Carl asked me join him for lunch in Ellicott City. I had not been there for quite a while and it used to be a place I frequented almost weekly when I live at 6216 Frederick Road, 38 years ago; Oh that's scary. The high water mark for the flood in 1972 is still the highest on the old train trestle and I remember watching the waters rise that day and consume the lower half of the old town. Seems like yesterday!
We enjoyed a nice lunch at Cocoa Lane, its still there too, but under different management I am sure and the French Onion soup and spinach salad I used to enjoy was gone from the menu but the food was great and I enjoyed good conversation. Carl brought the HDR book by Ferrell McCollough, because I have expressed an interest in the HDR process. Several members at The Baltimore Camera Club have produced some wonderful images with that technology, and I have been watching Tony Sweet compose and groove on the HDR image creation through his blog. I had down loaded the trial Photomatix program some time ago, but never had created some intentional images to work with.
I had thought several days before Carl asked me to join him for lunch that Ellicott city with its old and rather eclectic buildings would be a good subject choice, so I had my gear with me for some trial shots after lunch. Instead I went into the oldest standing train station in the US and did some shooting out back, these are the first HDR images I have made. I bought the Photomatix program tonight and thanks to Tony Sweet used his discount code and got 15% off. Tony also has a great CD out now on HDR imagery using the Photomatix program. I also for the first time used auto bracketing on my camera.
So, these two images I "played" with tonight. In the sink image I did some more work in Photoshop with some artistic filters, and the bench shot was just a straight HDR tonemapped and then applied some curves and levels in Photoshop. The bench shot I like the best, for the amazing reflections and light as well as the interesting curved bench as a subject.
Nice Stuff Karen! I used to live off Fredrick Road as well and often would spend time down in Ellicott City myself. We should head down there some time and do some shooting.
ReplyDeleteOh, by the way, I have an HDR seminar this Friday and am looking for an assistant. You would be perfect! Let me know if yourn interested. It's an all day gig in Annapolis, 8am until 5pm, field and classroom.
Joe