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The Best of 2011 – Landscapes/Cityscapes and Scenics

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So 2011 is drawing to a close. I feel like my photography world has grown exponentially this year. It started with the completion of my “This Week at the Lake” project. That was a project that I truly enjoyed and was proud that I made it the entire 52 weeks. I honestly wasn’t sure what I was going to do once that was over. Was I still going to take many photos? Of course the answer was YES!

 

2011 brought me many new clients and friends. I photographed engagement sessions, family portraits, babies, weddings, and parties. I grew my stock photography collection on Getty Images from just a couple photos to over 180. I’ve licensed photos to companies all over the world and mailed prints to clients all over the US. October brought an amazing opportunity  to display my Radnor Lake photos in a gallery next to extremely popular local artist Phil Ponder. I even covered a couple college football games and the Murfreesboro Christmas parade for HobNob Murfreesboro.

 

I’m going to break up “The Best Of” posts into sections. This first post features my favorite landscapes, cityscapes or scenic photos. I hope you enjoy them!

This Week at the Lake - 47/52

This first shot was taken on a cold snowy morning at Radnor Lake. It was the lead shot for Week 47 of my project. I was the first (and only) one out there. No footprints to mess up the scene! Standing on that deck is where I get a lot of my sunrise photos at Radnor Lake. This time, I decided to include the snow covered deck and benches in the shot. I like how it turned out!

 

Wrong Side of the Tracks

This is a shot I got at Shelby Park in Nashville. I met a few local photographers there and we walked around taking photos waiting on the sunset. I really liked how this turned out. I think it’s a good reminder to look around when taking photos. Look up, look down. Try to get a unique angle.

 

Vanderbilt at Night

Years ago, I took a shot similar to this on film and I really liked it. Finally, I made it back there and tried it with my digital. This was taken at Vanderbilt University. I like the colors and lights in this shot.

 

Lightning - in HDR

I have to admit, in photography you have to have a LOT of luck. Be skilled enough to put yourself in the right spot at the right time, be skilled enough to know what to do when it happens. But other than that, you need some luck. I was set up to shoot the sunset this evening as some storms were rolling through. I had seen some lighting but not much. As soon as I pushed the button, the lighting streaked across the sky. Seconds later, it began pouring. This was the only shot of this sunset that I got. This might just be one of my all time favorites!

 

A Self Portrait

This was my first attempt at a window reflection self portrait. I really liked how this turned out and I’ve done several others. I find them very interesting to look at. Trying to determine what’s inside and what’s reflected. This one was taken downtown Murfreesboro Tennessee. I have an album on facebook that has the others if you are interested in seeing them 🙂

 

Cannon

As soon as I left work this day, I called my wife and told here we were going somewhere to shoot the sunset. I could tell the skies were shaping up to make for an awesome sunset. We decided to head to the Stones River Battlefield in Murfreesboro and this is the result!

 

The Linn Cove Viaduct at Sunrise

This is the Linn Cove Viaduct on the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina. I was vacationing there and knew that I wanted to get a shot of the viaduct. I scouted out this area the day before and realized that the sun would be rising over this scene. So the next morning (and the last morning of the vacation, so it HAD to be a good sunrise!) my brother and I drove, hiked, climbed in the dark and waited for the sunrise. We were not disappointed as this beautiful sunrise took shape over the viaduct.

 

Morning Rays on the Blue Ridge Parkway

On the way back to the house from getting the sunrise shot above, we came across these sunrays breaking through the trees onto the Blue Ridge Parkway. I took a couple shots but decided they needed something else in them. I told my brother to go stand in the rays.

 

LP Field at Sunset

Sometimes you get a shot in your head that you want. It’s rare (at least for me) that it ever happens exactly the way you envisioned it. This one, however, did! I’ve envisioned this shot in my head for a long time. I’ve been to a few Titans games but never at sunset. This year, I was invited by a friend to a preseason game. The timing was perfect and the seats were already near the top. All I needed was some color! Sure enough, the sky started lighting up so I headed to the 50 yard line and got this shot.

