Thanksgiving Dinner Served Here
Roadside Americana
Nikon D7000 18-200mm @ 32mm ISO 200 1/50 f/11 Lr4, TpzSim; PsCS6
The Sycamore Inn, providing food and drink to travelers on old Route 66, since before there was a Route 66. This Rancho Cucamonga, California landmark first opened in 1848. On the menu for Thanksgiving 2012: A selection of 29 wines by the glass, a traditional turkey dinner with all the trimmings, or filet mignon, prime rib or salmon. Served in the main dining room at tables with white tablecloths and ancient wing backed chairs on casters, squint your eye and you might see an old sour dough miner celebrating a gold strike.
Nikon D7000 18-200mm @ 44mm ISO 200 1/320 f/8 Lr4, TpzSim; PsCS6
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Renwick House
Nikon D7000 18-200mm @ 26mm ISO 200 3- bkts f/11 Lr4, HEP2, TpzSim; PsCS6
After ten years of marriage and the death of her husband, Helen Goodwin Renwick left Iowa and brought her son to Claremont, California. Mrs. Renwick then built her house in 1900 where she raised her son and became a philanthropist to Pomona College. Mrs. Renwick died at the age of 86 in July, 1930, bequeathing her home to Pomona College. From the obituary published July 31, 1930 in the Claremont Courier I found this charming line about Mrs. Renwick:
Following a romance of unusual charm she was married to William Renwick in 1879 and together they enjoyed their home and a companionship in Davenport, Iowa for 10 years.
The Renwick House now serve as the offices of the Pomona College Annual Giving department.
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Seaver House Detail
Nikon D7000 18-200mm @ 28mm ISO 200 1/8 f/22 Lr4, TpzSim; PsCS6
This was the home of the Carlton Seaver family and was originally constructed on a site at Holt and Garey Avenue in Pomona, California in 1900. All of Carlton Seaver’s children a attended Pomona College, Mr. and Mrs. Seaver and subsequent generations of the Seaver family have been major donors to Pomona College. The Seaver house was willed to the college by Carlton Seaver’s widow and moved to its current site on the campus of Pomona College at 305 Campus Avenue, Claremont, California. Seaver House now serves as the location of the Pomona College Alumni Relations Office.
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Sumner House
Nikon D7000 18-200mm @ 35mm ISO 200 3-bkts f/13 Lr4, TpzSim; PsCS6
Sumner House (1887) is the oldest home in Claremont, California. This Queen Anne Victorian was the home of Reverend Charles Burt Sumner, once of the founders of Pomona College. The house was moved to its current location, First Street and College Avenue approximately ten years after construction and serves as the anchor point of the southern perimeter of the college. The home is owned by Pomona College and it is now used as a guest house for the college.
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Chino Fire Station 61
Nikon D7000 18-200mm @ 18mm ISO 200 1/2000 f/11 Lr4, TpzSim; PsCS5
Chino Valley Independent Fire District, Station 61 on Schaefer Avenue in Chino, California. Their training facility occupies architecturally similar buildings adjacent, just out of frame on the right side (I’m working on a pano of the entire complex to share in the future). The geometry and then the colors make this image for me. I like the horizontal lines, the strong vertical lines of the light standard and the flag pole, and the strong diagonal line from the curb in the left foreground. I also like the repetition of the square and rectangular shapes.
Engine 61 Responding
Nikon D7000 18-200mm @ 52mm ISO 200 1/500 f/11 Lr4, TpzSim; PsCS5
Engine 61 pulls out of its bay at Station 61 of the Chino Valley Independent Fire District on Schaefer Avenue in Chino, California. Engine 61 is a paramedic fire company that consists of a captain, an engineer and two firefighter/paramedics. In many cases the captain and the engineer are also licensed paramedics. After having Chino Valley Fire District personnel respond to my calls for help on more than one occasion, I can tell you these men are the real deal, skilled, strong, professional and heroic.
