#500. Galveston Glider

Taken at Stewart Beach on Galveston Island today. It was a beautiful day today so I decided to make a run down to Galveston to try and make a few images. This was my favorite out of the dozen or so I took of this gentleman and his flying machine.

Title: "Galveston Glider"


Camera / Lens: Canon 5D Mark II / Canon 100-400L zoom
Post-processing: Adobe Camera Raw > Photoshop CS4 > Texture from flypapertexture.blogspot.com

Wasteland

I guess every picture is not a "pretty picture"! I'll withhold the location in order not to tarnish the city's reputation! :-) This scene reminded me of what Hollywood movies always show us of the destruction man has wrought in some post-apocalyptic future so I went that direction with my post-processing.

Title: "Wasteland" (rollover)


Camera / Lens: Canon 5D Mark II / Canon 24-105mm L zoom
Post-processing: Photoshop CS4 > Topaz Adjust plugin > textures from flypapertextures.blogspot.com

St. Mary of High Hill Exterior

St. Mary Catholic Church in High Hill taken a few weekends ago. The interior of this church is being restored and made for the interesting shot I posted on February 8, 2010.

Title: "St. Mary of High Hill Exterior"


Camera / Lens: Canon 5D Mark II / Canon 24-105mm L zoom
Post-processing: Photomatix Pro to combine three tripod mounted exposures (-2, 0, +2) into one HDR (High Dynamic Range) image > Photoshop CS4 > Topaz Adjust plugin, Red Paw Media Beautifier plugin > Red Paw Media Bleach Bypass plugin > two textures from flypapertextures.blogspot.com

St. John The Baptist Catholic Church No. 2

Taken a couple of weekends ago while on a quick tour of some of the "Painted Churches of Texas". This one, St. John's, is located in Ammansville, Texas. I posted another shot of this church on Feb 19 with the sign in front of it and Cindi and Brian thought they might like it better without the sign. The photo from Feb 19 is under this one so you can easily compare both photos by using the rollover feature. Please leave a comment and let me know which shot you like better.

Title: "St. John No. 2" (rollover)


Camera / Lens: Canon 5D Mark II / Canon 24-105mm L zoom
Post-processing: Photomatix Pro to combine three tripod based exposures (-2, 0, +2) into one HDR (High Dynamic Range) image > Photoshop CS4

10 Ton Bridge

Taken last Saturday in Baytown, Texas. What makes this bridge seem unusual to me is that it is a pedestrian bridge in a city park; it has a sidewalk leading up to it, not a road! Isn't a pedestrian bridge with a 10 Ton capacity overkill? Did the engineer that designed it really envision having to accommodate fifty 400 pound joggers at once? More likely this was some city politician's payback for a generous supporter that owned a bridge building company? :-)

Title: "10 Ton Bridge"


Camera / Lens: Canon 5D Mark II / Canon 24-105 L zoom
Post-processing: Photomatix Pro to combine three hand held exposures into one HDR (High Dynamic Range) photo > Photoshop CS4 > Topaz Adjust plugin

Spooky Old Hospital

Taken Saturday in Baytown, Texas. This is the old San Jacinto Hospital building. It has all the usual outward signs of abandonment including broken windows, boarded up windows, graffiti and an intimidating perimeter fence. The building is really quite spooky looking but it's hard to convey "spooky" in a photo taken on a beautiful day with blue sky and fluffy white clouds. Compositionally I tried to make the shot spooky by including the fencing in the foreground and by taking the shot at an unusual angle. I think the lens distortion resulting from using the wide angle end of my zoom adds to the effect. Post-processing included playing with some of the Photoshop blending modes (color dodge, color burn, multiply, overlay) till I got to a place I thought looked spooky (or at least eerie). I'm sure this place looked a lot less spooky 5 decades ago when I was born here! :-)

Title: "Spooky Old Hospital"


Camera / Lens: Canon 5D Mark II / Canon 24-105mm L zoom
Post-processing: Photomatix Pro to convert three exposure bracketed (-2, 0, +2) hand held images into one HDR (High Dynamic Range) image > Photoshop CS4 > Topaz Adjust plugin

Custom Bike

Taken in Baytown, Texas yesterday. A classic bicycle with a custom headlight!

Title: "Custom Bike"


Camera / Lens: Canon 5D Mark II / Canon 24/105mm L zoom
Post-processing: Photomatix Pro to combine three hand held images (-2, 0, +2) into one HDR (High Dynamic Range) image > Photoshop CS4 > Topaz Adjust plugin > Red Paw Media Beautifier plugin

St. John The Baptist Catholic Church

Taken a couple of weekends ago on a quick tour of some of the "Painted Churches of Texas". This one, St. John's, is located in Ammansville, Texas. I like this photo better as a monochrome photo. You can see the original shot (after HDR processing) if you hold your cursor over the image until it changes to a color photo.

Title: "St. John" (rollover)


Camera / Lens: Canon 5D Mark II / Canon 24-105mm L zoom
Post-processing: Photomatix Pro to combine three tripod based exposures (-2, 0, +2) into one HDR (High Dynamic Range) image > Photoshop CS4

St. Mary's - Praha - Interior

Here are a couple of shots of the interior of St. Marys Church in Praha, Texas. This is one of the "Painted Churches of Texas" famous for their elaborately hand painted ceilings and details. When you look at the exterior of this church (yesterday's post) you don't really imagine an interior like this do you?