 

Follow the Light

Not much to say about this one, I just really liked how it turned out. I love the light and color and the path leading you in.

 

Nashville, Tennessee

This is my favorite Nashville Skyline photo taken in 2011. I like the lighting and colors. This is such a classic spot, every time I’m downtown I just have to get another skyline shot. It’s really an impressive scene from the Shelby Street bridge.

 

Radnor Lake

Just another beautiful morning at my favorite spot in Middle Tennessee. When you shoot at the same places over and over, it’s hard to make the photos unique. For this one, I backed up to include the path into the water and waited for the sun to peek over the ridge to give me a flare.

 

State Line

This one is from my hiking trip along the Appalachian trail. Straight ahead is Jane Bald, and Round Bald. The left of the photo is North Carolina, the right side is Tennessee. This is near Roan Mountain Tennessee.

 

Another from my hiking trip. This tree was near my camping spot on the first night. The fog and the mist gives it a mysterious look.

 

Foggy Tree

Taken on a foggy morning in Murfreesboro. I just loved the fog, the fall colors, and the look of this old tree. This is one of my top favorites of the year.

 

Foggy Fall Morning

This was taken on the same morning as the shot above it. I really love shooting in the fog. Everything looks so mysterious.

 

Radnor Lake Sunrise

Another shot of a Radnor Lake Sunrise. There was so much color in the sky this particular morning.

 

A Christmas window display

Finally, it’s another shop window/reflections shot. The key to these is to find the right window with enough interesting stuff inside and interesting reflections from the outside. I knew I wanted to get one of these of a shop window with Christmas decorations. I circled the square in downtown Murfreesboro several times trying to find the right window. Finally I came across this one, it has a great display inside and the reflections worked perfectly showing the courthouse clock tower.

 

 

And that’s it! Just a few of favorites from this amazing year. Thank you to everyone who continues to support my photography and here’s to an even better 2012!

 

Don’t forget, most of my photos can be purchased by visiting the Storefront Site.

 

Are you a photographer thinking about HDR photography? Purchase Photomatix from hdrsoft.com and use the coupon code MALCOLMPHOTO and get 15% off! Then check out my tutorials!

 

Happy New Year!

Photomatix Discount Code

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Want to create high impact, dramatic photos like these!? Malcolm MacGregor Photography is pleased to have teamed up with Photomatix, the program used to create all of my HDR images, to offer you a discount code!

Photomatix is already a very cheap program ($99), but now it’s even better. With the discount code MALCOLMPHOTO, you will receive an additional 15% off! Photomatix can be purchased and downloaded from the HDRsoft website, HERE

After you purchase Photomatix, be sure to check out my HDR tutorials for additional help! As always, let me know if  you have any questions!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for looking!

Find me on Google+ or Facebook

Last Nights Sunset

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How I Did It – Part 6

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Time for another tutorial!

In this post I’ll show you everything I did to turn this:

into this:

Really not that different is it? But I actually spent a lot of time on those “minor” changes.
This is an HDR, so that means I started out with 3 separate exposures by bracketing the camera at (-2, 0, +2). Here are the 3 exposures:
-2

0

+2

First thing to do is open these 3 RAW images into Photomatix. I use Photomatix for all of my HDR’s. If you are interested in buying Photomatix, use the coupon code “malcolmphoto” for a 15% discount! It’s already at a great price ($99) and even better with the discount.

Once Photomatix has finished processing, I’ll tonemap it using the “Details Enhancer” option

(just noticed my screen grab cuts off the top of the settings, the two that are cut off are Strength @ 100, and Saturation @ 82)

Now we head to Photoshop…

So here we are, and the first thing I want to do is get rid of all that yellow. I thought I liked the saturation levels in Photomatix, but changed my mind – so I open a saturation adjustment layer and decreased the overall saturation quite a bit:

Next I open a Levels adjustment layer:
Here I clicked and dragged the little black triangle on the left in until the “mountain” started. I also wanted to lighten the image some, so I slid the gray triangle to the left some.

