Tag: texture

Perry and Thomas

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Perry and Thomas Cutting Rivets
Perry and Thomas Cutting Rivets

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While installing the handrails on the Big Four Bridge, Perry and Thomas had to cut some of the large rivets away to make room for the handrail base. The pneumatic chisel they are using is a handful and the job goes better when they work as a team.

I wanted to capture the movement as they cut the rivets so I used a slow shutter to allow their figures and the tool to blur while retaining the texture on the steel. I wasn’t sure how the images would turn out but once I loaded them into Aperture 3 I saw that I had captured the essence of the workers and the impact that the chisel makes as it hammers away at the stell.

I started by processing the image with Aperture 3 where I did some initial RAW adjusting and sharpening. I then took it into NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 where I applied a realistic preset and some tone mapping. After that it was back into Aperture 3 for final sharpening and some saturation and vibrancy adjustments.

Let There Be Light

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Let There Be Light
Let There Be Light

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This is another image processed in Aperture 3 and NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 from a single frame. The contrast between the artificial lights and the sunset really made for a compelling composition.

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.

Four Hundred

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Four Hundred

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Last Saturday I joined 25 fellow photographers for Scott Kelby’s Worldwide Photowalk. We met at 5th and Muhammad Ali and fanned out from there. I came across this building and really liked the facade. I also liked the reflection of the building across the street in the glass.

I had attended a lecture by Dan Dry earlier last week and after listening to Dan explain what was in his camera bag I thought I would emulate him and restrict myself to one lens. Dan said that his kit consisted of a Nikon D800 and a 24-70 mm lens. Because I use a Nikon D90 which has a crop sensor factor of 1.5; I opted to limit myself to my 18-55 mm which is very close to the one Dan uses; my effective range with this lens is 27-82 mm. It was a different feeling not having my standard walk around lens of 18-200 mm and led me to try a different approach to my photos. I am continuing this exercise for the next few days to see how it affects my image making. I processed this image with Aperture 3 and did not use any other software to finish it.

I also did a Black and White version using Aperture 3 to see how that affected the image. I started with the red filter preset and then tweaked the color sliders to get the image you see below.

400

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Big Four Bridge at Sunrise

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Big Four Bridge at Sunrise

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This is an image from my first ride up in the man lift to shoot from above the Big Four Bridge. I didn’t know how high I could bring myself to let Tim lift us in the air. Ultimately I have been able to ride the man lift to 135 feet in the air which including the height of the bridge above the river means I can say that I’ve been up to 215 feet total above the river.

For this composition I used the bridge members to divide the image into several triangular sections. I processed this image entirely in Aperture 3 without any plug-ins.