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This image is the Louisville skyline viewed from the Indiana shore of the Ohio River. The bridge is the Clark Memorial Bridge which carries US 31 across the river. I shot this image early this past spring and processed it in NIK HDR Efex Pro and Aperture 3.
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Another evening after a thunderstorm moved through Louisville. I composed the image with the trees in silhouette in order to frame the scene and emphasize the sunset and the light on the river. The sky was very dramatic and I enhanced the colors of the sunset to add more drama to the scene. This image was also processed in NIK HDR Efex Pro and finished in Aperture 3.
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This image is another HDR from a bracketed set of exposures. I was looking east from the Big Four Bridge around sunrise last week and found the sky to be very dramatic and foreboding. I really like the view from up on the bridge with the boat club on the left and the ramp up to the bridge on the right. In this composition I wanted to emphasize the many triangles that were formed by the channel on the left, the ramp and parking lot on the right and the clouds as they receded into the distance.
I merged the four exposures, +2, +1, 0, and -1, in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 to begin the tone mapping. I initially used an anti-ghosting setting of 20% but when I viewed the merged image there were several issues with the way the clouds rendered. I returned the merged image to the merge panel and applied 100% anti-ghosting which solved the problem. Normally I try to keep the anti-ghosting setting relatively low to avoid an artificial appearance but I have discovered that dramatic cloud formations really need it boosted to 80% or 100%. I think it has a lot to do with the speed that the clouds are moving, which is usually pretty fast, when they are part of a storm front such as this one.
I then started trying the various NIK HDR EFex Pro 2 realistic presets but did not find one that matched my intent for the final image. As I sorted through the many presets I discovered one named “Sinister” which was very close to what I wanted for the final effect. The only difficulty I encountered when applying the preset was that the foreground and foliage went way too blue and gray to suit me. I then placed a control point in the foliage and increased the exposure slightly. This served to lift the greens in the trees out of the shadows. Using that same control point I then raised the saturation very slightly and adjusted the vibrancy. What I was trying for was to get the scene to appear in the photo as it had appeared to me when I was capturing the bracket set.
The more I use NIK HDR EFex Pro 2 the more ways I find to create images that reflect the image I have in my mind when I trip the shutter. As I have said here in the past, my intent with many of my images is to create something that evokes my feelings for the subject and not necessarily a documentary photograph. I know that some photographers take issue with that line of thinking but as the quote in the masthead of this blog says “Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.” by Edgar Degas. I hope that my images evoke similar feelings in those who view my art.
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This image was taken last Saturday morning at Buffalo Trace Distillery in Frankfort Kentucky. The mural on the building is a trompe l’oeil painting. The term trompe l’oeil means “to fool the eye” and this mural does just that. As you walk past it the perspective seems to change and it appears that the wall in the back of the mural moves from side to side. It is quite a sight to see and to experience.
I shot a five exposure bracket set +2, +1, 0, -1, -2 which I then merged in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2. One problem I encountered after merging was with the clouds. I had the anti-ghosting set to 20% and the clouds were severely misaligned creating a very unnatural sky. I tried selecting a different reference image but the problem remained. I then boosted anti-ghosting to 60% but the problem was still there. My final attempt was to use the anti-ghosting at 100% which gave me an acceptable sky.
I applied a realistic preset in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 and tweaked the temperature, black point and highlight sliders very slightly before returning the image to Aperture 3 for cropping and sharpening then I exported it for the web.
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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.