Next I add a typical Curves adjustment layer to slightly increase contrast:

There are so many different ways to do the same thing in photoshop. I was really trying to lighten this image so I did a Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer. I increased both amounts a little. This really has a similar affect on the image as a curves adjustment or a layers adjustment.

Now, I still was not happy with all the yellow in the ceiling so I opened another saturation adjustment layer:
Notice that I used the drop down menu and selected “Reds” – this will desaturate only the reds in the image. I also desaturated the yellows by the same amount (not shown). Also notice that I didn’t want to desaturate all of the image. So after I made the adjustment, I filled the layer mask with black. I then grabbed a soft, white, low opacity brush and “painted” white back on the layer mask over the areas that I wanted desaturated.

Next, I still wanted the image brighter in some parts so I opened a new layer and filled it with 50% gray. Once you do that, put the layer in “Overlay” blend mode. You’ll see that the gray “disappears”. Now, grab a very low opacity (for this I usually set it to less than 10%) and paint on the layer with white or black. White being areas that you want to lighten and black being areas that you want to darken.

Next I wanted to increase saturation to enhance the stain glass windows. So, open a saturation adjustment layer and slide the saturation to the right. Fill the layer mask with black and paint over the windows with white (making sure you are painting on the layer mask).

Now I want to straighten it by going to Filter, Lens corrections:

Now it’s looking better!
Only a few things left. The next thing I did was run a noise reduction filter. I use a plug in from Imagenomic

And finally I sharpen using Filter, sharpen, unsharpen mask:

And that’s it!
Here is the final product

Thanks for looking! I hope you found this helpful. Please ask questions if you have them, I’ll try by best to answer.

See all my other tutorials HERE

I’m on Facebook! Check it out and become a fan!

Remember,
If you want to know “How I Did It” for any photo on my flickr photostream, leave me a comment on this page or send me an email. I’ll be glad to make it my next “How I Did It” entry!

Also, as I mentioned in my first How I did It post, here are some helpful links for learning more about HDR:
Stuck in Customs
HDR Exposed
HDR (a flickr group)
Tutorial Collection at My First HDR flickr group

Helpful links for learning more about Photoshop:
Photoshop Support Group
Photoshop Tutorials by Allan Gengler
Actions by Allan Gengler
CoffeeShop Actions

This Week at the Lake – 32/52

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What a tough week to pick a lead shot, I wanted to put all of these first! Tuesday and Wednesday morning were both stormy/rainy which made for some great HDR conditions. Here are some others from those two mornings:

It’s me 🙂

A couple of other non-hdr from Wednesday morning:

Who says turtles are slow!? This guy was moving quickly across the path

The sun was back out in full force on Thursday. I spent my entire lunch break there trying to capture a leaf in mid air falling from a tree. It took around 100 shots but I finally got this one:

Not exactly the composition I wanted but I am more than happy to settle for it! A very tough shot to get…

I went back Friday at lunch and just wanted to capture some fall color:

And that’s it for the week!

Thanks for looking!

Check out all the previous weeks by Clicking HERE

Don’t miss a week! Subscribe to this blog and you will receive an email every time I post something new!

Malcolm MacGregor Photography is now on Facebook, check it out and become a fan!

All of the “This Week at the Lake” photos are available for purchase as fine art prints and a portion of the proceeds will be donated to the Friends of Radnor Lake! Send me an email for more info (m_macgregor@comcast.net)

A Hawk! No wait, a Sunset!

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So the family and I were riding home after a competitive game of disc golf at a local park, when I glanced at a field we were passing and I noticed a very large Red Tailed Hawk sitting on a hay bale.

We turned around, and I thought I would get out of the car down the road some and walk to a tree line to see if I could get a shot of the hawk. Well, we stopped a little closer than I wanted and as soon as I made it to the edge of the road, the hawk flew away. I believe he was watching me as soon as the car stopped! I continued on to the tree line to see if could find where he flew to but I saw him soaring far away.

