Sean Duggan Blog

Stonington

Stonington, Maine  •  [Canon 5D]
September 3, 2011
(click in the image for a larger, sharper version)

A weeklong workshop goes by fast sometimes. On Sunday night when the class meets for the first time to go over the week ahead, it seems like you have all the time in the world. Then the days rush by, in a blur of visiting cool locations, making photos and working on them in the digital lab, learning new methods and techniques for interpreting and perfecting your images (not to mention enjoying the great food and interesting conversations under the dining tent at the Maine Media Workshops).

The first of my two back-to-back workshps ended yesterday morning and this evening a new one, "HDR & Beyond" begins. It's a good process that benefits not only the students but also myself. I always learn something from each workshop I teach. From the questions that get asked to the way someone might choose to create an image or interpret it in a unique way. The back and forth exchange of ideas between photographers is an important component of growing as an artist.

The image above is a 3-exposure HDR blend that was taken last Saturday before my first workshop began. The weather last week was gray and rainy much of the time due to Hurricaine Katia passing by far out in the Atlantic. The forecast looks better for the week ahead for 5 days of exploring and pushing the boundaries of what is possible with HDR, both techically and aesthetically.

 

Paying Homage to Eartha

The Largest Globe  [Canon 5D]
Yarmouth, Maine  • September 2, 2011
(click in the image for a larger, sharper version)

I arrived in Maine on Friday evening and my first stop on the drive north to Rockport was at the headquarters of the DeLorme Company and their map store to photograph the huge globe there. Dubbed "Eartha" by the designer, David DeLorme, it measures 41.5 feet in diameter and has been certifed by the Guiness Book of world records as the "World's Largest Revolving/Rotating Globe".

This is my seventh year teaching at the Maine Media Workshops and on several occasions I had glimpsed the glass-walled atrium containing the giant globe from the highway while driving by but had never stopped to photograph it. This time, since I was driving north by myself, and since it would be evening, I decided that it was a perfect opportunity to check it out. In terms of what the light was doing, my flight arrived a bit later than I would have liked. Earlier in the evening just after sunset would be have resulted in a deep blue color in the sky, which would have worked well with the blue color on the globe itself. Since that wasn't happening for this visit, I framed the scene to focus on just the building with very little of the dark sky showing. Next time I'll try for an earlier arrival and hang around until the sky transitions to that perfect, irresistable blue.

To control the wide range of contrast in the scene I made seven exposures for HDR and blended them together in Photomatix. Further work in Photoshop and many adjustment layers later yielded the result you see above. I actually ended up making the image much darker than the initial HDR result. The reason is that I wanted most of the attention to be on the globe, with the atrium structure playing a secondary, supporting role. And the bushes in front? I really didn't need to see any detail in them, even though in the brightest of the seven exposures, you could see some detail there. Just because you can record detail throughout all regions of the tonal range in HDR, does not mean it's a good idea to keep all of that detail in the final image. The process or techniques that you use should always serve the image, not the other way around.

More from my workshops in Maine in the days ahead. Stay tuned!

The seven source shots for the DeLorme Globe HDR image.
(click in the image to see it larger)

 

 

Day-for-Night HDR, Revisited

 
The Narrow Road  [Canon 5D]
February 25, 2010  Point Bonita, California
(click in the image for a larger view)

I first posted this image about a year and a half ago. The reason this photograph is on my radar screen again is two-fold. First, I'll be in the San Francisco and Marin County area working with some of my consulting clients later this week and I hope to visit this spot again.  Second, I just learned today that my upcoming HDR & Beyond class at the Maine Media Workshops is a go (Sept 11 -17), and since this image certainly fits the description of HDR and beyond, it seemed appropriate to re-visit it for those who may not have seen it before.

