second full moon in one month, just above the Kennedy Bridge. The clouds were moving in from the southwest and I really liked the way they were drifting past the moon. I immediately shot a bracketed set of images from EV +2 through -2 in one stop amounts to capture as much detail as I could even though it was still at least 30 minutes before actual sunrise.

Back in the studio I opened the bracket set in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 and merged them with the Ghosting Adjustment set to 20% which allowed the sky to stay as I envisioned it when I captured the scene. I started with the Deep 2 preset and adjusted the tone map and tonality until I had what I wanted. By boosting the Highlight and White sliders I got the moon to pop out of the clouds which was how I had originally envisioned the scene. I then took the image back into Aperture 3 where I cleaned up some sensor spots, subtly boosted the Vibrance slider and applied sharpening. I also cropped the final image into a panoramic framing to accent the linearity of the bridge before exporting it for the web.