Image Gallery

Gate 5 - New Mott Children's Hospital

2009-09-23T08:26:00.004-04:00

(Olympus E-3, 7-14mm at 7mm (2x crop factor), ISO 100, multiple exposures @ f/8.0)

The shot above shows the new Mott Children's Hospital which is currently under construction on the medical campus at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. This is a 4 shot HDR (was supposed to be 5) with some additional post processing (mostly cleaning up some flare spots in the sky).

The reason this was a 4 shot instead of a 5 shot HDR is because I was not allowed to take the 5th shot. As I was taking the picture, a public safety officer approached me and informed me that I was not allowed to take pictures of 'infrastructure'. He was very polite and non-confrontational, didn't threaten to take my camera, he just told me to stop taking pictures. He also said that if I wanted to take more pictures, I would need to get permission from the University. I've since contacted the Public Safety office at U of M to get a clarification on their photography policy and what does, and does not, constitute 'infrastructure'.

Comments and feedback welcome.

Please visit my Image Kind Galleries.

Follow me on Twitter: @JamesHowePhoto

1936 Cord 810 S/C Phaeton

2009-09-14T08:02:00.012-04:00

(Olympus E-3, 14-54mm at 23mm (2x crop factor), ISO 100, exposure 1/320 sec @ f/8.0)

This shot shows a 1936 Cord 810 S/C Phaeton which was on display at the 2009 Concours d'Elegance car show held at Meadowbrook Hall in Rochester Hills, Michigan. I've always been attracted to the Cord, particularly those from the mid 1930's. I love the design elements, particularly the 'coffin' nose and the exposed exhaust pipes. The car just has great lines and exudes class.

I originally posted this image on Flickr shortly after the event. A couple weeks later I was surprised to receive an e-mail from the owner! His daughter had seen the picture on Flickr and had told her dad. One of the highlights for me about this car was the unique color. Most Cords that I have seen are black, brown, cream, but this one had a very interesting green metallic color, very sharp. He gave me some additional backstory on the color used for the car:

I picked up this Cord as a severely butchered rear-drive hot rod in 1959. It took me until 1967 to get it all back to original and I enjoyed driving it almost daily until 2005. By then it was a very tired dark green driver with many scratches, mis-matched paint repairs etc A close friend offered to spend the weekend painting it all one colour so it would be a bit closer to presentable. The weekend turned into three years and a month with both of us working every spare moment on it. The colour was being considered by a self appointed committee of about six. I wanted a lime green like Duesenberg engines are, they were coming up with black cherry, copper, multi colour chamelion, and then we hit upon the pearlessence type light green. A very possible but unknown original colour! Without the experimental pearlessence it would be "Ganges Green" I believe, it is the fish scales that make it "glow".

Another interesting bit of information that I learned from the owner was that this car was the inspiration for a painting by noted automobile artist Tom Hale. The rights to the painting were purchased by Kruse and used on a poster promoting a show at the Auburn Cord Duesenberg museum in 2008, seen here:

I've always admired the work of Tom Hale, even though I didn't really know much about the artist. I really like the strong graphical quality of his work.

My finished image is a combination of the raw image with a contrast adjustment combined with some 'simplification and blurring' over the front fender. It was a bright, sunny day and it was hard to control reflections. I first used the Topaz Simplify filter in Photoshop CS4 to de-emphasize the people in the reflection. I masked out the parts of the car that I wanted to remain sharp. I then used the blur tool to smooth out the image a bit more.

Comments and feedback welcome.

This image, and others, can be purchased from my gallery at jameshowephotography.imagekind.com.

1934 DeSoto Airflow Detail

2009-08-03T19:48:00.007-04:00

(Olympus E-3, 70-300mm at 70mm (2x crop factor), ISO 100, exposure 1/1000 sec @ f/8.0)

Every year I look forward to the Concours d'Elegance car show held at Meadowbrook Hall in Rochester Hills, Michigan. Each year this car show brings in over 200 classic cars, many of which are rarely seen in public. This year was the 30th year the event had been held at Meadowbrook. For those unfamiliar with automobile history, Meadowbrook Hall was built by Matilda Dodge Wilson and her second husband Alfred Wilson. Matilda was the widow of John Dodge, one of the founders of the Dodge Brothers Company which was later sold to Chrysler. Hence, this location is a very appropriate place to hold a car show.