By now, 10-15 minutes had passed and, as I began to head back to the car (where my wife and kids were waiting), I noticed the sky was really taking shape to produce a nice sunset. I convinced them we needed to stay a few more minutes, and this is the result:

I had to get one more as we drove away!

Even got a couple of the family:

How I Did It – Part 5

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I have another RFI as we call it in the construction industry, or a Request For Information. Someone asked how I processed a particular image, so I promised a tutorial – so here go…..

In this tutorial, I’ll show every step I took to turn this:

into this:

——————————————————————————————————————————-

Obviously, this one is an HDR image. Unlike some of my other tutorials, there is really not much processing involved after photomatix. The only difference here (and it’s an important one) is the number of exposures used. For this shot, I used 5 exposures instead of my normal 3. The reason for this is the huge difference in light from the inside of the hotel room and the outside sunrise.

The 5 exposures I used were (-4, -2, 0, +2, +4)
Here are those 4 images:
(-4)

(-2)

(0)

(+2)

(+4)

You can see how the images gradually get brighter and end up encompassing the entire range of the scene. These 5 RAW images were then loaded into Photomatix. I use Photomatix for all of my HDR’s. If you are interested in buying Photomatix, use the coupon code “malcolmphoto” for a 15% discount! It’s already at a great price ($99) and even better with the discount.

Once Photomatix created the HDR image, I tonemapped using the Details Enhancer option:

On a side note – My Detail Enhancer settings are available to be viewed for EVERY photo in My HDR set on Flickr – here’s how

On the photo page, click on the top right where it tells what type of camera was used:

That will take you to the images “exif” info:

Scroll down, and you will see a section that looks like this:
These are the Photomatix settings, they are automatically embedded in the files information. Cool huh? So now you know…..

Back to the image in question, here we are starting in Photoshop CS2:

The first thing I always do it a “Levels” adjustment layer:

Then a “Curves” adjustment layer:

And then I use Imagenomic for noise:

Here is the final result:

And that’s all there is to it for this one! Piece of cake!

Now go out and shoot some HDR and let me know how they turn out!

See all my other tutorials HERE

I’m on Facebook! Check it out and become a fan!

Thanks for looking! I hope you found this helpful. Please ask questions if you have them, I’ll try by best to answer.

Remember,
If you want to know “How I Did It” for any photo on my flickr photostream, leave me a comment on this page or send me an email. I’ll be glad to make it my next “How I Did It” entry!

Also, as I mentioned in my first How I did It post, here are some helpful links for learning more about HDR:
Stuck in Customs
HDR Exposed
HDR (a flickr group)
Tutorial Collection at My First HDR flickr group

Helpful links for learning more about Photoshop:
Photoshop Support Group
Photoshop Tutorials by Allan Gengler
Actions by Allan Gengler
CoffeeShop Actions

Burgess Falls

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This past weekend we visited Burgess Falls State Natural Area. Nothing original here, in fact I had to wait 10 minutes or so while other photographers got this same shot. I only took one shot (the one above) and then switched lenses. When the sun came out there was a rainbow across the falls, but of course once I switched lenses, the sun didn’t come back out. It really was an impressive waterfall, the trails are just too crowded for my liking. Plus, the only good shot you could get of these falls is the same one everyone else has. We took this shot then we went back to the park area to cook out for lunch. After lunch, the kids went to the playground and I went back down the trails. By then, there were tons of people swimming in the water so I never hiked to the bottom because I wouldn’t have wanted a waterfall shot with lots of people in it!
Here are a couple others I got along the way:

This was the stairway leading from the top of the falls to the bottom

And of course, a couple of the kids enjoying the playground:

If you are interested in going to Burgess Falls, check out the map
[googlemaps http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=36.071857,-85.581779&spn=0.16428,0.494385&z=12&output=embed&w=425&h=350]
Fairly easy hikes (my kids made it!) and an impressive waterfall.

Thanks for looking!

