Jersey Shore

VIP Motel - Jersey Shore

Driving back from Cape May today we took Route 9 instead of the Parkway..I was amazed at how desolate the beach strip was - no cars - no people - other then a few getting ready for the winter months. It was like everyone just got up and walked off to return again next summer - an apocalyptic film set. I know the summer months are the complete opposite but it was nice to see the shore in this particular mode.

These places are throwbacks to a time gone by for sure. They have such wonderful shapes and colors and are simply irresistible when one has a camera in hand. And the light was particularly cooperative today...

Ireland, Horses

Ireland, Horses

This image is one spotted out of the corner of your eye while traveling 100KM per hour on a barely wider then your car Ireland road just after a vicious rainstorm...So, of course you back up, fit your car in  a parking space, and make the image......

Belfast Political Murals

Belfast Mural 

On the last trip to Ireland I took the Black Taxi tour of what was once war torn Belfast. Our driver told stories of growing up during the more turbulent times in the Republican and Loyalist areas - somewhat like battlefield tourism. I doubt very much that any particular driver will not have an opinion, albeit biased, of the many political murals that cover the walls and homes in these areas. I asked my driver what would happen if someone did not want a murla on their house to which he replied, 'then they need to move'...

These neighborhoods are safe today as much as the black taxi's want to tell you otherwise - they do, however, know which areas to avoid on any given day....Well worth the cost.

This image, according to our driver, is a mural of how this all got started. Of course a bit of shameless promotion added...

Leaving for Cape May today for two days of shooting with a friend....

Big Yellow Taxi

Big Yellow (Water) Taxi

Late last night
I heard the screen door slam
And a big yellow taxi
Took away my old man

Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot.......Joni Mitchell

Another image form the other day - this time a big boy camera image.....The bridge in the foreground is the Williamsburg and the distant bridge is The Brooklyn.....

Brooklyn Bridge

The Brooklyn Bridge

It was one of those perfect image days in NY.....I was driving to meet an old friend for lunch in Bushwick when I noticed the fog that encapsulated the entire city....It was then I knew what the hours after lunch would be - making images near the Brooklyn Bridge...How could I resist the light....

This image is an iPhone4 processed on my Mac Pro. The original image was processed and blended using Macphun Photo Studio and Nik Snapseed on the iPad before being Photosync'ed to the Mac Pro...On the Mac Pro I used Color efx4 to find a look that I liked and then blended this back into the image from the iPad....

Death Valley, Zabriske Point, Black and White

Zabriske Point, Death Valley

Yes he is at Zabriske Point again...Looks like I inadvertently tripped into figuring out a black and white landscape workflow that I might like.....but beware that these covnersion were done in Silver EFX Pro 2 and not yet attempted in a LAB BW Conversion....so stay tuned....Maybe I even get a body of work out of this....

You have to admit this is one hell of a location....

Death Valley, Mesquite Dunes 13

Death Valley, Mesquite Dunes #13

'Choose only one master - Nature'.......Rembrandt

Zabriske Point 4, Lightroom 4

Zabriske Point 4 - LR4 Beta

I have become totally immersed in the Lightroom 4 Beta the past week - watching several instructional videos while working on images.

Today's image was processed using only LR4. Adobe has made some really powerful changes in this beta version. The first thing that jumps out is that you can add clarity without fear of the dreaded halo. The sliders in 'basic develop' are highly intuitive and parametric, meaning they are capable of making much more precise adjustments to the image - somewhat like a parametric sound equalizer can dial in a certain frequency to fine tune a venue for music (of course I mention music)...Another change is the brush and graduated dialog has noise, moire, temperature and tint sliders to allow for more dialed-in local adjustments.

Today's image was processed using just the Basic , Detail and HSL dialogs.....processed above and original below....

Original Zabriske LR4 Beta Test

Use the link below for Adobe video tutorials on LR4.

Julienne Kost

Zabriske Point - Detail

Zabriske Point, Detail

It seems like there are endless ways to portray this location in Death Valley...Just when you have what you consider the one there are still more to work with....Death Valley has become a constant source of images, Dunes, Zabriske and Badwater Basin.....One thing for sure is that these natural locations need protection in the years to come....

I do remember this image as I went off to a different spot for the sunrise that morning - had watched these same shadows the morning before and made sure I was in the right location to catch them the next day...Proves the point that you need to go back many many times to catch the character of any locations...

The Who

Pete Townsend, Keith Moon, The Who

Not sure exactly where this image is from - possibly Madison Square Garden circa 1975...might be Philadelphia also. I used a an on camera flash for this - it was OK back then....I think I have finally come up with a decent workflow for processing these older Ektachrome slides/tranparencies (wow transparency gives my age away)....Anyone know where this is...

