I had my doubts about HDR but the image above has finally convinced me of its merits. The conditions were horrible for picture taking this day with a very bright, hazy sky. The foreground was in tree shade, the grass in direct sun, and the sky washed out white to the naked eye. Blending multiple exposures of this scene allowed for a decent image to be made. Before HDR I wouldn't have even picked up my camera on this day. Advocates of HDR say that proper use of the technology allows an image to be captured more closely to how the human eye sees it. After all, when you look at a bright sky your eye/brain doesn't turn the ground in front of you black like a camera will with one exposure. There's a lot more technical stuff about HDR than just blending exposures. All the science, I don't understand, but you can read about it in detail at this link.
Congrats to my old hometown Chattanooga for landing a new VW plant with 2000 real jobs, plus probably that number again in ancillary jobs. In a time when things look bleak in most places Chattanooga will be doing just fine.
Ahhh..83 degrees in mid-afternoon with low humidity and a breeze. Now I know why I like my Smoky Mountain treehouse way up yonder in the holler so much, with the hummingbirds and chickadees filling me in on the gossip I missed while away.
For me at least with this HDR stuff. These subjects are not exactly interesting but the way to learn photography is by taking pics, thousands if necessary, in all kinds of light with all kinds of exposures, and making note of what works and what doesn't. Then when an interesting subject does come along, you'll have a better chance of capturing it successfully. These images are composites of 6 exposures each ranging from 1.6 to 20 seconds. It might have been possible to capture the same image with one exposure and then adjusting it in Photoshop, but it would been a lot of work.
The family below was taking a walk just down the street. I have seen bears right below my balcony and footprints right on my front doorstep. It gives you pause(paws?) every time you want to go for a walk or even going to the mailbox. It's always a treat to see bears but it's a tragedy to see them in a residential area. Momma is doing her best to feed the kids but is passing on bad habits, teaching them dependence on humans. I'm afraid this family will not have a bright future.
Taken this morning. I'm out of disk space on my laptop and external drive and I refuse to spend hours archiving to cds or deleting old files. More hardware is on the way, one downside to shooting for HDR.
I'll be posting some scenes from the tip of Lookout Mountain overlooking Chattanooga this week. These views are from the Incline Railway observation deck, one of the nation's oldest tourist traps. In the pic below can you spot the See Rock City birdhouse?
I was walking the main street of Gatlinburg yesterday when two Ranger patrol cars and an ambulance with sirens blazing came through and turned up Airport Road. Somehow I just knew it was a bear attack. The bear was only 55 pounds. The bear that mauled and killed the schoolteacher along the Little River a few years ago was not much bigger if any. These yearlings can get very hungry if not making it well on their own, resulting in attacks on humans. You would think 55 pounds to not be a threat, but hunger, sharp claws, and teeth can be a lethal combination at any weight. I wrote about meeting a 300+ lb black bear all alone in Shenandoah a couple years ago. It was his decision alone whether I lived or died, but bears that get to be that big are usually not that hungry and too smart to mess with humans. The yearlings don't know any better.
I check the National Hurricane Center website daily, where you can see and read about tropical storm systems long before they start making the news in the US. The image above shows two areas that have possibilities for development over the next few days.
Bluebellies observe Confederate troop entrenchments surrounding the new Blue Cross headquarters far below in downtown. Meanwhile, the soldier below calls in GPS coordinates for a targeted airstrike.
The smoke has a somewhat surreal look due to HDR processing. When taking multiple exposures there can be no movement in the composition or strange things can happen.
I drive by this scene almost every morning so it's hard not to stop and drink it in with the camera. This image is a six frame composite, and the first time I've applied artistic filters in Photoshop to an HDR image. The opportunities for messing up good photos are limitless with all this technology.
This critter approached my car within a few feet after I stopped to take his pic, with no fear at all. It wasn't aggressive but extremely curious. I've parked and walked along the side of the road here taking pics of wildflowers and hiked the AT nearby alone countless times. To encounter a bear of this size in my car showing no fear at all is a little troubling, especially with recent bear attacks. I might be a little naive to think a walking stick and pepper spray would deter a determined bear. I don't think it would.
I'm posting the pics larger to see how it goes, now 800px wide instead of 600px. The smaller images are fine on standard 1024x768 displays but are too small for more modern displays. I might do away with the sidebar on the right but I like having the archive links there. If you have formatting problems on your monitor let me know.
I wrote just a few posts back that I've seen bears around my condo. I stepped out for dinner this evening and met this guy posing on the railing. The building on the right side is my condo. This bear and I would have been just a few feet away staring at each other if I had looked out my kitchen window. The tip of the car on the left is my Subaru which I was walking towards. Forgive the poor quality but I wasn't expecting company for dinner. This bear was a yearling probably attracted to a neighbor's bird feeder.
Looks like my Florida abode, St. Augustine, is going to get hit pretty hard Wednesday. I still have the rental condo down there on the beach, but the track and strength of the storm shouldn't produce a storm surge. Only thing I have outside is my motorbike which should be ok. I'm planning to return there Sunday but will have to make sure power and cable internet are working since I work from home. The length of time the storm is predicted to stay in the Jacksonville area at strength is troubling.
I was talking with blog buddy DSK about HDR, saying I wish I could revisit places of photos past and take them again. He warned me not to pull a George Lucas, but I've done it anyway, at least for a few places that are not too far out of my routine paths. You might see a few more sequels with scenes not included in the original release over the next few days.
