Here is a new version of an older image processing it through the Silver NIK filter from the NIK plugin pack from Adobe Lightroom. This was taken at Lettuce Lake State Park in Tampa on a misty winter day. The original image is in color but it was planned as a monochrome image. A lot of images from that day are better in monochrome.
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Silver Knees
I remember the first time I went to Florida in the 1960’s and saw an Ibis. I was taken with the beauty of the bird, I had never seen one before. Now when I visit Florida, I am amazed by how many there are. They are everywhere. I have seen them in gas stations, cruising the dumpsters outside of restaurants and on the streets. Recently, I saw three of these beautiful birds attack a pigeon who was getting too close to their road kill. I still think they are pretty and in a natural setting they are quite striking.
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The Ibis
The Eiffel Tower (Tour Eiffel) was built by Gustave Eiffel’s in 1889 for the World’s Fair in Paris. It was supposed to be temporary and removed twenty years later. However by 1909 the use of Airships had become popular and the tower was viewed as a convenient docking station. Also the construction of radio towers on the top of the tower proved valuable during the first World War.
Today the tower is iconic and a symbolic of French Freedom. It was first viewed as being and ugly blip on teh master plan of Paris developed by L’Enfant. Now the city would not seem the same without the Tower. This picture was taken from the Trocadero plaza in 2009.
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Tour Eiffel from The Trocadero Plaza
Another one from the unused image vault. I did put a full size image of this on my commercial site for sale but never shared it with my blog audience. In my opinion this was the precise moment of sunrise. When shooting a sunrise or sunset I always shoot a series so I get the perfect moment. Easy to do with free pixels rather than expensive film. This was taken last December on a beach near Cancún Mexico.
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Cancún Sunrise
Another one that was lost in the editing shuffle. I had another macro shot of this orchid that I put on my commercial site but actually like this one better. I like the way the foliage provide a natural background for the vibrant color of the bloom.
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Orchids on Display
I have been going through images I have uploaded to my blog but not published. Some I look at and have no idea why I never published them. This one I understand though, it is not taken from a Disney Photo Spot. If you have every been to any disney park, you know there are certain places with a Kodak sign identifying the perfect place to take a picture of Cinderella’s castle or Space Mountain. That way everybody’s photo book looks identical except for the grinning people blocking the view.
Pittsburgh has a couple of these. One is from the riverwalk along the North Shore of the Allegheny and the other is from the top of Mount Washington showing the confluence of the three rivers. This one was rejected because it is the dirty old Monongahela River. Except the steel mills are gone, the river has been cleaned up and people actually fish in it now. Sure there are still the barges and the trains running beside it. It is not the money shot but all and all not a bad view of our fair city.
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Mon View
My Mom passed away a few years ago. I still think of calling her on Sunday mornings and especially want to call her today. She was a good soul. She raised me right and lived to the ripe old age of 94 which I hope to beat! To all you Moms, I wish you a happy day. May the children in your life honor and respect you and have the happiest day, doing whatever it is YOU want to do.
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Happy Mother’s Day
This year I am happy to serve on the board of Run Around The Square which is a 5K race and fun run in the Regent Square neighborhood of Pittsburgh. It is also in my opinion the best race of its kind in Pittsburgh. Now Pittsburgh has a lot of footraces including the Pittsburgh Marathon. However in our race you get to run through Frick Park and with musicians entertaining the runners along the route. At the end of the race there are free hot dogs, soft drinks and beer in Fern Hollow. It’s kind of of hard to top that and the hot dogs are from D’s SixPax and Dogz our very own Hot Dog emporium.
I will probably be writing about this a lot during the year but registration has just opened for the race which takes place on nAugust 27. To register for the 5K or the one mile fun run (with or without your dog), follow this link.
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Along the route in Frick Park
As a photographer I have risen frequently to greet the morning sun. I am always struck by the birds. If you are going to take a sunrise picture you want to be on the scene before the sun rises. If you are real early in the eerie light you can hear the birds waking up but can’t see them. Then you will begin to see them perched and stretching their necks,fluttering their wings and then as the sun begins to peek out flight.
Taken in Mexico off a beach near Cancún.
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Greeting the Sun
A photographer friend and former student of mine and I were discussing HDR. I have started to use auto bracketing and the new HDR merge feature of Lightroom on some images. I am generally pleased with the results.There is almost no ghosting with tripod shots. I also did hand held shots with a VR lens and the ghosting correction option worked perfectly. See Yesterday’s post
My friend suggested I try the NIK filter collection plug-in from Google which I have since installed and am really amazed with the options offered by this product. I have just started to experiment with it and so far I am wowed! I cannot yet comment on all the features but compare the two images below.
The first was done with standard editing using saturation, highlight and monochrome tools on Lightroom. The second using one of the many editing pallets from the HIK Silver plugin for Lightroom.
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Standard Editing Monochrome
NIK Silver Tool
Imagery Photography 