Title: "St. Marys - Praha Interior #1"


Title: "St. Marys - Praha Interior #2"


Camera / Lens: Canon 5D Mark II / Canon 24-105mm L zoom
Post-processing: Photomatix Pro to combine three tripod mounted exposures (-2, 0, +2) into one HDR (High Dynamic Range) photo > Photoshop CS4 > Topaz Adjust plugin

St. Mary's - Praha

Another of the "Painted Churches of Texas" taken weekend before last. This one is St. Mary's Church in Praha, Texas.

Title: "St. Marys - Praha"


Camera / Lens: Canon 5D Mark II / Canon 24-105mm L zoom
Post-processing: Photomatix Pro to create HDR (High Dynamic Range) image from three tripod mounted exposures (-2, 0, +2) > Photoshop CS4 > Topaz Adjust

Sts. Cyril and Methodius Church

I took this shot two weekends ago in Dubina, Texas. Sts. Cyril and Methodius Church is one of the "Painted Churches of Texas".

Title: "Sts. Cyril and Methodius Church"


Camera / Lens: Canon 5D Mark II / Canon 24-105mm L zoom
Post-processing: Photomatix Pro to combine three exposures from a tripod into one HDR (High Dynamic Range) image > Photoshop CS4 > Topaz Adjust plugin

Little Flower

Taken last Sunday as we happened to be in San Antonio, Texas. This church is visible from the freeway (I-10 I think) near downtown and the architecture caught my eye and called me back to it later in the day for a brief photo session. The church is actually called "Basilica for the National Shrine of the Little Flower" so I felt shortening the name of the post to "Little Flower" would be understandable. :-)

Title: "Little Flower" (rollover)


Camera / Lens: Canon 5D Mark II / Canon 24-105mm L zoom
Post-processing: Photomatix Pro to combine three tripod based exposures (-2, 0, +2) into one HDR (High Dynamic Range) image > Photoshop CS4 > Topaz Adjust plugin > aslo used two textures from FlypaperTextures.com

St. Mary's Nerve Center

Taken this past Sunday at St. Mary Roman Catholic Church in High Hill, Texas. The scene in the entrance hall of this church caught my eye because of its muted colors and great wall textures. Also this small entrance hall struck me as the social "nerve center" for the church.

Title: "St. Mary's Nerve Center"


Camera / Lens: Canon 5D Mark II / Canon 24-105mm L zoom
Post-processing: Photomatix Pro to conver three tripod mounted long exposures into one HDR (High Dynamic Range) image > Photoshop CS4 > Topaz Adjust plugin

Balancing Act

Today's posting is of an image I made for the Bay Area Photo Club's February Honors Night held last night. The Assignment was for a Surreal Composite. I haven't done many composites and so I was excited that this Assignment gave me motivation to try something outside of my photographic comfort zone. Once I had a concept the execution was actually quite fun! :-) And...I received a Gold award for my efforts!

Title: "Balancing Act"


Camera / Lens: Canon 5D Mark II / Canon 24-105mm L zoom
Post-processing: Adobe Camera Raw > Photoshop CS4 > Topaz Adjust plugin > Nik Viveza plugin

St. John's

Taken this past Sunday at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Ammansville, Texas. St. John's is one of the "Painted Churches of Texas". I converted this shot to black and white because I wanted the focus of this image to be on the rhythm of repeating pews, shadows and architectural elements.

Title: "St. John's"


Camera / Lens: Canon 5D Mark II / Canon 24-105 L zoom
Post-processing: Photomatix Pro to combine three long exposure images taken from a tripod into one HDR (High Dynamic Range) image > Photoshop CS4 > Topaz Adjust plugin

Holy Restoration

When I walked into St. Mary Roman Catholic Church in High Hill, Texas yesterday to photograph one of the Painted Churches of Texas I was surprised to see this giant scaffolding in place for a restoration of the church's ceiling. I didn't get to take the shot of the ceiling I was there for but I found the scaffolding structure fascinating! I was reminded of restoration projects I have seen on television of some of the great Cathedrals in Europe.

Title: "Holy Restoration"


Camera / Lens: Canon 5D Mark II / Canon 24-105 L zoom
Post-processing: Photomatix Pro to combine three long exposure images taken from a tripod into one HDR (High Dynamic Range) image > Photoshop CS4 > Topaz Adjust plugin

Bad Dream

Taken at the Homes for Our Troops Sporting Clays event last weekend. The event included well equipped reenactors displaying a lot of historical military equipment from WWII and Vietnam. Seeing this truck, equipped with three machine guns, it's easy to imagine that enemy combatants might first duck for cover and then try to wake up from their "Bad Dream".

Title: "Bad Dream"


Shot data: 1/500s f/4.0 at 90.0mm iso200
Camera / Lens: Canon 5D Mark II / Canon 24-105 L zoom
Post-processing: Adobe Camera Raw > Photoshop CS4

American Values

I took this shot as we were being transported via hayride to the parking area from the Homes for Our Troops Sporting Clays event this past weekend in Fulshear, Texas. The road we were going down was lined with flags so I timed a few shots so that a flag would be in the background. I held the camera over my head and took "no look" shots. This photo really has an emotional impact on me for its patriotic and family themes. I like it a lot from a photojournalistic point of view as well since patriotism and family were two significant themes of the Homes for our Troops event.

Title: "American Values"


Shot data: 1/3200s f/4.0 at 24.0mm iso200
Camera / Lens: Canon 5D Mark II / Canon 24-105 L zoom
Post-processing: Adobe Camera Raw > Photoshop CS3 > NIK Viveza