Flamingo

Flamingo, a photo by andiwolfe on Flickr.

I've been browsing through my archive of photos from 2009 and realized I have not processed a lot of them. So, I'm posting a few that I've been working on. What's interesting to me is that my skill at post-processing has dramatically improved since 2009, which is a good thing, I suppose.

Here's a portrait of a flamingo that I took November 29, 2009, but processed for the first time yesterday.

Fifth Third Center

Fifth Third Center, a photo by andiwolfe on Flickr.

Downtown Columbus, Ohio during the blue hour (the hour after sunset). Looking up at the Fifth Third Center. It's really a shame about the scaffolding up on top, which is for advertising 5/3 bank.

LeVeque Tower

LeVeque Tower, a photo by andiwolfe on Flickr.

Steve and I are exploring downtown Columbus for photography. We visited yesterday for an hour before sunset and about half an hour afterwards. One of my favorite downtown landmarks is the LeVeque Tower - especially at night with the interesting lighting. Sometimes there's a theme to the lighting scheme, but I don't know if this light pattern has additional meaning other than being pretty cool.

CMC at the Southern Theatre

CMC at the Southern, a photo by andiwolfe on Flickr.

Last night the Johannes Quartet played a wonderful concert at the Southern Theatre. As usual, children from the Chamber Music Connection program did the preconcert. This time around, two of the youngest quartets played on stage and they did very, very well.

Leaf detail

Leaf detail, a photo by andiwolfe on Flickr.

Another reprocessed photo from the archives. From Inniswood Metro Garden.

Zinnia

Zinnia, a photo by andiwolfe on Flickr.

Learning how to process digital negatives is such an important factor in photography these days. I've been going back through some earlier work and noticed that my images were missing the "pop" necessary to bring them to life. So, I'm going to be reprocessing some of my favorite photos with my new skill set. Here's the first one, which was taken in August 2009.




Here's the original photo I posted in 2009.  It's a nice photo, but it's not as vibrant as the reprocessed image.  The details are not as crisp and the color is not as rich. So, practice does make a difference in the quality of the final product.

Sawhet Owl

Sawhet Owl, a photo by andiwolfe on Flickr.

Seems like an owl kind of day. This is from May 2010, during a trip to Whitefish Point Bird Observatory; Upper Peninsula, Michigan.

Sunset on Lake Superior

Sunset on Lake Superior, a photo by andiwolfe on Flickr.

I've found a few sets of photos I've not spent time processing and realized I still have some gems to work on. This one is from May 2010, on a birding trip to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. This is sunset as seen from Whitefish Point Bird Observatory.

Winter ICM

Winter ICM, a photo by andiwolfe on Flickr.

Another winter abstract. This one is from February 12, 2012 - in the ravine at Whetstone Park of Roses. Late afternoon sun on fresh snow.

Hockey fans

Hockey fans, a photo by andiwolfe on Flickr.

Steve and I were downtown yesterday morning to take some photos of the bus stops that have posters based on his photo of Columbus. These fans were on their way to the Blue Jackets game at the hockey arena. I loved how they mugged for the camera.

Jesse Smith and Ryan McGiver at Tara Hall

A nice concert February 15, 2012 at Tara Hall featured Jesse Smith (fiddle) and Ryan McGiver (vocals and guitar). Here are a few images from the night.

Jesse told the audience what tunes would be played and where he learned them.

The pace of the tunes were very comfortable, which gave me a chance to really hear the tune and the variations Jesse played.

Tara Hall is now located on the south side of town, in a somewhat shady neighborhood.  However, the setting is now more akin to being in a house concert, which is actually a very nice change from your usual pub concert venues.

 

The main room is divided into the concert corner and a pub.  Tara Hall is the home of the Ancient Order of Hibernians in Columbus, Ohio.

Jesse Smith

I didn't want to use a flash during the concert, so I had to push the ISO up to 6400. That results in a lot of noise in low-light settings such as this venue, so I decided to play with a bit of processing techniques to accentuate the noise by featuring some grain. Here's one of those processing experiments.

Ryan McGiver

Here's another portrait using my grain technique.

"Half the concert is tuning, the other half playing out of tune."

Jesse uses a C tuning (DADGAD tuned down), which was really a nice sound.

As a musician, I'm glad Ryan took time to tune, and it was certainly worth the wait. He's an excellent musician and it was a pleasure to hear him play.

Ryan sings with great feeling and passion.

I tried to capture that passion by doing a monochrome processing on this portrait of him.

This portrait sums up the thoughtfulness with which Jesse plays. I really enjoyed the style and nuances he brought to traditional Irish music.

