Salem Massachusetts Gallery

I have just uploaded an image gallery of the images from SPS trip over to Salem Massachusetts; you can access the gallery from link below.

Salem Massachusetts Gallery

SPS Trip to Salem Massachusetts

This past Sunday, October 2nd 2011 a small group of Schenectady Photographic Society members went over to Salem Massachusetts for a day of shooting. We where very lucky since they were calling for a 60% chance of rain and the day ended up with only a light mist at the end of the day.

Here are few of my favorite images that I took this past Sunday. While in Salem I purchased a large clear glass marble and then used this to shot through by holding it out in front of the lens. Color images have been processed with NIK software’s new Color Efex Pro 4 and the B&W images processed with NIK’s Silver Efex Pro 2.

Schenectady Photographic Society Color Print of the Year

This image from the Eastern States Penitentiary (ESP) took top honors at Schenectady Photographic Society (SPS) as Color print of the year 2010-2011. It is a wonderful feeling as you set there and they are going thru all the entered prints and yours is still in the running, when they get that moment when they announce “and the Print of the Year” and it is your print. I always shoot photos that I want to hang on my walls and when they win a competition or someone wants to purchase one, it is the frosting on the cake.

This image is from Eastern States Penitentiary of the cell, which severed as the barbershop for the inmates. This image has been shot be every photographer that has visited the penitentiary, do an image search of ESP and see for your self there will be hundreds of the this cell.

This image is High Dynamic Range (HDR) photos made up of nine bracketed images take one stop apart. The nine images are merged together and tone mapped using Photomatix software by HDR Soft. The tone-mapped image is then imported back into Adobe Lightroom where I did a curve adjustment to bring the contrast back. From Lightroom the image is exported out to Photoshop where I use filters from NIK software to put the final touches onto the image. The first NIK filter I apply to the image is Tonal Contrast to bring out the textures, then follow this filter with NIK Glamour Glow, which brings out the color and apply a soft glow to the image. And the final touch to the image is with NIK Darken/Lighten Center to darken up the outer area of the image to give the appearance of the barber’s chair being illuminated from the ceiling window light in the ceiling of the cell.

The final result is a HDR photograph that does not scream HDR; to me this is the problem of many photographers today doing HDR they take it to far and the image screams HDR. Digital photography today is amazing but as a photographer you have to know when to stop when Appling the Photoshop tools and filters.

Political Landscape - 2nd Place SPS Slide Show

I took a second place with my "Political Landscape" projected image essay at Schenectady Photographic Society this year. I have posted a copy to the web and it can be accessed from link bellow. To play the show open link below and click on flag image, Political Landscape.

Political Landscape

SPS Projected Image of the Year

I am pleased to announce that my photo "Rainy Night" took Projected Image of the Year for the 2008-2009 Schenectady Photographic Society. Final image of the year competition was judged by four photographers.

SPS Monochrome Print of the Year

With summer just around the corner, the 2008-2009 Schenectady Photographic Society is coming to a close. I am proud to announce that my photo titled "Church on Hill" was picked as Monochrome print of the year.