Figurehead II

 Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, Halifax, NS

This figurehead is in the process of being carved at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic.  Nearby was the original figurehead which was being used as the model for this one.  The original looked in pretty sad shape and was probably well beyond repair.  

Yellow Trail

Osewegatchie Hill, Niantic, CT

The terrain along the yellow trail is pretty rocky in parts.  It it weren't for this tree, I might have lost the trail.  

Osewegatchie Hills Nature Preserve

Osewegatchie Hills, Niantic, CT

This nature preserve is within walking distance of where I live and is a great place to take a hike.  The trails are well marked and I find the geology and rock formations fascinating.  I don't usually do a lot of post processing, but recently I've been playing around with some presets for Aperture 3 which are supposed to emulate various films.  Having not a lot of background in film based photography, I find it interesting that in today's digital world, a lot of effort is placed in trying to make our digital captures more like film.  

Machinery III

I originally posted a picture of this machine here.  This is a close-up shot of that particular piece of machinery.  I can't really take a lot of credit for the post processing I did for this image.  My skills in post processing consists of trying a number of "presets" that are available in the Apple's Aperture, until I find one that I like.  I think a true "artist" would never use some preset, but until my creativity grows, I'll use the presets, and even add to my collection of presets.  I was inspired to do this by a post in the blog Taken for Granted, which I follow.  The images featured some nice black and white conversions of machinery.

Something Different

I follow quite a few blogs, and I'm always looking for ways to improve not only my photography but also how I present my pictures.  I don't know anything at all about HTML and how to use it to prepare fancy websites.  I've dabbled a little bit with Apple's iWeb program, and have prepared some webpages and web galleries from within Apple's Aperture but that's the extent of my current knowledge of website creation and design.  My current blog is all created within Google's Blogger, which is somewhat limiting in how pictures are presented and formatted.  This is an attempt to present a framed picture, along with captions, and EXIF data, all done within Aperture, and then uploaded to the blog.  The frame and captions were all created in the plug-in BorderFx and it didn't take too much time to do.  The beauty of this is now I have a template which I can apply to any picture before uploading to the blog and I don't have to type all the EXIF data, or any other metadata I would like to add.  I'll probably tweak this a little bit until I'm satisfied with how it looks.  I'm not sure if the frame/border actually adds to the picture or is more of a distraction.  I might try a much more simple frame

One More Train Picture

Essex, CT

Please allow me to post one more picture of the steam train in Essex, CT.  I posted a few pictures of this train recently and wanted to share one more.  I don't do a lot of post processing of my digital pictures.  Normally I'll add a slight curve adjustment, then darken the highlights a little, a bring up the shadows and finally sharpen a bit.   This is all done in Apple's Aperture 3.  I felt this picture, needed to be rendered in black and white.  I started with one of the many Aperture B&W presets, and adjusted the color filters to get the version seen here.  I'm sure others more skilled than I could improve upon this.  They would look at the image straight out of the camera and know exactly what adjustments need to be made to bring out the best in the image whereas I play with the adjustments until I get an image I like.  

Hole in the Wall

Hole in the Wall Beach, Niantic, CT

This is the entrance to the Hole in the Wall Beach in Niantic, CT.  The "hole" is actually a tunnel underneath some railroad tracks.   The tracks are heavily travelled by Amtrak and the Shore Line East commuter line. I've always enjoyed the view through the hole, looking out on Long Island Sound, but have had a hard time capturing the image with my DSLR due to the dynamic range of the picture.  If I expose for the water and sky, the tunnel is too dark.  Exposing  for the tunnel will blow out the water and sky.  I know there are some ways around this, involving multiple pictures at different exposures and some software post processing with a good image editor.  Although I'm not quite satisfied with this result, it's the best I've been able to manage to date.  This image is from a single exposure on a JPEG straight out of the camera with some image adjustments done in Aperture.  

Wolfe's Neck Woods - Two Versions

Despite all my reading about photography, especially digital photography, there is still so much I don't know.  I got my first digital camera back in 2001, a Canon G1, which at the time was pretty much the state of the art for an advanced "point and shoot" camera.  It was highly regarded then and the most recent iteration, the Canon G12 is still well reviewed.  In the intervening years I purchased a Nikon D60 for my wife, and most recently a Nikon D90 for myself.  So in the grand scheme of things, I consider myself a novice in the world of digital photography.  I'm even more of a novice when it comes to sharing my pictures via blogging, Facebook, or any of the other many services one can find on the internet.  

I use a MacBook Pro to download my images, and Apple's Aperture to keep them all organized and to do some post processing.  I also occasionally use Photoshop Elements or Nikon's Capture NX2 for some advance photo editing.  With all these options, I'm still trying to find the best "workflow" to post my images online.  I know I can ask others, and I'm sure I would get dozens of different opinions on what works best.  The scientist part of me says, just do the experiment and see what looks the best.  In this case, the two images above are the same image, first adjusted in Aperture.

The top image was further processed with the Aperture plugin BorderFX, which only added the border, any maybe some additional sharpening, although I'm not entirely sure of that.  I'm not sure if I like adding the border or not to the pictures I post here.  The border does seem to add to the picture, but would take away from the simple, minimalist style of the blog.  I'm still trying to decide on which way I would like to go here.  The only thing I really know is that pictures on other blogs look a lot better than my images.  In most cases, I'm sure they are much stronger images to begin with.  Afterall, most of the blogs I follow are done by real photographers.  Even my better images might suffer from a lack of good post processing skills and/or a good workflow for properly presenting them on the web.  Hence, the reason for this post.   Thanks for looking and if you have any comments on which you like, I'd be happy to hear them.  I'll be tweaking this blog for some time to come.

Finally, I just want to say that my thoughts and prayers go out to all those affected here in Connecticut by last weekend's snow storm.  There was extensive damage, and there are many without power.