Abstract Motion

While taking photos the other day of the very warm directional morning light, I had the idea that the trees, lit up as they were, would stand out in a black and white conversion with the Fuji X100s. The wind was blowing and the motion of the trees coupled with intentional vertical camera motion would result in a interesting shot, or so I thought.

The process was trial-and-error; adjusting shutter speed and modifying the motion of the camera. The results were less than successful overall as this was my first attempt at motion and I had many images that were blown-out, or just too blurred.

The two images here represent what I thought were the best of the bunch. Post-processed in Nik Software's Silver Efex Pro II to enhance the white of the trees and darken the blacks of the shadows.

The images are slightly more abstract than what I had been trying for, but I liked the way these two turned out. 

If you want to purchase a print, clicking on either image will take you to my Zenfolio site to buy a print.

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Morning Light

Morning light striking the trees

The other morning while getting the kids ready for school I happened to notice the very directional light illuminating the trees in the back yard. The light was falling under the cloudy sky to the northwest giving it a very bluish tone. 

I grabbed the Fuji X100s and took a number of images from my back doorstep handheld. At first I thought this would make a great black and white image, but this very unique light made for a dramatic image straight out of camera. The image above uses the Fuji Standard color simulation with some minor exposure adjustments in Lightroom CC.

The image to the right is a black and white conversion using the Fuji Red simulation in Lightroom CC.

The image below is a black and white conversion in Nik's Silver Efex Pro II. I like the way Silver Efex Pro can tease out the detail and contrast in the sky quite easily with minimal edits.

Ten minutes later I was extremely glad I had put my coffee down and grabbed my camera as the light had completely faded and we were back to our typical gray winter day.

Thanks for stopping by today!

Black and White rendering of the scene

San Diego State University

While attending the 2016 AIAA SciTech conference in San Diego, Ca., I had the pleasure of visiting the campus of San Diego State University and their engineering facilities as a guest of a long-time colleague and friend who is now a faculty member at the university. It was a cool and wet afternoon, so we dodged the rain by running from building to building and stopping for a few minutes to have coffee.

The above image is of the iconic Hepner Hall. The image below is of the more recently built Aztec Student Union building. 

All images are shot with the Fuji X100s handheld and processed with Nik Software's Silver Efex Pro II.

Thanks to Xiaofeng Liu for being our gracious tour guide.

Have a great day!

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