The location is the path to the Point Bonita Lighthouse at the entrance to San Francisco Bay (you cannot see the lighthouse from this angle as it is on the far side of the rocky point). I was exploring the Marin Headlands, which is one of the places I like to visit when time permits during my regular Bay Area consulting visits. On this particular day I arrived a bit too late to visit the lighthouse and the tunnel through the rock at the far end of the path above was already locked by the time I got there. But it was still a great place to go for a stroll and the views of the headlands, the rocky coast, the Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco were quite spectacular.

This image is a an HDR blend of three carefully-braced hand held exposures (yes, in some circumstances, it is possible to do HDR without a tripod) that were photographed one stop apart using the camera's auto exposure bracketing feature (see below for what the original shots looked like).

The initial HDR blend was created using Merge to HDR in Photoshop CS4 and then the 32-bit HDR file was processed in Photomatix. I enjoy playing around with day-for-night interpretations of some scenes and I knew that this is how I wanted to process this photo. I actually made two separate Photomatix versions: the first one (see below; click to see it larger) created the overall HDR tone mapping effect that I liked, as well as the beginnings of a general flavor of an exaggerated night scene.

But I was unhappy with the strong halo around the tip of the rock, so I made a second version in Photomatix with a darker and lower contrast sky that did not have the objectionable halo (see below; click to see it larger). 

These two versions were then opened into Photoshop and combined with a layer mask (see below; click to see it larger).

Finally, the night effect was enhanced via several adjustment layers that significantly darkened the image, and reduced the overall color saturation, and the power poles in the distance were also retouched to create the final image you see at the top of the page.

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We'll be exploring the Day-for-Night approach, as well as other ways to venture beyond the initial HDR composite in  HDR & Beyond, Sept 11 - 17. I invite you to join me for a week of beautiful mid-coast Maine landscapes, intriguing lighting challenges, creative photography, lots of learning and good times with like-minded people. In addition to the HDR class, I will also be in Maine the week before teaching Advanced Digital Photography, Sept 4 -10. Both classes are running and there's still room in each one. Click the class titles for more information on these workshops.

HDR Workshop in Maine this September

Gathering Storm Over Lake Superior  •• [Canon 5D]
June 20, 2011  •  Madeline Island, Wisconsin
(Click in the image for a slightly larger & sharper version)

This is an HDR shot from three exposures that was taken during my recent workshop at the Madeline Island School of the Arts in northern Wisconsin. Towards the end of the first day a storm blew in off Lake Superior and we had rain, wind and fog for the next two days. We made the most of it, however, and even in those conditions, came home with some really fine images. I'd rather have storm clouds than a blank, featureless sky any time! I was impressed with the Madeline Island School of the Art's commitment to offering excellent photography workshops and I'm looking forward to returning to Madeline Island next summer to teach more photography and digital darkroom classes. If you live in that area of the country, or want to travel there, be sure to sign up for my newsletter (subscription form is in the righthand column) to keep up to date on workshop dates for 2012.

In addition to using HDR to hold detail throughout all areas of the tonal range, I also used a 5-stop Neutral Density filter from Singh-Ray for these shots. The primary reason for that was to get a slow enough shutter speed to blur the moving water in the foreground. I find that this makes for an interesting visual interpretation of the water but it also helps in the blending of the different exposures. Sharply focused moving water can create blending issues during the HDR process and blurring the water creates much better blending in those areas of the image. This image was processed using Nik's HDR Efex Pro, which is an excellent program for HDR imaging.

September Workshops in Maine

If you want to learn more about the HDR process, and about digital photography and getting the most from your images in the digital darkroom, I invite you to join me on the beautiful coast of Maine this September. I'll be teaching two consecutive classes at the Maine Media Workshops: Advanced Digital Photography and HDR & Beyond. This will be my seventh year teaching at The Workshops. I always have a wonderful time there and I always look forward to going back. It's a great place to get away from it all, leave your regular routine behind and immerse yourself in creative photography. Links to more details on my two Maine workshops are below

Advanced Digital Photography  •  Sept. 4 - 10

HDR & Beyond  •  Sept 11 - 17