Pope's Creek

We are out exploring Southern Maryland this week. Thank you very much to Paula Marquis for showing and suggesting so many great places!

One that we've explored is a landing called Pope's Creek. The calling card is Cap't Billy's Crab Shack, but the photographic possibilities are grand too.

These images are from a morning visit that started foggy and broke open with some soft light as the sun rose. Enjoy!

All the images are taken with the D7000 and Nikkor 35-70mm f/2.8. The first was processed in ACR and converted to B&W using Silver eFx Pro/CS6. The other images were done in ACR/CS6.

Early - Washington, D.C.

We're in the Washington, D.C. area this week visiting family and exploring the region.

We rose early and made the drive to the Lincoln Memorial, arriving about 45 minutes before sunrise. First benefit of leaving early is that you can park within blocks of the monument at this time of day this time of year! We were fortunate to have a very nice sunrise. But not a great one, as I will explain in a bit.

The major monuments and iconic buildings are well lit at night. You have to experiment with your focus and exposure, because the white marble objects are so reflective that if you use matrix metering your camera may overexpose the highlights trying to 'average' the very dark surroundings with the very bright building.

Here are some of my favorite images from the morning

The first two images are as shot, with a little help from ACR 7.2 and Photoshop CS6. The image of the Lincoln statue is a composite image to bring up the visibility of the exterior of the building without blowing out exposure due to the spotlights on the statue.

All were shot at ISO 100 with a Nikon D7000 and the 35-70mm f/2.8 at various exposure times.

Oh, the rest of the story... My plan for the shoot was a morning light image of the Lincoln Memorial. And it was developing nicely. I have a great image of the upper two-thirds of the building bathed in golden light... At which point the advancing shelf of clouds cut off the sunrise light. Oh, well ! Photography is a lot like fishing... Getting shut out on a photo outing is still a lot better than a day at work ! Enjoy the images !!

The BIG UGLIES !

It was another great fall weekend in Kansas City. I shot the Central State Univ. vs. William Jewell College football game in Liberty on Saturday. This was an NCAA Division II game between two Great Lakes Valley Conference opponents.

One thing that quickly became apparent was that the match up between these two teams was going to be settled along the offensive and defensive lines.

Capturing these big men at their craft can be difficult. The action is often a tangle of limbs. But the communications staff from Central State had requested feature photos of many of their linemen. And I love the intensity of the images when you make a good capture in the heat of the play!

So this week's offering is a set of images of the Big Uglies at their work. Enjoy!!

These images are all D7000 / 300mm f/4 + TC 1.4. Post in PhotoMechanic and ACR