Tag: Sunrise

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.

Waterfront Park View #2

Posted on by Nick Roberts
We’ll Be Landing in Louisville

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This is another shot I took from high above the Big Four Bridge last month.  It was early and the sun was just rising when I captured this scene. The airplane in the sky adds interest to an otherwise empty sky. The river is so placid early in the morning almost as if it has been sleeping and is just waking to a new day. Waterfront Park is a treasure that many Louisvillians are unaware of; the park extends east of downtown for several miles and reinvigorates a former blighted area of Louisville. The park sits on land that at one time had nothing but scrap yards, asphalt terminals, barge docks and derelict structures all along the riverfront. The land has been reclaimed and decontaminated over the past twenty five years to create one of the most unique parks in America.

I processed this single frame HDR image in Aperture 3 and NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 to get just the right atmosphere.

Louisville Morning

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Louisville Morning
Louisville Morning

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Last week I decided to shoot a panorama of the Louisville Waterfront Park and the Ohio River from the vantage point of the Big Four Bridge. I set my tripod up and shot nine frames in a 180 degree arc from left to right. I wanted to capture the soft pinks and blues of the sky and the reflection of the Kennedy Bridge in the water. As an added benefit of this panoramic shooting technique the bridge is shown from two different viewpoints. I especially like the altered perspective that occurred with the left and right sides of the image where the Big Four Bridge is shown from different angles.

I merged the nine frames in Photoshop CS5 using the Automate/Photo Merge command. After merging the images I flattened it and cropped the edges slightly. I then returned it to Aperture 3 where I lightly adjusted the exposure and very slightly increased the vibrancy and definition sliders. I then applied a little sharpening before saving it for the web.