The composition above is the "classic" shot of the mill but I've never been able to get a good take on it until now. The wood shingle roof shines very bright even on a cloudy day, and when combined with the dark building and foreground shade, it made for very difficult picture taking. HDR to the rescue.
I've got about a two week backlog of pics to post with many from the Smokies, and now working my way south to hurricane territory once again. Teaching myself how to shoot for HDR thru the school of hard knocks has been a little slow and I still have a long way to go. The most painful lesson for me is that for really quality shots in all kinds of light, using a tripod is a requirement. I've blown many a good opportunity by trying to shoot multiple exposures handheld. Even though there might be enough light for a single shot handheld, the alignment capabilities of Photomatix can't overcome my ability for camera shake between multiple exposures even when they are all taken in less than a second. I'll post some examples of the good, the bad, and the ugly over time. Meanwhile, for some great perspectives of the New York City skyline, pay a visit to my blog friend buddy don who started shooting HDR about the same time as I did.
Grabbed this shot in St. Augustine Beach this evening just before darkness and a downpour set in. Trust me, there's no hocus pocus drama going on with HDR and the clouds. The scene was dramatic and downright scary. The limited area I've seen so far here is in good shape. The power and cable never went out here at the southern Smokieslight studio.
In the late 1800s way out in the wild wild west, a man of shady but colorful character opened up a saloon in the middle of nowhere, better described geographically as somewhere in the dry west Texas desert. Lawlessness was running amok in the region, so the businessman turned his saloon into a part-time courthouse, deputized a few good-natured scoundrels who hung out at the bar, and pronounced himself Judge Roy Bean, the Law West of the Pecos. The times and the people who lived in them were tough. The Judge did what he had to do to maintain order as he saw it, and justice was executed swiftly. It was a brutal, ugly world deemed by today's standards. The Judge was raised in abject poverty and spent most of his early life in jail or on the run from it. It was pure luck that he found such a desolate place in which to make a home instead of swinging from a rope himself. Yet in spite of the Judge's rough and tumble early life and the desolation, poverty, drunkenness, and crime-ridden environment in which he spent his later years, he managed to become captivated and enthralled by an English actress who lived an ocean away. The actress lived an elegant and lavish lifestyle. Her beauty and grace opened up her life to the highest of English society, even to the Prince of Wales. Back in west Texas, the Judge made sure no one was to defame Ms. Langtry in the slightest degree. When a drunk in the saloon/courthouse carelessly pulled his pistol and shot a hole in a poster of Ms. Langtry on the wall, the drunk was immediately gunned down by the Judge and all his deputies. After the Judge died, word came to Ms. Langtry about the Judge's deep admiration for her, and she paid a visit to the little town in middle of nowhere, which coincidentally is named Langtry but apparently named after a railroad supervisor instead of the actress.
The words that attempt to describe the captivation that Judge Roy Bean had for Lillie Langtry always fall immeasurably short of the truth. Some might see the enthrallment as a childish schoolboy crush, other minds more carnal might see it as lust. Only those few of us who have experienced this feeling really know what it is, and those on the outside can just interpret it at whatever level of understanding their hearts and minds can allow. It doesn't really matter to us in the know what the rest of the world thinks about it. Whatever it is, it is good. It is divine, lifting the human spirit out of the dry desert, out of the sins of past and present, out of the drunkenness and despotism of everyday criminality. The drunkenness might not be from alcohol, the criminality not from stealing horses, but it's still there today, in my life, just masked by the sanction of society and committed on a keyboard, and the times are no better spiritually than they were west of the Pecos in the late 1800s, at least not for me.
So come November, I will clean myself up, make myself presentable to society, attempt to clean my soul from its sins and guilts if even just for a short while, and make a pilgrimage to see my Lillie Langtry who is paying a visit to Orlando. The English actress and singer has been the inspiration and driving force behind classic Broadway plays and musicals from her youth, and her voice can range from modern pop to classical opera, often in the same song. She lives a lifestyle and moves in circles that this little despot will never know or even can comprehend. We are oceans away, but at least for one hour in November, maybe two, I will be lifted up and out of this mess and catch a glimpse into the divine before having to crawl back to where I came from, and I guess that will have to do for now. Whatever you call it, admiration, crush, enthrallment, inspiration, lust, jealousy, desire, perhaps all of these mixed together, it's something that only I and Judge Roy Bean can understand.
About a year ago, I posted some images of picnic tables at the end of Heintooga Ridge Road in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. The tables were overgrown with moss due to neglect and lack of use. I would like to think somebody important saw the post and decided to make some changes, but the reality is the Park is being spruced up with new signs and other stuff for some kind of event coming soon, which is good. This pic was taken on a Saturday in August near lunchtime and the grounds were totally deserted; new tombstones for the graveyard I guess.
While I feel for those along the Gulf Coast, the self-preservation instinct has my focus on Hannah, forecast to head in my direction next week. One of the reasons I chose this area of Florida was the lack of hurricane activity, with the last major one in 1964. It's more due to luck than geographical location however. This year Fay was a direct hit and now here comes Hannah. It would be interesting but stupid to hang around and get some pics, so I'll evac late next week if necessary. If the forecast is for a strike further up the coast I might ride it out and get some very high wave and surf pics, just hopefully not in the parking lot outside my condo.
