Fred's Photos

Downtown Grunge

Fred Clausen — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 04:16:50 +0000

It’s been a while since I’ve been out shooting, and I felt a little rusty with composition. However, the subjects were almost begging to be photographed, and ultimately downtown/industrial grunge just makes for awesome photography.

Enjoy!

Rio Puerco/Route 66 Bridge and Lightning!

Fred Clausen — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 22:18:02 +0000

Good day all! It’s been a while, so I thought I would show some photos I took recently of an old bridge that spans the Rio Puerco and that used to be part of the famous Route 66 road. There was also a thunderstorm going on west and north of the bridge, so we moved to take some photos of the lightning.

Gallery below, enjoy!

Double Eagle Airport II at Night

Fred Clausen — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 05:24:29 +0000

In continuing my journey into learning night photography, I decided to head out to Double Eagle II airport in Albuquerque.

All shots processed as HDR in Photomatix.

Santa Fe Fire

Fred Clausen — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 02:49:11 +0000

Today’s post brings you photos from a few weeks ago of the fire that ravaged the area around Santa Fe, NM and Los Alamos, NM. While we weren’t able to get too close (plenty of blocked off roads, and understandably so) we were able to get some amazing sunset shots, enhanced by the contaminate in the air. In some shots, you can see the smoke from some of the most southern part of the fire.

Enjoy the beauty, and keep in mind the folks whose lives have either been interrupted, or irrevocably changed.

*Update: Corrected spelling of Santa Fe

Albuquerque Downtown at Night

Fred Clausen — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 23:48:14 +0000

Some photos from the Albuquerque downtown and Old Town areas. Most of these were processed as HDR in Photomatix

Enjoy!

Happy Birthday, America!

Fred Clausen — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 18:34:21 +0000

A couple of days late (website posting issue, if you care), but here are my photos from July 4th. Enjoy!

Full gallery here: flickr

Los Angeles: Aviation Mecca

Fred Clausen — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 16:00:55 +0000

Now comes the moment you all have been waiting for: the last installment of my vacation photos. This set covers plane spotting in Los Angeles.

I spent three days spotting at perhaps one of the most famous and instantly recognizable locations in aviation: In ‘N Out burger on Sepulveda Boulevard. I attempted to shoot at Imperial Hill, but unfortunately the Canon 100-400mm F4L I rented was a dud copy. The focus appeared to be off.

While it was a bummer I was not able to spend more time at Imperial Hill, this turned out to be a great opportunity for me. I spotted at In ‘N Out almost a year ago to the day, so I was able to take the lessons I learned from last year and apply them to this year. The biggest lesson I learned last year was that a 70-200mm lens has too narrow of a field of view to take full side shots of aircraft as they fly by. The 24-105mm F4L lens turned out to be a perfect companion at this spot. I was able to zoom in on the planes and get a reasonbly full frame on the little ones that flew by (not many of them!) while being able to go wide enough to capture the A380 tip-to-tail in all of her glory.

I hope you enjoy. The gallery below is just a snap-shot of my favorites. To see all of my LA captures, visit my flickr gallery.

Pittsburgh Waterfront and Night

Fred Clausen — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 17:50:37 +0000

My vacation ended with a visit to the fantastic city of Pittsburgh. The area I took most of these pictures at, which is the area where the Allegheny River joins into the Ohio River, is extremely scenic and vibrant.

Up next: a massive dump of aviation photos I took in LA. Hope you’re ready!

Gallery below, enjoy!

Chicago Downtown

Fred Clausen — Tue, 31 May 2011 17:39:57 +0000

I’m back from my 9 day vacation, and loaded with pictures! I visited Los Angeles, Chicago and Pittsburgh. I am going to be posting these slightly out of order, starting with Chicago, then Pittsburgh, and finally LA. LA was completely aviation focused, while Pittsburgh and Chicago are about the cities themselves.

The pictures below were taken either in the Hancock Tower or down the Magnificent Mile.

Enjoy!

Gilman Tunnels, NM

Fred Clausen — Tue, 17 May 2011 19:31:08 +0000

Another awesome night shoot yielded the opportunity to try out some more natural light photography. The moon was full, and it was pretty cool to watch the terrain change light the further into the evening we waited.

However, as cool as the natural light shots were, the one shot that intrigued me the most was one where I had to improvise light on the object. The simple cross, pictured above, was recessed up against a large rock wall and the terrain made it pretty hard to maneuver into position for the shot. Once there, I found it wasn’t lit at all and I did not think to bring my flash with me; it was 50 miles away, safely tucked into my closet. Lesson learned! However, I improvised and used my flashlight. It was too harsh at first, so I used my shirt to diffuse the light, and while not perfect, it turned out a little better then I think I had a right to expect.

Editing that shot turned out to be slightly frustrating. I thought it didn’t quite look right in black and white, but fully saturated it looked off as well. I took almost all of the warmer tones out of the shot, leaving just red. I left a tiny amount of blue in the shot to provide some color contrast between the ribbon and the shrub directly behind it. If I was a little better at editing photos, I may consider removing the color from the bow and just leaving the flower on the cross with red.

Gallery below. Enjoy!