 Jesse looks so relaxed while he's playing.

I find it a real challenge to get a photo of a fiddler in concert when there are so many mics and mic stands in the way. 

 

All-in-all a nice way to spend a Wednesday night.

First sign of spring

First sign of spring, a photo by andiwolfe on Flickr.

Happens every year - the daffodils start to emerge and spring is just around the corner.

Winter trees

Winter trees, a photo by andiwolfe on Flickr.

Leafless trees, snow, and partly cloudy skies - a nice combination for monochrome. This was taken at Whetstone Park of Roses this past Sunday (2/12/12)

Puppy Love

Puppy Love, a photo by andiwolfe on Flickr.

One from the archives for Valentine's Day. Here's Luna and Topper when they were puppies. They are siblings, but also the best of friends. It's interesting that Topper and Emma, our older dachshund, seem to have a more playful relationship than do the two sibs, but when they are sleepy, these two are inseparable.

Light and shadows

Light and shadows, a photo by andiwolfe on Flickr.

Yesterday, Steve and I went to Whetstone Park of Roses for a couple of hours of frigid photography. The temperature was in the low 20's (°F) with a wind chill factor much lower than that. It was sufficiently cold that I wore my heavy down jacket, several layers of technical cold-weather clothes, plus the down pants I used in the Himalayas. I was quite comfortable, all-on-all, and even became overheated toward the end of our photo shoot.

I wanted to experiment with light and shadows on snow, and the sun came out just for the occasion. In this photo, the shadow of the tree on the snowy slope plays against the sky and the actual tree itself. The color photo is beautiful, but I thought monochrome would be a bit more dramatic.

Another columbine

Columbine, a photo by andiwolfe on Flickr.

The Arctic blast of cold air continues today, but we should be back to higher than normal temps the rest of the week. Here's another touch of spring to come...

Temptation...

Temptation..., a photo by andiwolfe on Flickr.

Today we have a wimpy amount of snow on the ground, but our first real Arctic blast of cold air for the year. I've already come to grips with this warmer than normal winter, so I've started thinking ahead to spring and the beautiful columbines that will bloom in my garden. This one is from last May.

ICM at sunset

ICM at sunset, a photo by andiwolfe on Flickr.

We're supposed to get a tiny bit of snow today and tomorrow - not enough to emulate a real winter, but better than nothing.

This photo was made using intentional camera movement in a grove of trees at sunset. It reminds me of fire and how fleetingly the light glows at sunset. It also reminds me that the seasons and years pass by all too quickly, and the winter will be gone (without much snow here) in just a few weeks time....

Algae

Algae, a photo by andiwolfe on Flickr.

The intertidal zone is a brutal place to live, but these algae do very well along the coast of Oregon.

Barnacles

Barnacles, a photo by andiwolfe on Flickr.

Barnacles are such interesting creatures. During low tide, they seal themselves into their shells with a trap door that holds in the moisture. At high tide they have delicate fronds that pull in their food.

Emma

Emma, a photo by andiwolfe on Flickr.

Emma is so easy-going. She even tolerated being dressed in an over-sized hotdog costume for Halloween..... She seems rather happy about it, too.

Tree in the mist

Tree in the mist, a photo by andiwolfe on Flickr.

Every once-in-awhile I go back through my archive of photos that I've not processed. I found several from October that are worth taking another look at, figuratively and practically. This was of a back-lit tree highlighted at sunrise through a bank of fog. The color photo was a dull orange in color, so I thought monochrome processing would be a bit more interesting.

Winter - ICM

Winter - ICM, a photo by andiwolfe on Flickr.

Europe and the US Rocky Mountains are getting all the snow this winter. Ohio is bereft of the winter season, and so I'm left with posting photos from January 13, 2012 - the only snow day we've had this year. Here's another intentional camera movement photo from that day.

ICM -sunset

ICM -sunset, a photo by andiwolfe on Flickr.

I found another couple of photos to process from my January 7, 2012 shoot that focused on intentional camera movement. Maybe I should say "unfocused," though.

Jalopy

Jalopy, a photo by andiwolfe on Flickr.

The old and rusting jalopy at Glacier Ridge Metro Park is always a good photographic subject, especially in the late afternoon sunlight that filters between the trees.

Luna

Luna, a photo by andiwolfe on Flickr.

I'm doing a project 52 over on Google+. This was last week's photo on a them of "eyes." Have you any idea how hard it is to get a dachshund to hold still long enough to focus on her eye for a photo? Richard had to give me some assistance by holding a treat, just out of reach. Luna did, eventually, snag the treat after I took the photo.