This particular image shows the grillwork of a 1934 DeSoto Airflow automobile. DeSoto was a Chrysler brand from 1928 until 1961. The Airflow was a unique vehicle for the time. It used unibody construction, which was a new concept at the time. The car also was one of the first to use a streamlined design. Unfortunately the American public wasn't ready for this new styling and coupled with some notable mechanical problems, the car was a failure.

This image has had only minor processing done to it. Contrast was increased and converted to black and white. I masked the nameplate to bring back its color. The color of the car was a gray, and the color in this image is almost exactly what the color looked like in the color version. Converting to black and white also removed a blueish cast from sunny sky.

Comments and feedback welcome.

This image, and others, can be purchased from my gallery at jameshowephotography.imagekind.com.

Campus Martius - Downtown Detroit

2009-07-30T17:55:00.008-04:00

(Olympus E-3, 7-14mm at 10mm (2x crop factor), ISO 100, exposure 1/200 sec @ f/8.0)

This shot of downtown Detroit, Michigan was taken from Campus Martius park during Scott Kelby's 2nd Annual Worldwide Photowalk. The tall building in the center is the Penobscot building and is one of the more recognizable buildings in Detroit.

The finished image is the result of quite a bit of work in Photoshop. I took this shot with my ultra-wide angle lens at 10mm (2x crop factor). I wasn't able to get the camera parallel to the buildings so there was a bit of distortion because I had to shoot slightly upward. I used Free Transform -> Skew to fix most of that distortion. I then scaled things up a bit because correcting the skew made the buildings a little too short.

The lawn area at the bottom of the picture had a bunch of tables and chairs which I found distracting so the first thing I did was to clone them out. I then applied the Topaz Simplify filter to the image which gave the image a more painterly look. I masked out the effect on the buildings, leaving it for the sky and ground. I then used a couple different black and white conversion layers to convert the image to black and white. I used multiple conversion layers because i wanted to emphasize/darken the same color in different ways in different parts of the image. I wanted to darken green/yellow in the bottom, but I didn't want the trees to be too dark. I finished things up with a platinum toning curves layer.

Comments and feedback welcome.

Check out more of my images from the Detroit Photowalk here.

Spirt of Detroit

2009-07-22T08:03:00.004-04:00

(Olympus E-3, 14-54mm at 44mm (2x crop factor), ISO 100, exposure 1/200 sec @ f/7.1)

This shot, taken on Scott Kelby's Second Annual Worldwide Photowalk, shows the statue known as The Spirit of Detroit. The statue was created by Marshall Fredericks, who is responsible for many pieces of art in Southeastern Michigan (and other places as well).

I have seen many shots of this statue, but have never been up close to it. It had recently been restored and I was amazed at just how green the statue was in the sunshine. I tried to capture that but I still don't think this image really captures the intensity of the color. The statue is much wider, but for this shot I wanted to capture the gaze of the 'spirit' as he looks at the family.

Comments and feedback welcome.

Please check out this slideshow of some of my other images from the photowalk. Let me know your favorite!

Forbidden Garden

2009-07-19T21:52:00.006-04:00

(Olympus E-3, 7-14mm at 7mm (2x crop factor), ISO 100, exposure 1/20 sec @ f/11.0)

This shot shows the Wintergarden portion of the Renaissance Center in Detroit, Michigan. The RenCen is also the world headquarters of General Motors. This is another picture that I took on this years Worldwide Photowalk organized by Scott Kelby and friends. The RenCen was the starting and ending point for our walk. We finished the walk and had some lunch at the food court. When I came in from outside, I took this shot. Shortly thereafter, a security guard approached some of our photowalk members and informed them that there could be no photography inside the building. There was even a vague threat to one of our photographers that they might confiscate his camera. It was later learned that it was ok to shoot with point and shoot cameras, but not 'professional' cameras. What a load of crap. Anyway I have this one shot which I think came out all right. The picture has a slightly greenish cast to it because the glass is tinted green. I debated about fixing the white balance, but I kind of like the color cast.

Comments and feedback welcome.

Runner

2009-07-18T17:41:00.004-04:00

(Olympus E-3, 7-14mm at 7mm (2x crop factor), ISO 100, exposure 1/250 sec @ f/8.0)

Today was the day for the 2009 edition of Scott Kelby's Worldwide Photowalk. I participated in the Detroit photowalk led by Terry White. This shot was taken right at the start of the walk. Our walk started at the fountain on the riverfront side of the Renaissance Center (also known as the world headquarters for General Motors). I was actually lining up to take a shot of the fountain with the RenCen in the background when this kid decided he wanted to run through the fountain. Fine by me, I think it made for an interesting shot.