Always Prepared
Nikon D7000 18-200mm @ 48mm ISO 200 (-2EV, 0, +2EV) f/10 Lr4, HEP1, TpzSim; PsCS6
Captured during one of our recent photo walks in Monrovia, California, the local fire house.
William Hayes Perry Residence
Nikon D7000 10-24mm @ 13mm ISO 400 3-bkts f/16 Lr3, HEP1, TpzSim; PsCS5
Designed by E.F. Kysor, the Perry residence was erected in 1876 in the Boyle Heights section of Los Angeles for lumber barron William Hayes Perry. The classic Greek Revival Italianate building was accepted in its era as one of the finest, most expensive homes in the city. In 1975 the house sat neglected and vandalized in its original location and was moved to Heritage Square by its owners, the Colonial Dames Society of America. In 1995 the house was deeded to the Heritage Square Museum, where restoration was ongoing.
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Hale House: Another Angle
Nikon D7000 10-24mm @ 17mm ISO 400 3-bkts f/16 Lr3, HEP1, TpzSim; PsCS5
A recurring subject in the blog, another angle on Hale House in Heritage Square in Los Angeles. You may compare it to the previous version here.
Please click on the image to view in high resolution.
The Stone House
Nikon D7000 10-24mm @ 18mm ISO 200 1/40 f/16 +2EV -2EV, Lr3, HEP1, ASSA3; PsCS5
La Casita Del Arroyo, Pasadena, California. Oil on cardboard treatment using Alien Skin Snap Art 3.
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Get Your Worship On At Son Light Christian Center
Nikon D7000 10-24mm @17mm ISO 800 3-bkts f/16 Lr3, HEP1, TpzSim; PsCS5
I like the theatrical feeling of this house of worship, given that it was once a cinema that is an easy enough leap to make. I brightened the cross substantially, and part of the marque. The sun was directly behind the building, so that halo was unavoidable, but I think, given the scene, it fits perfectly.
Hale House Re-visited
Nikon D7000 18-135mm @ 20mm ISO 200 3-bkts f/16 Lr3, HEP1, TpzSim; PsCS5
I think it is never too late to go back and revisit images that have been previously captured and processed and bring a new perspective to the images based upon the passage of time and my own growth as an artist. I was happy with my last rendering of the Hale House image last July because I had achieved a personal milestone in processing tools and techniques in the rendering of that HDR image as described in that blog posting. Since that time I have been exploring more and more with tools and techniques that result in my images rendering in a decided painterly style.
In the case of this image, I did turn down the Clarity slider in Lightroom and brought up the Vibrance slider, and after sharpening and noise reduction then moved the image in to Photoshop and used Topaz Simplify to remove detail and soften textures, and add some definition to edges; then copied that layer and applied Simplify again. I applied final touches back in Lightroom. My goal in applying the painterly effects and amping up the color saturation and brightness is to defeat any perception of this being a documentary photograph and to allow the viewer’s mind to fill in any blanks in terms of the story this image might tell or feelings it might evoke.
The Parsonage
Nikon D7000 10-24mm @ 12mm ISO 640 1/1600 f/11 Lr3, ASSA; PsCS5
Located on the back side of the First Congregational Church in Riverside, California is its parsonage. After capturing this image I almost had the urge to donate some paint to the church, but I don’t think I could afford the amount of paint that would be necessary to spruce up the parsonage, and then it would no longer make such an interesting subject. I applied some painterly effects to this image using Alien Skin Snap Art.
The Boathouse On Lake Evans
Exploring Painterly Effects
Nikon D7000 28-300mm @ 36mm ISO 640 3-bkts f/6.3 Lr3, HEP1, PsCS5; ASAA3
Just after capturing the old UP locomotive at the park entrance we meandered over to the (Evans Lake) lakeside where I captured images of some ducks near and on shore, and an image of the Stewarts Boat House, at Fairmount Park, Riverside, California. Paddle boats are available for rent and the boat house, which incudes a kitchen can also be rented out for private functions. Fairmount Park was designed by Frederick Law Olmstead, one of the primary landscape architects of Central Park in New York City.