How I Did It – Part 3

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I had a request from a fellow photographer for a “How I Did It” post. For this tutorial, I’ll show you everything I did to turn this:

into this

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Once again, this is an HDR or High Dynamic Range Image. To create an HDR image you need to take multiple exposures (usually 3 but can be us many as you want) of the same scene.

To do this, I put the camera mode in Aperture Priority and set the auto bracket to (-2, 0, +2). This will make the camera take 3 consecutive shots, one exposed properly, one underexposed by 2 stops, and one overexposed by 2 stops.

Here are the 3 shots with their exposure values:

0 ev 0.6 seconds @ f/8


-2 ev 1/6 seconds @ f/8


+2 ev 2.5 seconds @ f/8

Always ISO 100 and always a tripod when shooting HDR

These 3 images are opened directly into Photomatix. I use Photomatix for all of my HDR’s. If you are interested in buying Photomatix, use the coupon code “malcolmphoto” for a 15% discount! It’s already at a great price ($99) and even better with the discount.
You are then presented with “Generate HDR – Options” – here is what I choose:

I always use the “Details Enhancer” option. Here are my settings there:

It’s important to remember that while I used these settings on this image, they may be completely different for my next image. You really need to play with the sliders and get a feel for what they do to your image. Then you can make adjustments that suit your taste. It’s also important to remember that is doesn’t stop here! There are many things that need to be corrected/adjusted in photoshop.

At this point I save it as a .tiff and head to photoshop……….

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Now we are in Photoshop, here is what we have

Not too bad as it is, but could look a lot better!

As in my other tutorials, I start off with a levels adjustment:

I found that this adjustment blew out the Joe’s Crabshack sign so I grabbed a black brush and painted over the areas (on the layer mask) that got too bright. This image shows where I painted:

By doing this, you are applying the levels layer to the entire image EXCEPT where you painted on the layer mask.

Next I’ll do a curves adjustment layer:

Next is one of my favorite adjustments to do, a slight color balance adjustment for the shadows and highlights:

You can see I click the “shadows” dial and set it to -5, 0, +5. This adds a bluish tone to the shadows. In the case of this image, I also did the same adjustment to the “Highlights” dial. This helps get rid of some of the reddish, orange colors.

Next I did a saturation adjustment layer where I desaturated the yellows.

Again, I didn’t like what this did to the sign so I painted on the layer mask with black in these areas:

Now I do a “Stamp Visual” or CTRL-SHFT-ALT-E. This adds a new layer at the top of all the previous adjustment layers.
On this layer I run an Unsharpen Mask

Normally at this point I would run a noise reduction software, however, on this particular image I did not mind the noise. It’s a dark image (certainly a lot darker than an HDR could have been) but I liked it that way. This is because I wanted the big Joe’s Crabshack sign to be the focal point. I actually set the 0ev exposure for the sign. I knew it would be a dark image overall but that is what I wanted.

So, that’s it!
Here is out final result:

Thanks for looking! I hope you found this helpful. Please ask questions if you have them, I’ll try by best to answer.

Remember,
If you want to know “How I Did It” for any photo on my flickr photostream, leave me a comment on this page or send me a flickr mail. I’ll be glad to make it my next “How I Did It” entry!

Also, as I mentioned in my first How I did It post, here are some helpful links for learning more about HDR:
Stuck in Customs
HDR Exposed
HDR (a flickr group)
Tutorial Collection at My First HDR flickr group

Helpful links for learning more about Photoshop:
Photoshop Support Group
Photoshop Tutorials by Allan Gengler
Actions by Allan Gengler
CoffeeShop Actions

How I Did It…. Part 2

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I figured it was time for another “How I Did It” post. In this tutorial, I’ll show you everything I did to turn this

into this

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Once again, this is an HDR or High Dynamic Range Image. To create an HDR image you need to take multiple exposures (usually 3 but can be us many as you want) of the same scene.

To do this, I put the camera mode in Aperture Priority and set the auto bracket to (-2, 0, +2). This will make the camera take 3 consecutive shots, one exposed properly, one underexposed by 2 stops, and one overexposed by 2 stops.

