Hood Ornament

Hood_ornament

I’m not sure if this is the original hood ornament that went with this car. I noticed in Cuba that hood ornaments were often not consistent with the vintage of the car and in some cases old hood ornaments were mounted on top of the original. For example I saw one jaguar on top of a 1950s chevy with an airplane ornament. In any case, I think we should bring back the hood ornament, they just add such panache to the cars. In this case the gold painted host car and it’s orange neighbor offered up a palette that could only be found in Cuba.

Not much post processing required. Some de-noising and sharpening and maybe a little vibrance and saturation.

Blue Wall Santiago Cuba

Blue_wall

I was actually just trying to photograph this grungy wall when the guy walked into my shot. That happened a lot in Cuba. I did some cropping, brightening, saturation and vibrance. I also took out a drain and water stain that was causing too much division in the composition. I also bumped up the yellows to play off his pants and the large spot in the upper right. And I did some sharpening.Finally, I went in and cleaned up some of the white spots around the guy to put more emphasis on him.

Green Chevy Havana

GreenChevy

It’s true about the old cars in Havana.  What they don’t tell you is that most of them are held together with chewing gum and baling wire. They also don’t tell you about the creative colors they have been painted. I stood for half an hour on the street trying to get a good picture by panning the cars as they went by so the background would be blurred but the car would be in focus. I finally succeeded with this Chevy from the 1950s. Just added some vibrance and saturation in post and did a little cropping.

Santiago de Cuba Street Scene

Iceman

I’m just home from Cuba and I have a lot of catching up to do. This is the image of the week for the week of November 27. I haven’t had access to the internet for awhile. We were hanging out near Parque Cespedes the day before Fidel Castros ashes were to arrive in Santiago. This gentleman was selling shaved ice with some kind of syrup and no, I didn’t try one.

I went to Nik Color Efex Pro for detail and saturation on this one and just a little cropping.

Astoria Abstract

Astoria_Abstract

On my way back from a photography workshop in Olympic National Park last month my instructors put me on to some places in Astoria to shoot grunge abstracts. Too much fun and too little time. I am just getting around to processing some of the images. This one is from one of the WWII bunkers at Ft. Stevens State Park. The concrete walls have layers of different colored paint and streaks of rust contributing to the design. The challenge for the photographer is to find and frame an interesting composition in the dark and spooky tunnels. I did add quite a bit of saturation in this one to make it more colorful and interesting. Also 60% detail in color effect pro to bring out the texture of the concrete.

Mallard

Mallard

I’ve been working on a book of my favorite images from 2016 (of which only one will be printed). I already have 16 pages and I’m only on February. Yikes! Anyway, I came across this one this morning and went Wow. I guess I had passed over it previously because I was intent on capturing Wood Ducks but this Mallard turned out beautifully. I love the soft colors of the reflections in the pond and the perfect mirror image of the duck. I also love the drops of water on the duck and the detail in his feathers. Just Wow.

In post processing I gave it come clarity and vibrance and just a touch of saturation. Also a little sharpening and I boosted the exposure a little.

Red Tailed Hawk

Hawk

Rarely do I get this close to a Hawk without it flying away. This one seemed more curious than scared. I could wish it had been sitting on a fence post or tree but you take what you can get. At first glance I thought this was not a Red tail but after looking more closely I could see that though its chest is not as light as some it does have the distinctive darker vest and a look at my bird books confirmed that this has to be a Red tail.

I did some heavy cropping and converted from horizontal to vertical. I may have gone a little too close on the turn wheel and its shadow.  I tried shooting vertical from the car blind but it just didn’t work too well and with wildlife you don’t have the luxury to mess around. I can’t tell you how many “Gone birds” I have photographed in my life.  Anyway, just a little vibrance and saturation and some sharpening for the final image.

Leaf with Raindrop

LeafwDrop

The Japanese Garden in Ashland’s Lithia Park was in full glory this week. But I found myself fascinated with the raindrops lingering on the ends of the leaves. I did one sweep through the Garden with a wide angle lens then went back to the car and got the new 180mm macro which won the day with this image of Japanese maple leaves with a raindrop and a beautiful soft yet colorful background.

Mushrooms with leaf

Mushroom3

Well, I guess it is a good thing when I am too busy photographing to post the image of the week. I spent a long weekend at a photo workshop in Olympic National Park. The fall color was stunning but the rain didn’t let up for too long at a time. I found myself drawn to the mushrooms which were present in all colors shapes and well, mostly small, sizes.

This one was right along the edge of the road near a steep bank so it was all I could do to get a shot framed and some serious cropping ensued. I added a little saturation, some sharpening and darkened the edges.

Black Eyed Susan

BlackeyedSusan

I’ve been working on ways to blend images and add text. In this one I took and image of some black-eyed susans and added a texture layer. I still wasn’t satisfied but in some of the blending modes the flowers went monochrome and that looked interesting to me so I made a sepia tone layer and blended it in as a sort of border. I liked the look and added some simple text just naming the flowers.