…like a big pizza pie that’s amore”…The song by Dean Martin is all about falling in love and how it makes you feel.  Love. That is what I feel for an image I have created for myself or a client. And unless I am loving that image, its not done. There is no place for anything less. An image needs to impart an emotional response, whether it be the towering, the intricate, the magnificent or the drab, all need to make one fall in love. Photography, cameras, equipment and post-editing skills all play a part in creating a perfect rendition of my vision. This applies to images of any subject, but most particularly to buildings, inside and out, which are my specialty. I create the “love” using composition, subject placement, point of view, lighting, color, shadows, detail, visualization, and most of all that special artistic viewpoint that develops through years of experience and care. It is also the intense exchange of ideas between myself and the client from which new creations are born.

In the summer of 2008 I was fascinated by some obscure images that I found online, deep in some never-to-be-found-again link inside a link inside another link. In other words the technique used on these images was HDR which was relatively unknown, although not new, at that time. I loved the fact that the image showed all of the detail in the dark areas as well as the light areas of the photo at the same time. I found out that this type of photography describes much more closely what the human eye sees rather than what a traditional camera will record. Here is a table describing this point:

This information was very exciting to  me because I was always manipulating my images in Photoshop to approximate this result. It took me hours, using the dodge and burn tools and still did not portray the scene I had seen when I took the photo.
I bought a book by Michael Freeman and read it cover to cover immediately. That began my HDR education and experience.

Many people balk at the HDR photograph, especially if it is overdone and cartoonish, saying it is an abomination to the true spirit of accurate recording. But, as in the table above showing the true dynamic range comparisons, we just don’t know what we are missing!  Just because we are conditioned to the low dynamic range of general photographic images, doesn’t mean that we cannot push the envelope to consider that there may be an alternate “sweet spot” where LDR meets HDR and produces breath-taking results!

Here are two images. One is the original “middle” shot in a bracket of three, one being darker and one being lighter. I have not retouched this in any way. The second one is a combination of all three of the bracketed shots, showing the details throughout the image. I am much more drawn to the HDR image. How about you?

I use HDR in all my architectural/building photography, increasing the effects as I see fit with my artistic license and within the requests of my clients.

Kimberly Crest House 1

Kimberly Crest House 2

Getting Water to Drop on the Fire

This blog is off the beaten track of my usual, but I am submitting this story with pictures to a fireman’s magazine and wanted to run it by my blog too! This is in the category of photojournalism and being in the wrong place (?!?) at the right time.

Fire truck rushes to the fire

San Bernardino county water-drop helicopters and fire engines respond to a fire in the Butler Peak area of the San Bernardino Mountains near Big Bear Lake. At about 2 pm. on September 1, 2007 we sat on the deck of our friend’s forest cabin on the North Shore of Big Bear Lake having a sunny afternoon of relaxation when we started to see smoke come up over the mountain ridge behind us. Not 10 minutes later we heard sirens and helicopters surrounding the area in response to the smoke. A fire truck sped by on highway 38 near the Big Bear Lake dam and at about the same time a fire helicopter flew very close over the top of the cabin where we were.

Helicopter and smoke from Butler Peak fire

We hurried down the shore of the lake with cameras in hand to get rare close-up shots of these magnificent water-drop helicopters lowering to the lake surface and picking up water with the special hose that drops down from the center of the body of the “beast”. As the helicopter lowers the beating propellers stir up massive mist clouds around it, giving it a surreal look as if it appears out of a dream. After filling up with water it takes off in a circular pattern to head back up the canyon to the ridge where the fire is gaining ground. Other helicopters, different shapes and sizes but with the same equipment, came to gather the water and speed off toward the fire, only to return a few minutes later to do it again. This dance went on for hours and only near sunset did they taper off their onslaught of the fire. These images represent that afternoon of fear, wonderment and a rare opportunity to see firefighting up close and personal. These machines and the firefighters who fly them are an incredible and vital tool for fighting our fires here in southern California. To see more of these images go to my portfolio and click on Fire Images.

Tons of water to dump on the fire