Urban Study #152
Nikon D7000 18-135mm @ 58mm ISO 200 1/60 f/18 +2EV -2EV Lr3, HEP1, TpzSim; PsCS5
The viewpoint for this image is looking across the intersection and across Garey Avene, from the northwest corner of Garey and Second Street, Pomona, California.
Please click on the image to view in high resolution.
Indecision, Redux
Another Exercise With Painterly Effects and Play Upon Imagination
Nikon D7000 10-24mm @ 20 ISO 640 3-bkts f/11 Lr3, HEP1, TpzSim; PsCS5
Wherein the “Clark Kent” look-alike guy from this past September is still uncertain. Will he ever figure it out? Will he be given a sign by a superior being, such as a demonstration of spontaneous combustion, the sound of trumpets blaring, or in the guise of a passing stranger? Did he already receive a sign and fail to recognize it? Is he forever doomed by his conundrum or has he chosen a course and is about to charge off in another direction?
Last Call
Street Life
Nikon D7000 18-135mm @ 50mm ISO 2500 1/13 f/4.8 Lr3; SEP2
The last customer of the evening at closing time at the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, Old Town, Pasadena, California. I debated with myself about whether I would publish this or not. This final image is about a 20% slice of a full DX frame from the camera, that I should have cropped in camera by using a longer focal length (and with the camera in a vertical orientation), so the detail quality of this rendering would have been up to my standards. I liked the possible stories that this image conjures up so much that I decided to share it. Next time I will be more deliberate, and think my shot through, before just clicking the shutter in reaction to the moment.
The shot was through a window and there is some reflection from some exterior lights that interferes with the image. I did alter the tones in the man’s face because it was distorted by the reflected light (possibly some neon tubing across the street) but left a remnant of the neon tube in his hair (I did not want to manipulate this street life image more than necessary). You can also discern some banding of the image from the reflected light. I have been thinking about distractive light reflections a lot recently while capturing more shop window images and I have come to the conclusion that while my primary interet is what is behind a shop window, that in real life as you look through a window unwanted reflections are usually present to one degree or another, so if I can’t cleanly eliminate them, I might as well accept them as part of the reality of the scene as we live it.
Chill’n At The Equator
Street Life
Nikon D7000 18-135mm @ 26mm ISO 2500 1/6 f/3.8 Lr3; SEP2
The Equator was originally a stable in the 19th century, and since the revitalization of Old Town, Pasadena, California that began in the late 20th century the building has hosted various hospitality based businesses. They bill themselves from what I can gather from their web site as a restaurant/club featuring Asian fusion food and of course a full bar. Equator is located on Mills Place which is nearly just an alley in Old Town, adjacent to Mills Alley, which is a real alley. This short street is much more typical of the North End in Boston, than of some Disneyfied entertainment venue typical of the greater Los Angeles area.
No special post processing here, just some selective tone adjustments to bring out more clarity of all the human images, particularly of the fellow actually inside the building. I was intrigued by the elaborate chandeliers that are visible through the windows and I like the image of the hairless guy leaning against the wall.
Tourist Attraction
Nikon D80 18-135mm @ 38mm 1/8 f/8 (-2.0 0.0 +2.0) Lr3 HDR Efex Pro
This was apparently someone’s “Kodak Moment” when her companions were studying the vending machine. The scene was in the dark cavernous space that is the Studio Walk at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas and is about as exciting as shopping at the MGM Grand gets. This is the kind of human tableau that attracts my eye, a candid glimpse of some people interacting with each other and their environment. I like how the blown out lighting of the inside of the vending machine helps define the human figures in front of it, especially how you can see some of the light reflected off of the fellow on the left.
With the high ISO the original HDR image had a lot of grainy noise in the blacks, I was able to minimize that with a combination of using a Control Point with Nik Viveza to darken the three individual figures in the center, combined with tweaking the Lightroom noise filter settings. The overall processing also softened all of the edges.
Some Housekeeping Notes: You will find some new tabs at the top of this page. One of them links to the new Wayne Frost Photography Facebook site that I launched this week, if you are a Facebooker I’d love to have you stop bye. You will find a link to my portfolio there, and you can also share your own images on the page or start or join a discussion. I have also reconfigured the waynefrost.com web site which is hosted by SmugMug and you can always go there for direct access to my portfolio.
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