Here are the 3 shots with their exposure values:

0 ev 2.5 seconds @ f/5.6


-2 ev 0.6 seconds @ f/5.6


+2 ev 10 seconds @ f/5.6

These 3 images are opened directly into Photomatix. I use Photomatix for all of my HDR’s. If you are interested in buying Photomatix, use the coupon code “malcolmphoto” for a 15% discount! It’s already at a great price ($99) and even better with the discount.

You are then presented with “Generate HDR – Options” – here is what I choose:

I always use the “Details Enhancer” option. Here are my settings there:

It’s important to remember that while I used these settings on this image, they may be completely different for my next image. You really need to play with the sliders and get a feel for what they do to your image. Then you can make adjustments that suit your taste. It’s also important to remember that is doesn’t stop here! There are many things that need to be corrected/adjusted in photoshop.

At this point I save it as a .tiff and head to photoshop……….

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The first thing I need to do in photoshop is correct the lens distortion. Because I shot this with a super wide angle lens (Sigma 10-20 @ 10mm) the buildings all look as if they are leaning.
To correct this – go to Filter => Distort => Lens Correction
In the “Transform” sections, grab the “Vertical Perspective” slider and drag it to the right until the buildings are straight:

After this, you will need to crop out the blank spots at the bottom of the image.

Now we are ready to work on the image.

The first thing I did was do a “Levels” adjustment layer – Layer => New Adjustment Layer => Levels
I made this pretty dramatic because I wanted to darken the sky a lot to hide the lens flare and the noise (and to make it look more like night should look!)

Once I did this, you can see I “masked out” the bottom part of the image where the building are. To mask something out, grab the brush tool and paint black on the areas you don’t want affected by the adjustment layer.

You can see this really darkened the sky but there are still a few areas that need some work. So I did a “Stamp Visual” (ctrl/cmd+shift+alt+e). On the new layer, I painted black directly on the image to blacken out the few remaining areas

Next I wanted to tone down the terrible orange/yellow light from the street lights. To do this I used a “Cooling” photo filter.
Layer => New Adjustment Layer => Photo Filter

This kind of took away too much color in my mind, so I did a new “Saturation” adjustment layer
Layer => New Adjustment Layer => Saturation

Then I did a separate saturation adjustment layer where I desaturated the yellows

and the reds

Now it’s looking better!

Next I do another levels adjustment layer for the buildings.
Layer => New Adjustment Layer => Levels

Then I do a slight curves adjustment
Layer => New Adjustment Layer => Curves

Next, I do a Color Balance adjustment
Layer => New Adjustment Layer => Color Balance

I make both the “Shadows” and “Highlights” have the same settings

Now we are just about through!

I do another stamp visual (ctrl+shift+alt+e)
I then sharpen this layer using unsharpen mask
Filter => Sharpen => Unsharpen Mask

Then I use a noise reduction software called Imagenomic. This really is an awesome plugin! I use it on every single image now. It does an incredible job at reducing the noise without reducing the sharpness. I tried several other noise reduction plugins but none worked near as well.

Last but not least, I grab the “Dodge” tool and I dodge some areas of the image. In this one in particular, I dodged the windows with the reflections to the right, the building to the left and some of the cars on the street. This brightens them some and really makes them pop!

And then I was finished!

The Final Product:

Thanks for looking! I hope you found this helpful. Please ask questions if you have them, I’ll try by best to answer.

Remember,
If you want to know “How I Did It” for any photo on my flickr photostream, leave me a comment on this page or send me a flickr mail. I’ll be glad to make it my next “How I Did It” entry!

Also, as I mentioned in my first How I did It post, here are some helpful links for learning more about HDR:
Stuck in Customs
HDR Exposed
HDR (a flickr group)
Tutorial Collection at My First HDR flickr group

Helpful links for learning more about Photoshop:
chromasia photoshop tutorials
Photoshop Support Group
Photoshop Tutorials by Allan Gengler
Actions by Allan Gengler
CoffeeShop Actions