The final image was produced from three hand-held exposures processed in Lightroom and HDR Efex Pro and finished in Photoshop CS5 with Alien Skin Snap Art 3 to achieve an oil on canvas effect.
Hale House
Another Time
Nikon D7000 18-135mm @ 20mm ISO 200 7-bkts f/16 Lr3, HEP1; PsCS5
Prior to capturing the image of the “Heritage Boxcar” that I posted this past Monday, I captured a few sets of brackets of the Hale House at Heritage Square, Los Angeles. The Hale House was constructed in 1887 in the Queen Anne and Eastlake styles by George W. Morgan who was a land speculator and real estate developer. The house was moved from its original location to a second location and changed hands a number of times before being purchased by James Gl Hale. Hale lived in the house a few years until he separated from his wife Bessie. After the separation Bessie Hale retained title to the house and lived in it until her death in a rest home in 1967, and ran the house as a boarding home for much of that time. The house was donated to the Cultural Heritage Foundation by Bessie Hale’s heir in 1970 and it was moved to its current location.
I have to say I am fairly proud of this image, I think it demonstrates that I have made some more progress practicing my HDR techniques. I started by mounting the Nikon D7000 on a tripod with the 18-135mm lens and with my Promote Control interfaced to the camera. I had Judy hold up a gray card in front of the house for one shot. I fired off a few sets of seven brackets (-3 EV to +3 EV) with slightly varying perspectives on the house and converted the camera raw files to DNG in Lightroom. Initially in the Lightroom Develop module I used the automatic color correction tool to key on the gray card and set the proper color setting on all the files, and I also used the automatic lens correction tool to correct any distortion. I exported the selected seven brackets to Nik’s HDR Efex Pro and applied one of the Realistic pre-sets which I then tweaked, then I converted to TIFF and sent the image file back to Lightroom. I then opened the HDR TIFF file and the middle bracket (-0-) DNG file in Photoshop. I then used layer masking to overlay the top of the chimney and the sky from the middle bracket to correct the top of the chimney which was blown out in the HDR and to replace a halo-ed sky with a clean sky. I also used content aware fill in Photoshop to remove a water faucet, garden hose, and some scattered cinder blocks from the lawn in front of the house. Back in Lightroom I made a slight crop to remove some of the gravel foreground, sharpened and applied minimal noise filtering.
La Casita Del Arroyo
Nikon D7000 10-24mm @ 16mm ISO 200 3-bkts f/16 Lr3; HEP1
La Casita Del Arroyo is a community meeting facility maintained by the Pasadena, California Parks Department and it is perched on the eastern edge of the Arroyo Seco, the normally dry riverbed that cuts through western Pasadena. The Rose Bowl is nestled in the riverbed further upstream at a wider point. The portion of the Arroyo Seco where the casita is located is maintained as a quasi wilderness park, just beyond the left side of this image, behind the casita is a trail leading down in to the arroyo. The rocks used in the construction of the casita are typical and plenty full along the entire front range of the San Gabriel Mountains drainage and were a typical natural building resource during the 19th and 20th centuries. The actual construction history of the casita is:
La Casita was built in 1933 as a project to provide jobs for the City’s unemployed. Designed by Myron Hunt, the lumber came from old bicycle tracks built at the Rose Bowl for the 1932 Olympic Games, and the stones came from the Arroyo. It was declared a Pasadena Cultural Heritage Landmark in 1976.
There are some fine old specimen trees in front of the casita, but the images of the trees that I captured at the same time as the casita image are not up to my standards, so we will be paying the casita another visit, just to do the trees justice.
