It’s been close to a month since my visit to the Salton Sea. Since then I’ve gone to Portland, and the Columbia Gorge. It seemed like things kept getting in the way of publishing the two galleries. Now in one weekend I’m publishing both Galleries.
I think you’ll see that the delay in the Salton Sea Gallery wasn’t because the place had no photo possibilities. In fact, I found it to be an amazing place, and I can’t wait to go back.
Clouds have been amazing the last few days. Yesterday and today at lunch I had to get out and take some pictures.
I didn’t have enough time at Red Hill. I need to go back and really spend some time there.
This morning I’m leaving for the Salton Sea. So I thought that I would publish a photo from the only other time that I was at the Salton Sea.
Let’s see… I worked on this picture in Lightroom, Photomatix, and Photoshop. I made 2 layers. Desaturated the top layer. Did a high pass filter. Changed the blend mode to Hard Light. Tweaked in Topaz Detail, Topaz Adjust, and Viveza 2. And it is a picture of bird poop.
I would think that if ever there was a time when doing a more artistic interpretation of a photograph made sense, thiswould be it. When better to convert to a painting, then when shooting a painter in his environment? Yet, I’ve never come to terms in my own mind with something like this. Is it appropriate to go over the top like this? What do you think? It would really help me out if you could comment (either on the site or on Twitter.)
Used Topaz Simplify, then Topaz Adjust.
OK you can’t call your self a San Diegan and not occasionally post a photo from the zoo. I tend to like the bird photos.
I planned to go to the gym at lunch but when I went out to the car saw the most amazing sky. Strong dramatic sky with crisp side lighting. I had to go take some photos, so I went to Poway Park.
I recently lost my point & shoot. It was a nice little Nikon Coolpix. Not what I’d pick today but it was OK. I looked back at a Pano I took with it (yes a P&S Pano) in January. And thought I should publish it in memory of my little camera.
I worked this shot for hours in the computer. Started out doing an HDR. I wasn’t quite happy with the results. Seemed to introduce too much noise in the photo. I tried using Dfine and DxO to remove the noise and it was still there. I thought that if a sharpened everything but the noise it would make it less visible. Finally gave up and just took the dark & light raw files into Photoshop as layers. Added a mask & used the gradient tool to show some of each layer. Oh, I did use Viveza 2 to brighten the tower.
