Parke County Indiana/Bridgeton covered Bridge

My husband, youngest daughter and I went to Bridgeton yesterday so I could get some photographs in. Last time I went it was a very overcast day and it really didn’t make for very nice pictures. Yesterday was a great day for picture taking. The blue skies really popped for me. It was a little on the chilly side, but the scene made it worth it.

Here is a little information on this site.

Welcome to Bridgeton!

The Bridgeton Covered Bridge Association would like to thank everyone who contributed to the rebuilding of the Bridgeton Covered Bridge. They would also encourage everyone to come to Bridgeton and see the new bridge. Click here to see how the bridge was rebuilt.
If you enjoy shopping, then you’ll love our authentic old mill town. Bridgeton rolls out the welcome mat for six special events each year. We’re at our biggest and best during the Covered Bridge Festival in October when, in addition to our fine shops, we have over 400 vendors offering quality crafts, antiques, collectibles, and great food!
Bridgeton is home to the oldest continuously operating mill west of the Allegheny Mountains. The mill overlooks Indiana’s most famous covered bridge and waterfall. The first two blocks of the town of Bridgeton were placed on the National Register Historic District in 1992.
Some shops are opened only for the Covered Bridge Festival but the beauty and charm of this old mill town brings pleasure to all visitors every day of the year. A few shops are open year round and others are opened weekends during the summer!

****************

Piece of the charred remains of the old bridge

The mill that is still in operation

The mill in black and white with a textured overlay

My favorite of the day:

this is done with 3 exposures using photomatrix

HDR/tonemapping

An informitive site on photography

I’ll be adding a few more links today, so check back here.

http://super.nova.org/PhotoClass/index.html

getting good skin tones
http://www.smugmug.com/help/skin-tone

http://www.sportsshooter.com/special_feature/2003_luau_video/5_min_light/index.html

Free Photoshop actions

I love this website because it offers so many actions…for free! I have several favorites. The site is called “Action Central” and here is the link: http://www.atncentral.com/

They offer rollover images so that you can see what the effect will do to your image. I can’t believe how many there are on this site. This is definetly a site to check out.

Bye-Bye Birdie

This weekend, my oldest niece was in a play called, “Bye-Bye Birdie.” I’ve never went to any high school productions, and I thought this play was put together very well. I was personally excited because, 1. I would get to see my niece act and 2. I would get the chance to put my tripod and camera to the test. I knew the tripod was going to allow me to get some really good pictures. There isnt’ any camera shake in these pictures. I was able to set my camera’s ISO to 1600 and not use any flash whatsoever. I really feel they came out well. I did have to run the photographs through noise ninja to get rid some of the noise, but, I still like the results.

I googled the play to see if I could include any information in here about it. Here is what I found.

***

Synopsis

Agent and songwriter Albert Peterson finds himself in trouble when hip-thrusting rock and roll superstar Conrad Birdie, from Allentown, Pennsylvania, is drafted into the army. Albert’s secretary and sweetheart Rose Alvarez comes up with a last-ditch publicity stunt to premiere one last hit Conrad Birdie record before he is sent to the army. She makes Albert promise to give up the music business and become an English teacher. They plan to have Conrad sing Albert’s new song “One Last Kiss” and give one lucky girl from his fan club a real “one last kiss” on The Ed Sullivan Show before heading off to basic training.
The lucky girl chosen randomly from Conrad’s national fan club is Kim MacAfee from Sweet Apple, Ohio. Conrad, Albert and Rosie set off to her house to prepare for the event. However, things do not go quite as planned. Kim’s father becomes obsessed with the prospect of being on The Ed Sullivan Show alongside his daughter, Kim’s boyfriend becomes disastrously jealous of Conrad, Albert’s mother comes to break up Albert’s relationship with Rosie, and Conrad himself becomes tired of show business and tries to teach the kids how to party, ultimately getting himself in trouble with their parents and the police.

***

To see more about this play, click here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bye_Bye_Birdie

HDR and tonemapping

I never knew what HDR or tonemapping was until I became a member of photoforum. My best friend, whose link is on my blog, showed us what can be achieved through it. I really like the richness of the colors that this technique brings out. The pictures below, with the exception of the last one, are examples of tonemapping only. I didn’t have a decent tripod when the sunrise was taken, so multiple exposures were out of the question. In the last photograph, however, I did attempt to take multiple exposures. It is obvious that there is movement. I was merely practicing though. I googled a good site for HDR photography and software and I included the link here: http://www.hdrsoft.com/

I can see how easy it would be to use HDR for almost every landscape. It is so amazing the look that is achieved through this.

http://jenweaverphotography.blogspot.com/2007/12/princeton-ii.html

Photoshop Actions/Finding your style

I’m a random thinker and I as I was driving home from dropping off the kids to school, my mind wandered all over the place thinking of what to say in my next post. My best friend and I, Jen Weaver (http://www.jenweaverphotography.blogspot.com/), have talked about wanting our photography to look like some of the pros that we’ve seen on the Internet. We’ve talked about how they acheive the look that they have. I will post some links to our favorites later. We wonder if it’s their lighting, their gear…. we’re not sure. I understand that photographers tightly guard their processes, and they should; they’ve had to learn the lessons of photography through trial and error just like the rest of us are. I respect that immensly. Here’s where my pondering takes a turn. I believe that all aspiring photographers need to learn the basics: composition, aperature, shutter speed etc….and I believe that I have. I have photographers, while maybe not “pro”, I try to emmulate. But here is where the line can be drawn for me, in emmulating someone else’s work, do I lose myself trying to copy what they do? Yes, I do. While there are rules of photography, photography is an art form. Every artist has a vision and they need to stay true to their own personal vision. So, while I learn from other photographers, I believe that it is okay to stray from the “normal” rules of photography to carve out your own little niches. Something that makes you stand out from the others. For me, I have to stay true to my heart and follow God and my heart when making photographs. Especially in portraits. It has been said to me time and time again that my niche is in still life. I have to agree, still life is so much easier for me. I can take my time and there are no distractions. My passion though is in portraits. I want so desparately to capture the essence of the moment, to capture people as they are in everyday life. For people to be able to look at their photographs years down the road and say, “yeah, that was (fill in the blank) to a tee. His/Her personality really shows through in this one.”

So, here are some photographs that I took and did some post processing on them. I hope you enjoy these as they are done from the heart.

Lord of the Rings Return of the King with edge burner

edge burner

edge burner black and white

Lord of the Rings Return of the King

Lord of the Rings Return of the King with edge burner and hot fudgier