I had a great time last night at the Photography Club of Lower Fairfield County....gave a presentation called 'Music, iPhone and Other Neighborhoods'....Thanks to Steve Lingeman for the invite...

Everglades, Smooth, Quiet, Sunrise

Quiet Sunrise, Chokoloskee Bay, Everglades National Park

Actually this image is just after sunrise out in the Everglades..The captain brought me out in the dark and dropped me off on an oyster bed just before the sun peeked out...That was truly a defining moment for this lad from New York.. The silence was deafening....I remember him clearly saying, 'you better get out now or you will miss the sunrise'. So I did.....Took a few minutes to get my bearings, particularly after he went out into the bay about 200 years - I wondered who helps when the alligator shows up... After that first 10 minutes it was difficult to get me off the oyster bed...a truly amazing experience...

Firego, Route 17

Firego Gas, Route 17

A few years ago I was on a road trip to Florida on Route 17 to photograph in the Everglades with Clyde Butcher. I chose Route 17 and was expecting to, and found,  many old business locations that were long closed down and deteriorating - a subject I enjoy. This image, the Firego Gas Station was one of the first images made on that trip. Personally I have never heard of this brand of gasoline so not really sure what time period it might be from...

I will be making a presentation at the Photography Club of Lower Fairfield County in  Stamford, Connecticut  on Wednesday night, January 18   Click here for information. Hope to see you there...

Van-Hagar

Eddie Van Halen - Sammy Hagar

Ah the old days.....Sometimes you simply can not resist....I was thinking of not posting this but after a bit of adjustment I figured why not....and they did just announce another Van Halen Tour - albeit with Dave....

This image is from the charter plane on the 2004 Van-Hagar Tour....You can make out Michael back on the right by the window....

Low, Quebec, Blind

                                                                   Blind, Low, Quebec

This is the day before Christmas immediately after a snowstorm Off the the left is a huge waterfall that supply energy to the power plant....The image is a three frame stitch (Canon 5DII) using Photoshop CS5 with local adjustments in Color EFX Pro 4 and Silver EFX Pro2. Looks ike the start of this year is all about black and white...Thanks for the motivation Tom....

Death Valley, Mesquite Dunes 2

Death Valley Dunes, Stovepipe Wells

'Come forth into the light of things, let nature be your teacher'.....William Wordsworth

I have been to Death Valley on four separate occasions and have made around 5000 images in various locations. All in all the sand dunes are up near the top of my favorite list and also the most difficult. Get there at the wrong time and there are footprints from the many visitors. The best time for me is sunrise, which is even better if a high wind blew away the footprints overnight. If not one needs to get as far out as possible to avoid people and prints...not always as easy as it sounds.....

Death Valley, Mesquite Dunes, Stovepipe Wells

Death Valley, Mesquite Dunes, Stovepipe Wells

'Even Castles made of sand, fall into the sea, eventually'....Jimi Hendrix

Ireland, Loch Na Fooey

Loch Na Fooey, Finney, Ireland

Today's image was made late in the day, almost sunset, on the shore of Loch Na Fooey in the town of Finney, Ireland. And, yes, another one of those Irish days with on and off rain and wind.....pretty much had to lean against a barbed wire fence to get the image. How much do we love the landscape possibilities in Ireland......and yes that is snow on the hillsides...

Just a note that after this last weather adventure in Ireland I bought weather protection gear for my equipment. This after reading Laurie Excel's blog and learning about Lenscoat, a company that makes covers to protect your gear in foul weather....Click on the name above to see their website.

That being said this image was processed in the new Adobe Lightroom LR4 Public Beta application. Adobe has made several upgrades to the existing LR3 modules and has added two new modules, Book and Map. The Map module will allow one to display the location of the image to include GPS coordinates and metadata information.  The Book module is in partnership with Blurb - although there might be others coming. You can output to a book or simply print a PDF. It has all the capability of the online Blurb site right inside of Lightroom.

There are several changes in the other modules and rather then go into a long winded description of LR4 please fond below a link to the Luminous Landscape video overview - They have done a superb job of showing what LR4 is all about.

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/software/whats_new_in_lightroom_4_overview.shtml

I would suggest anyone using LR3 should take a look and give LR4 a look.

And here is the link to where the LR4 Beta can be downloaded - it is, of course, free.

http://blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjournal/2012/01/lr4betanowavailable.html

Thanks to my good friend Mark Segal in Toronto for letting me know about the LR4 Beta and the Luminous Landscape tutorial....

Ireland, Sheep with Color

Sheep, Northern Ireland

The one thing you notice when driving around Ireland is the abundance of sheep...all different colors of sheep - marked with color as per the farmer who owns them. They are blue, red, white, orange and every color imaginable. They are off the road, on the road, precariously balanced on the vertical hillsides just wandering about eating.