Comments and feedback welcome.

Discarded #2

2009-07-17T08:14:00.004-04:00

(Olympus E-3, 14-54mm at 50mm (2x crop factor), ISO 100, exposure 1/40 sec @ f/8.0)

This is another shot taken of the 'bone yard' at Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan. This is a picture of a part of an old boiler (I think) which sits outside of one of the museum exhibits. This area is 'littered' with old boiler parts, coal and other items from an old machine shop. I was visiting the village for their annual Motor Muster event. The day was quite sunny and I liked the strong shadows created by the sun shining on the old boiler parts. Processing consisted mainly of increasing the contrast to make sure I captured the feeling of the scene.

Comments and feedback welcome.

All of my images are available for purchase. Check out my galleries at jameshowephotography.imagekind.com for additional images.

Krazy Jim's - Ann Arbor

2009-07-10T07:44:00.006-04:00

(Olympus E-3, 70-300mm at 81mm (2x crop factor), ISO 100, 5 exposures @ f/7.1)

My company recently moved to a new building and as part of the move we needed to come up with names for our conference rooms. We batted around several ideas, but finally settled on using names of some of our favorite local restaurants in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I was then tasked with the job of getting pictures of the various establishments so we could have pictures made and hung in each of the conference rooms. The image above shows Krazy Jim's Blimpy Burger a great place to get a burger and fries (and other fried veggies as well) and highly recommended if you are ever in Ann Arbor. Krazy Jim's was featured on an episode of the Food Network's Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives with Guy Fieri

I took this shot in late evening. I wanted to make sure that the lights of the sign and the interior were visible. Given the time of day and the amount of contrast between light and dark, I shot 5 exposures from a tripod and created an HDR image using Photomatix. I then took the image into Photoshop and used the Topaz Labs Simplify filter to 'simplify' the image and create something that looks more like a painting. I then went over key elements in the shot (the signage and some other areas) and masked out the filter to let the original photograph show through.

Comments and feedback welcome.

This image can be purchased.

'63 Thunderbird

2009-07-06T08:12:00.007-04:00

(Olympus E-3, 14-54mm at 27mm (2x crop factor), ISO 100, exposure 1/500 sec @ f/8.0)

The shot you see above is from a 1963 Thunderbird convertible which was on display as part of the Motor Muster held at Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan. Not much more to say really, I just liked the simple pattern created by the fake vents. Minimal processing to produce the final image.

Comments and feedback welcome.

For more automobile detail images, please visit my ImageKind galleries.

Hudson Italia

2009-07-02T07:53:00.006-04:00

(Olympus E-3, 70-300mm at 70mm (2x crop factor), ISO 100, exposure 1/500 sec @ f/13)

The Motor Muster at Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan manages to get a great collection of automobiles. Many cars on display are ones that you would see (or would have seen) driving around your neighborhood. However, the show also gets a few cars which are more unique. One example is the Hudson Italia. This car grew out of a need for Hudson to offer a sporty car to compete with other manufacturers. I personally don't find this particular car attractive when viewed whole, but I love some of the details. This particular shot shows an area just over the passenger side headlight. Looks vaguely like the Star Trek emblem to me! A couple of years ago I saw this car at a different car show and took this shot.

Comments and feedback welcome.

Boilerplate

2009-07-01T07:47:00.005-04:00

(Olympus E-3, 14-54mm at 14mm (2x crop factor), ISO 100, exposure 1/500 sec @ f/4.0)

As I've mentioned before in this blog, I recently attended the Motor Muster car show held at Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan. Besides all the cool cars, there were all the interesting historical exhibits. This shot was taken in front of an old mill shop in the same place as my previous post, Discarded #1. I guess I should call this image Discarded #2. This particular piece of rusty metal is part of an old boiler that they have sitting out in front. The sun was rather bright and I liked the hard shadows created by the strong light. I'm also rather fond of old, rusty things.

Comments and feedback welcome.

1930 Packard 740 Roadster Mascot

2009-06-25T07:53:00.005-04:00

(Olympus E-3, 14-54mm at 54mm (2x crop factor), ISO 100, exposure 1/1250 sec @ f/3.5)

This past weekend I attended the 2009 Eyes on Design car show held at the Edsel and Eleanor Mansion in Grosse Point Shores, Michigan. The event is an annual affair and is a fund raiser for the Detroit Institute of Ophthalmology. This is the shows 21st year. Each year has a different theme and this year highlighted advertising and cars. Many of the cars on display had a framed advertisement for the vehicle next to it. It was interesting to see the way cars have been marketed through the years.

