Duo tone

These old wheels from a hay rake have long been retired from work on a farm in Northwest Iowa. The late afternoon sun was shining on them and the color version of the picture I took was not too bad. But I thought it did not really carry the "rotten charm" of the farm equipment and the old barn. I converted it to B&W, worked with the contrast but was still not happy with the result. I use Adobe Lightroom for quite some time to develop my images but I have never done anything with the split tone panel so far. I tried out several things with different colors for the highlights and shadows in the split tone panel. Finally I ended up with a duo tone setting (Highlights: Hue 52, Saturation 25;  Shadows: Hue  52, Saturation 44; Balance: 0). It works for me! I hope you like it too.

Practice with great music

Nikon D200, Sigma 150mm/F2.8

Dubuque has always some music events going on during the summer. Good ones and not so good ones. This was definitely one of the best I have seen lately. Iowa born artist Pieta Brown and Bo Ramsey, a well known guitar player from Iowa, had a wonderful performance.

I have to admit, my skills for snapping pictures of people are not very well developed but public concerts like this one are a good chance to work on improvement. The concert took place downtown Dubuque in bright afternoon sun, with a cloud here and there, and I knew already on site that I wanted the image in B&W.

I shot relative wide open (1/500s, f4.5) because I wanted the artists being separated from the background as much as possible. There was even more clutter in the background of the original picture but I used the clone stamp in Photoshop to get rid of it. I focussed on Pieta's face but of course, with the low DOF the arm and guitar of Bo Ramsey are partly out of focus. I still like the picture. I believe it reflects somehow how good these two artists played together. Let me know what you think.

Simulating film

Nikon D200, Carl Zeiss Distagon T* 35/F2 ZF

Today we took a little Easter walk along the Mississippi in Dubuque, Iowa. Besides having a nice view over the river, its bridges, and the city itself, there is a good opportunity to look at some artwork. The City of Dubuque has a temporary art exhibit, Art on the River, located along the RiverWalk and in the Port of Dubuque.

One piece that particularly caught our attention is 'City mouse' by Texan artist Andrew Arvanetes. It is a big sculpture, made out of stainless steel, and according to the artist's statement it derived from recollections of a child's wind-up toy.

We had a grey and cloudy sky today and so I went for a detail shot, having B&W already in mind. I like how the patina on the stainless steel surface and the soft shadows  of the sculpture's elements turned out. The 35/f2 gave the picture a nice bokeh for the background. However, I thought the image was still too close to "digital reality". I always start processing my RAW files in Adobe Lightroom. The new beta version 3.2. now has a feature that allows you to simulate film grain. I gave it a trial for the final touch and I like the outcome very much. Should do more in Black & White…

Warming up the scene

Nikon D200, Sigma 18-50/2.8

The photo was made in Cerro Gordo, an old miners ghost town high up in the Inyo Mountains. Not unusual for the Sierra Nevada, the light was very bright, although the scene was in the shade. I knew I was not able to come back at a time with better light. Sometimes we have to take it the way it is and deal afterwards with it.

The original image looked kinda sterile but I really wanted a "warm rotten charm" look.  Applying a warming filter with NIK Color Efex Pro 3.0 gave it the warm tone I was looking for. I like this software and the intuitive way it works.