An Era Past: Farmhouse #1
Nikon D80 18-135mm 18mm ISO 640 1/90 f/16 Lr3 PMX4 ColorEfex3
The farmhouse is an anachronism, by the side of the road in an area that is rapidly suburbanizing. Thirty years ago this area was in its agricultural prime and was designated the San Bernardino County Dairy Reserve, with 300,000 cows on the land. Dairy’s, horse farms, fields of cattle feed or produce under cultivation have been squeezed out or overrun by housing tracts, schools, shopping centers, distribution warehouses and parking lots. Directly opposite this farmhouse, on the other side of the road, are blocks of multi-family housing and a new shopping center.
This image tells me a story, about a former life abandoned and forgotten. The farmhouse seems to be unoccupied, the light coming through the door and window just light passing through from the back to the front of an empty house. The trees looking scraggly and overgrown. The land around the house fallow. The old motor home, possibly where the property owner now lives, or maybe a squatter. The telephone and electrical line passing by overhead representing the inexorable progress of suburban life. The arrow painted on the pavement in front, as if to indicate one should turn away from this house.
I tried this image out in black and white but I think it works better in color with a gray sky in the west (the direction that the suburbanization is expanding from) overtaking the blue sky in the east, and some of the foliage and the field on the side of the house yellowing and browning.
Huntington Library, Art Galleries & Gardens
Nikon D80 44mm ISO 100 1/6 f/22 +2EV -2EV PSE9 PMXPro
We spent a few hours, yesterday, at The Huntington, in Pasadena, California. This property was originally developed in 1919 by Henry E. Huntington, a railroad magnate. The house in this image is Mr. Huntington’s original home on the property, and it currently sits in the middle of 120 landscaped acres (out of a total 207) which consist of the Library, (a world class research library holding many original first editions), art galleries and botanical gardens.
During post processing of the image above I lightened the leaves of the foreground tree, and lightened the tree trunk in order to bring out some detail. The lawn and the driveway directly adjacent to the tree trunk were “burned out” and I, rather crudely, painted in the lawn. I have not yet mastered the ability to correct the sky tones, as seen in the image above, and as seen in the “glow” between sky and tree tops in the image below.
Nikon D80 24mm ISO 100 1/8 f/22 +2EV -2EV PSE8 PMXPro
As with any proper manor house, the house is surrounded by a huge expanse of lawns, with a large slope on the south side of the house, and a long tree and sculpture line “alley” on the north side of the house. We elected to not get any shots of the alley, as impressive as it is, because it was too hazy a day and we would not have been able to discern the San Gabriel Mountains in the background. The various gardens are spectacular and require 40 full time gardeners and 100 volunteers to maintain.
Visiting The Boddy House
I am beginning to get out and about after a long period of being housebound. One of the places that I visited this week was the Boddy House on the grounds of Los Angeles County’s Descanso Gardens which is located in La Cañada, California. I have always been a fan of landscape photography, there are so many images to be found in the natural world and I want to develop my eye and my skills in capturing my vision of the natural world.
Nikon D80 55mm ISO 640 1/30 f/11 PSE8 PMXPro
Of the images captured this day, the one above was my favorite. The image is from three exposures, 2 EV apart from each other and then combined in the HDR process and further refined. My only regret this day was that I did not have a wider lens to work with in the oak forest. Descanso Gardens is criss crossed with narrow drives and foot paths, this is the drive leading to the Boddy House.
Nikon D80 18mm ISO 640 1/10 f/11 PSE8 PMXPro
This is a segment of the same drive, as we were heading away from the Boddy House. We were on foot and in the power chair, the only vehicles allowed on the drives are the tram tour vehicle and the grounds keepers’ powered carts.
Nikon D80 27mm ISO 640 1/30 f/11 PSE8 PMXPro
The Boddy House was the home of E. Manchester Boddy and his family. Boddy developed the property beginning in 1937.
All of the images could not have been made without the collaboration of Judy Frost.