The image above shows a 'mascot' or hood ornament from a 1930 Packard 740 Roadster. What caught my eye with this particular ornament was the color. Most mascots that you see are chrome or crystal, this one looks to be brass. Whatever the material, it caught my eye. As I framed the shot, I noticed that the next car made an interesting background. I shot this from both sides and I liked the look of this one better. The car in the other angle was a grey/silver and didn't go as well as this one. I did a little tweaking of the contrast, but that was about it. The majority of the work on this image was done in Adobe Lightroom.

Comments and feedback welcome.

Please see some other mascot shots in my Hood Ornaments Gallery on ImageKind.

Vintage Schwinn

2009-06-23T22:42:00.006-04:00

(Olympus E-3, 14-54mm at 35mm (2x crop factor), ISO 100, exposure 1/160 sec @ f/4.5)

At this past weekend's 'Motor Muster' held at Greenfield Village, the show displayed more than just automobiles. They had a nice collection of older scooters and motorcycles, and they had a great collection of bicycles from various decades. The image above is of a Schwinn, most likely from the 50's (I neglected to take a picture of the info card, so I don't have the particulars on this bike.) I did punch up the color a bit in the post.

Comments and feedback welcome.

Discarded #1

2009-06-23T07:58:00.005-04:00

(Olympus E-3, 14-54mm at 23mm (2x crop factor), ISO 100, exposure 1/125 sec @ f/8.0)

As I mentioned in a previous post, I recently attended the 2009 Motor Muster held at Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan. Greenfield Village is part of the entire Henry Ford Museum complex, a great place to visit year round. Anyway, the Motor Muster had cars located throughout the village, and behind one group of car was the Armington & Sims Machine Shop. In front of this building sits a variety of discarded bits of boilers, coal and other wonderful rusty objects. The picture above is just one of the many interesting pieces of old 'junk' which is on display. I've always been attracted to mechanical things and I love high contrast, so when I have of a bright sunny day combined with some interesting historic junk, I'm a happy camper.

For the processing of this image, I used a couple filters (Topaz Adjust and Simplify) to help bring out the color and texture in the metal. The bright sunny day sort of washed out the color in the raw image and I wanted to bring back the feeling of rust and contrast that I felt when I took the shot.

The image is named 'Discarded #1' because I took several shots of different items at this location. I'm planning on posting more in the near future.

Comments and feedback welcome.

1936 Pontiac Six Hood Ornament

2009-06-22T08:43:00.005-04:00

(Olympus E-3, 70-300mm at 114mm (2x crop factor), ISO 100, exposure 1/100 sec @ f/10)

This past weekend I attended two car shows, each showcasing vintage automobiles. The first show that I went to was on Saturday and it was the annual 'Motor Muster' held at Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan. The 'Motor Muster' is a huge event, with hundreds of cars, motorcycles and bicycles from past to present. While the show has some very nice cars, and the location at Greenfield Village is wonderful, it is disappointing in one regard because the show is laid out in such a way that you really can only see the fronts of most cars. Still, I was surprised that I came away with a large number of good shots this year.

What you see above, is the hood ornament of a 1936 Pontiac Master Six 2-Door Touring Sedan. I was able to lean over the rope to get a nice shot of the hood ornament. The yellow/cream color you see in the background is actually the body of a 1935 Cadillac. Sometimes it's hard to get a good shot of a hood ornament in the field because you can't always control the background. In this case, the positioning of the other car resulted in a perfect background to my shot.

Processing of this shot was minimal. There was some lint or other fuzzy things attached to the ornament, probably from a cleaning brush, so I cloned those out. I also darkened the hood of the car in the lower right corner. Other than that, some minor contrast and sharpening was all that was done to create the final image.

Comments and feedback welcome.

This image can be purchased.

