Rear View
Nikon D7000 10-24mm @ 16mm ISO 200 1/50 f/11 Lr4, TpzSim; PsCS6
This ismage validates the photographer’s mantra “Always look behind.” This image was captured from approximately the same postion as the image published last week, titled “Back Door of Commerce”, just with the camera’s stationary postion rotated 180 degrees. When you are out and about looking for scenes to photograph, always, always remember to check out everything around you, sometimes the changes in perspective can be astounding.
The building houses the Robert Pile Chaffey College Information Center on Seventh Street, which was redeveloped in the former downtown Chino commercial center by the city, Chaffey College and technology industry sponsors for teaching information technology programs. I really like the work that the landscape architect did in the plaza which is behind the adjacent school building, and the commercial buildings on “D” street, the stand of fir trees give me good environmental vibes.
To view in high resolution or to purchase this or similar prints please click here: http://goo.gl/DDUfc
The Carnegie Legacy
Nikon D7000 18-200mm @ 20mm ISO 800 3-bkts f/11 Lr4, HEP1, TpzSim; PsCS5
The Carnegie Library on the campus of Pomona College was opened in 1908 after receiving a grant from the Carnegie Foundation and is one of two academic libraries built by the Carnegie Foundation in California. The building on the campus in Claremont, California was repurposed after the present campus library was completed in 1953 and now is known as the Carnegie Building and houses Social Sciences offices and classrooms. The Library was designed by Franklin P. Burnham using reinforced concrete in the Classical Revival style.
Andrew Carnegie one of the wealthiest men that the United States had produced was a Scottish immigrant who began as a worker in a bobbin factory and eventually rose through the railroading and steel industries to become one of the largest philanthropists in American history after he sold Carnegie Steel to J.P. Morgan (who through merger turned it in to United States Steel) and netted the equivalent in 2012 dollars of $6,303,451,104.
Tree Study #118
Nikon D7000 18-200mm @ 22mm ISO 200 3-bkts f/16 Lr3, HEP1, TpzSim; PsCS5
These trees occupy part of the park like space that is adjacent to the Mathis Brothers store in Ontario, California as described in last Monday’s post.
To see a high resolution version of this image or to purchase a print, please click on the image above.
Black Friday Sale
Use coupon code “BFriday” today only, November 25 to receive a 30% discount on any prints purchased from my gallery which you will find at waynefrost.com.
View From Plaza Square Park
Nikon D7000 18-200mm @ 44mm ISO 800 3-bkts f/22 Lr3, HEP1,TpzSim; PsCS5
Another image from the city of Orange, California, this is the view from Plaza Square Park looking toward the south east corner of the plaza.
Click on the image to see the high resolution version.
Where Dinosaurs Roamed
Nikon D80 18-135mm 24mm ISO 200 1/20 f/11 +2/-2 Lr3 HDR Efex Pro
A succulent garden at The Living Desert in Palm Desert, California, in my mind it conjures up dinosaurs roaming the world in the pre-historic era.
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.
Standing Out From The Crowd
NIkon D80 18.0-135mm 80mm ISO 640 1/1000 f/5.6 PSE8 PMX4
I captured this image last August when we visited Descanso Gardens in La Cañada, California. I was experimenting with enhancing single exposure raw files with quasi-HDR processing. The original exposure and its variations just did not convey the image we saw in the flesh that day, so I had never bothered to consider this a “keeper”. That was before I discovered the world of HDR photography. Today I re-processed the image (which was originally converted to DNG in PS Elements) using Lightroom with the Photomatix plug-in and chose a heavy tone compressor pre-set, did a bit of a crop and some sharpening, and now I have an image that meets my standards as a “keeper”.
The Path To Higher Learning
Nikon D80 10-24mm 14mm ISO 100 f/16 (3 brackets) Lr3 HDR Efex Pro
This was the view looking west from Marston Quadrangle towards the Carnegie Building and Pearsons Hall at Pomona College, Claremont, California yesterday morning. Pomona College was founded in 1887 as the first of the seven institutions that became the Claremont University Consortium. Most of the combined campuses share approximately one square mile of contiguous space in the heart of Claremont California in a green shaded enclave developed from the arid and boulder strewn scrubland that was a part of the San Gabriel Mountains floodplain. With an endowment calculated at $1.299 Billion in 2006, one can be fairly certain that this green oasis will continue to be maintained at a high level, well in to the future.
I captured this image and a few others between 11:00 and 11:45 yesterday morning as part of my HDR learning experience. I would have liked to have been able to capture more than the three automatic brackets delivered by the camera, but that would be very difficult under present circumstances. I restrained myself from over processing during tone mapping, but Judy thinks I went too far with this image. I did push things, but I wanted to bring out a lot of detail and emphasis with the foliage. Some of the intricacies of Lightroom have been confounding me, so a lot of time is spent on trial and error and reviewing tutorials.
We have just begun exploring the image capture opportunities in Claremont, and will be returning in the future.
Huntington Gardens: More Greenery
Two more images from our visit to The Huntington, Saturday.
Nikon D80 27mm ISO 100 1/15 f.9.5 +2EV -2EV PSE8 PMXPro 3.2.9
The image above was captured on the walk way leading up to the Entrance Pavilion, and every time I look at it, it brings to mind how green and inviting Mr. Huntington and his successors were able to create in a normally very arid landscape. The benches in the image are significant, as the represent the many benches that have been placed in strategic locations throughout the property, providing an inviting place to stop, sit and contemplate anything.
After HDR and tone mapping my processing consisted of jut lightening the mid-range shadows and doing a little overall image sharpening in Photoshop Elements.
Nikon D80 18mm ISO 100 1/4 f/22 +2EV -2EV PSE8 PMXPro 3.2.9
This is the obligatory tourist shot of the Japanese Garden, taken from a driveway, there is actually a shaded viewing gallery with a long line of benches just above and behind the position where I was when we captured this image where visitors can contemplate the Japanese Garden in comfort..
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.
