Tag: arts

Ohio River Morning

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Orange Dawn

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This panorama was taken from the Big Four Bridge looking upriver; the river seems so calm and sleepy in the early morning hours. I really liked the way the sky was reflected in the river that morning and the minimalist feel that it imparted.

I processed this image in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 using the Deep 2 preset as my start point.

Not much more to add except that I hope all my readers here in the US have a great Thanksgiving holiday. I’ve baked three pumpkin pies and a sweet potato casserole as my contribution to our family’s Thanksgiving dinner. Now all I need to do is deliver them and then sit back and enjoy our family’s company.

Over the Top

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Over the Top

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Today’s image was taken from above the Big Four Bridge when Tim Williams took me up in the 135 foot tall man lift. We were in one of the middle spans on the bridge and as he worked the basket through the bridge super structure I saw this image. We were looking south over the top of the bridge and for the first time I saw the beauty of the elliptical  ramp that leads up onto the bridge from Waterfront Park. The ramp is a quarter mile long and is an engineering marvel. It incorporates multiple radia as it spirals up to the bridge. The engineering that went into designing and building it have led to numerous engineering and architectural awards.

I chose to process this black and white version in Aperture 3 using the Black and White adjustment panel. I tried all the various filters and ultimately opted to use the orange filter to get the level of contrast I was looking for. After that I adjusted the exposure, contrast and sharpening before exporting it as a 300 DPI JPEG file.

Magic Morning

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Magic Morning

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It’s been a while since I posted anything but I’ve been busy shooting the final days of the Big Four Bridge project. I shot this image from the Big Four Bridge a couple of weeks ago and just found time to process it last week.

Though it appears to be a HDR image this image is from a single frame and was processed entirely in Aperture 3. I chose to use this frame from the bracket set I shot because it had an excellent histogram that was not blown out in the highlights or blocked up in the shadows. It was very early in the morning and the sunlight had not begun to illuminate the shoreline but the reflections of the clouds were so dramatic I couldn’t resist the shot.

Jack Alpha On Top Of Big Four Bridge

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Jack Alpha the Ironworker

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This image is a single frame that I used NIK HDR EFex Pro 2 and Aperture 3 to process. By using NIK’s U-Point Technology feature I was able to enhance and fine tune the tonality of the oranges and blues of Jack’s welding jacket while maintaining the natural colors of the river and skyline in the background. I was in the man lift basket which allowed me to shoot him from a safe vantage point above the bridge. I am especially pleased with the way the arc of his welder has maintained it’s brilliance and the way the sparks are spraying to the right side of the frame.

This composition has several elements that make it strong. There is the angle of the bridge safety rail  in the foreground to the Kennedy bridge in the middle ground and the Clark Memorial Bridge beyond that. There are also the complementary colors of the jacket, safety harness and the river below all of which work in harmony to unify the composition. Finally there is the way the safety harness and Jack’s arm  create rhyme in the photograph along with the repetitive linearity of the bridges and handrail.

Across the River

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Kennedy Bridge Sunset

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This image was captured from the Jeffersonville, Indiana shore of the Ohio River looking west toward Louisville. It was a great evening for a sunset and I chose to ride over to Indiana to see what the Louisville skyline would look like.

I processed this single frame in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 to enhance the colors in the sky. After adjusting the tonality to create the feeling I was looking for I returned the image to Aperture 3 for final sharpening and some additional tweaks to the definition, vibrance and recovery sliders as well as performing the final sharpening on the photo. Before sending it to NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 I applied some RAW pre-sharpening in Aperture 3 which I have discovered is a good way to start processing an image.