1933 Lincoln

2009-06-18T22:08:00.006-04:00

(Olympus E-3, 70-300mm at 70mm (2x crop factor), ISO 100, exposure 1/40 sec @ f/11)

This shot of a 1933 Lincoln was taken at the Classic Car Club of America (CCCA) car show held at the Gilmore Car Museum in early June. The cars were displayed around a big oval track and I had already made a pass around to see all the cars. I was walking behind the cars to head over to another spot when I noticed this Lincoln. For some reason, the license plate in conjunction with the other elements of the car really caught my eye. The raw shot out of the camera didn't convey the strong graphic nature that I had felt when I took the shot, so I used a combination of Topaz Adjust and Topaz Simplify to create a image with a stronger graphical feeling (at least to my eye).

Let me know what you think.

See more automobile detail images at my Automobile Details gallery on ImageKind.

1937 Cord Beverly Sedan

2009-06-11T19:41:00.005-04:00

(Olympus E-3, 70-300mm at 70mm (2x crop factor), ISO 100, exposure 1/320 sec @ f/9.0)

This shot shows the drivers side engine ports of a 1937 Cord Beverly Sedan. The car was part of the Classic Car Club of American (CCCA) automobile show held at the Gilmore Car Museum near Kalamazoo, Michigan. I've always been a big fan of Cord automobiles. They have wonderful interior and exterior details that are fun to explore, but sometimes difficult to capture in a photograph. When shooting at car shows, it is sometimes difficult to get a good shot without annoying reflections, harsh lighting, etc.

The day I took this the sky was mostly cloudy, but bright. The image had some reflections on the fender that I didn't car for, so I tried to find some way to tone them down. I ended up doing several things. I used the Topaz Adjust filter to bring out a bit more color in the image. I had contemplated trying the Topaz Simplify filter and I wanted more color variation. Instead of Simplify, I decided to see what the image would look like in black & white. By playing with the color sliders in Photoshop CS4, I was able to reduce the reflection to something you could barely see. I didn't want black & white as my end result so I created a toning layer using curves. I played with the Red, Green and Blue curves until I got a color which was similar to the color of the car. Some tweaking of the color balance helped as well. I masked out the exhaust pipes to keep them chrome color. Overall I like the way the image came out, particularly the 'soft' look of the paint job with minimal reflections.

Comments and feedback welcome.

Visit my Automobile Details gallery at ImageKind. I have other vintage car shots available as well at www.vintagecarimages.com.

Service Station

2009-06-10T08:22:00.006-04:00

(Olympus E-3, 14-54mm at 14mm (2x crop factor), ISO 100, exposure .6 sec @ f/4.0)

This last weekend I went to the Classic Car Club of America (CCCA) car show held at the Gilmore Car Museum near Kalamazoo, Michigan. There were some terrific old cars at the show (and I'll likely post some shots of those as well), but the museum itself is worth the trip. It's set on 90+ acres and houses hundreds of cars in various barns. They also have a recreation of a 1930's era Shell service station, which is where this shot was taken. I was walking through the station and I really liked the look of all the old tools, manuals, and other service station materials. My grandfather owned a station years ago and it brought back pleasant memories.

The image itself has had little post processing done on it. The color image was converted to black and white, some toning applied and a slight vignette added.

Comments and feedback welcome.

All of my images are available for purchase, please contact me or visit my online Image Kind gallery.

Le Klint - 172

2009-06-01T20:14:00.007-04:00

(Olympus E-500, 14-54mm at 54mm (2x crop factor), ISO 100, exposure 1/180 sec @ f/4.5)

Here's an image that is a bit different than what I've been working with recently. This is actually an older image that I took at a friend's house a couple of years ago. The image shows a Le Klint 172 pendant lamp, tinted to give it a little color. I took the shot by first turning the light on. I focused in on various parts of the lamp until I got a composition that I liked. For this image, I took the raw image, added some contrast and then played with the hue/saturation slider until I got a result that I liked. I have a couple other versions of this lamp, including a black and white image that I really like. I recently found a group on Flickr which is devoted to Le Klint. Check it out here.

Comments and feedback welcome.

Fleetwood Diner - Ann Arbor, Michigan

2009-05-29T09:15:00.008-04:00

(Olympus E-3, 14-54mm at 29mm (2x crop factor), ISO 100, 5 exposures @ f/9.0)

The Fleetwood Diner is an Ann Arbor institution. The diner opened in 1949 as the Dag-Wood and was built from a kit manufactured by the Dag-Wood Diner Company in Toledo, Ohio. The diner was renamed the Fleetwood Diner in 1971. The exterior was originally enamel, but was given a stainless steel exterior in 1998. For more history and interesting tidbits on the diner, visit The Fleetwood Diner page, hosted by a local Ann Arbor resident.