The sheep in this image just stopped us in our tracks...Could there really be sheep this color - guess this farmer went a bit overboard with his color....

On the other hand the juxtaposition of color in this image is quite appealing for me. It also appears there is a face in the rocks just behind the sheep....you can make out one eye if you look closely - appears to be an Eagle resting his beak on the water while watching the sheep...What a magical place Ireland is....

Northern Ireland, Vintage Caravan

Vintage Caravan, Northern Ireland

Just back from Ireland yesterday. Other than the fact that I picked up the wrong bag from the carousel and had to go back to Newark Airport the flight home was rather seamless - albeit almost 8 hours due to high winds - also The Edge was sitting right in front of us....as my friend David said, 'The Edge is the soul of U2'...On a good note I got to play with images for the entire flight.....

As I mentioned most days were filled with rain and wind....but there were enough pockets of decent weather to get around. It was a two week class in shooting in less then favorable conditions and I learned a good deal on how to make that work....I will be buying a raincoat for my camera next week...

Found this image along the road driving from Belfast to Derry...the same day we also saw yellow sheep in a meadow by the water and a rainbow at the top of a hill.....quite the colorful day....

Happy New Year everyone - 2012 is finally here.....and it is a Leap Year...

Ireland, Tuliag Beach Sunset

Tuliag Bay, County Donegal, Ireland

Just running out to drive back to Dublin from Adare....Spent yesterday touring the Ring of Kerry in Country Kerry just outside of Killarney. No images from The Ring yet but down below find an iPhone4s image of Ladies View (Ring of Kerry). At th end of the day yesterday we stopped by Peter Cox's photo gallery in Killarney....Peter has some amazing images of Ireland. His gallery is a must see if you are in the area - 3 High Street, Killarney.

Today's image (above) is from Tuliag Beach in County Donegal in the Northwest part of Ireland. I thought I might get a colorful sunset but the clouds blew back in just as the sun  was setting.....I do, however, love images like this one.....it is a true reflection of the wind blowing and the cold weather of the day...

The image below reminds me of The Hudson River School.....

Ladies View, Ring of Kerry, County Kerry

Ireland, Birthday Rainbow

Birthday Rainbow, Irealnd

What a way to spend my birthday - tooling around Ireland looking for images....And I get a birthday rainbow......these rainbows just show up - they seem to materialize out of the mist.......alas no pot of gold - but still looking......

Irish Pony

Irish Pony

 Been doing a good deal of driving the past few days.....not much processing/looking at image time due to lack of sleep......As mention spent most of Sunday touring up in the Inishowen Peninsula. On Monday made the drive from Derry (Londonderry) to the Cong area...Today it was south to Limerick making several stops in the Partry Mountains - Finny area just outside of Cong. Must have seen minimum 10 rainbows - they are elusive - here one minute gone the next...managed to get one good image but that is for another time......tomorrow is exploring the Dingle area - I hear there are some pretty neat places to shoot....Have I mentioned how good the food is in Ireland.....that alone is worth the price of an airplane ticket...

The image today is from last Sunday up on the northern coast of Ireland - saw this pony out of the corner of my eye standing down in the field and was immediately attracted by the colors...made an immediate u-turn and went back....glad I did...one of my favorite images from the trip...

Only three days left.......went much too fast....

Ireland, Malin Head

Main Well, Ireland

Today was County Donegal - northwestern Ireland. Headed out early wanting to make Malin Head, the farthest northerly point in Ireland. As usual in Ireland, if you don't like the weather just wait 5 minutes and it changes.....there were a minimum of 10-12 weather changes today from rain, to sun to hail to winds around 50 miles per hour........I can honestly say being pelted with sleet really stings......

PS: Both photos on this page were taken within one half hour of each other.....

At any rate we stumbled upon a rocky beach around three miles from Malin Head....the car was actually parked just behind where this image was made...This rock was just in front of Malin Well (the sleet adn rain came in so hard I never got that image) which contains both a natural spring as well as a natural cave. Since pagan times locals have viewed these as holy....The spring water was though to cure disease. Legend has it that a hermit once lived in the cave and no matter how many people entered there was always room for more....If only the weather had held up..but at worst a wee bit of a history lesson...

Not sure about anyone else but I see a fairly well defined face in this rock formation.....

The image below is an iPhone4s panoramic image looking east from the top of Malin Head... luckily there were some old military structures still standing to block the wind....

Malin Head is on the Inishowen Peninsula... According to Wikipedia during WWII the Irish Government allow the British to site two radio direction finders on the head. This was a top secret operation - The RDF equipment was to to monitor U-Boat and aerial activity in the North Atlantic. After the war it became a weather station..Several of these structures are still standing today...

Looking East from Malin Head