The image itself was produced from 5 different exposures ranging from -2 to +2. The images were processed using Photomatix, with additional processing in Photoshop CS4. Similar to my Acme Mercantile shot, I again used the Topaz Simplify filter from Topaz Labs to 'simplify' some of the features in the background.

Comments and feedback welcome.

Update: An alternative version of this image can be found on my Flickr account. Check it out and let me know which one you like better (if you have a preference)

This image is available for purchase in my Color gallery at ImageKind. Contact me directly for other purchase options.

Acme Mercantile - Ann Arbor, Michigan

2009-05-27T12:47:00.008-04:00

(Olympus E-3, 14-54mm at 14mm (2x crop factor), ISO 100, exposure 5 stop HDR @ f/9.0)

On Liberty Street in Ann Arbor, Michigan is a terrific little store with a variety of interesting merchandise. The store is Acme Mercantile. I took this shot of the storefront on a morning walk through town. For some reason I was in the mood to take storefronts that day. Most of the images I shot on my walk were taken with the potential to make an HDR image. I set my camera to shoot 5 bracketed exposures, 1 stop apart. I was doing this hand held and I set my camera to fast shooting and clicked off 5 quick shots at various exposures in an attempt to minimize movement. Of course, one problem was that it was windy that day, so any thing which could be affected by the wind (like leaves on a tree) created motion that I didn't want.

I started processing by having Photomatix convert the 5 exposures into one HDR. From there I went in to Photoshop. I corrected some perspective distortion and then went on to some additional processing. I've been experimenting with selectively using a filter from Topaz Labs called Simplify and I used it on this image to minimize the problem with the moving leaves. I created a new layer and went into the Simplify filter and selected the 'Buzz Sim' preset. This creates an image which looks like it was painted. After saving the layer, I created a layer mask on that layer and selectively reduced the filter's effect. I wanted to keep most of the store front sharp, but keep the stuff in the distance 'simplified'. I also liked the way the filter made the reflection in the front window look, so I kept the filter effect there as well.

I always feel guilty when I use some sort of 'creative' filter on my images. I feel like I'm cheating somehow. However, at the same time I like the end result. I'm curious what others think, not only about this particular image, but about using 'creative' filters in the post processing stage.

Comments and feedback welcome.

This image is available for purchase in my Color gallery on ImageKind. Please check it out!

Cord Dashboard

2009-05-20T22:20:00.015-04:00

(Olympus E-3, 70-300mm at 179mm (2x crop factor), ISO 320, exposure 1/200 sec @ f/5.6)

I took this shot of a classic Cord automobile dashboard at a car show held at the Gilmore Car Musuem in Hickory Corners, Michigan The museum has a terrific collection of cars spanning the decades, and they also have some nice special events. I'm attracted to older cars, particularly those of the 30's, because they have such wonderful design elements. This dashboard to me just oozes craftsmanship and design.

This shot was taken with my 70-300 telephoto because I wanted to get a shallower DOF on the image. I converted the image to black and white, but in reality the color image isn't that much different, just a bit more color in the gauges. There was minimal post processing work, mostly curves adjustments. I posted an alternative version of this image with a square crop to Flickr. I found that this image makes a great little avatar and I also use it as my background on my Twitter page.

Comments and feedback welcome.

This image can be purchased. Other vintage car images available at ImageKind in my Automobile Details gallery.

I also have some vintage car photography products on sale at www.vintagecarimages.com

Abandoned Farmall Tractor

2009-05-14T22:01:00.008-04:00

(Olympus E-3, 70-300mm at 104mm (2x crop factor), ISO 100, exposure 1/125 sec @ f/5.6)

There is a golf course just west of Ann Arbor which has this nice old Farmall tractor on the edge of the course. I've photographed it several times, most recently this past fall. For this trip, I used my 70-300 lens to get more detail and shallower depth of field. For an alternative look at this same tractor, check out an earlier image that I posted to this blog.

Processing was done in Photoshop CS4 and consisted of first using Topaz Adjust to bring out the detail and color a little more. I then used a black and white adjustment layer to convert to black and white. Having a bit more color from Topaz Adjust gave me a little more control over the conversion. Some minor contrast curves layers and sharpening and the image is what you see.

I haven't decided how much I like this image. I like the feeling of age and abandonment that I get from it, but I wondering if it might be too 'busy'. I think I would like it better if I could make the background darker or something to create more separation with the tractor, but maybe I'm overthinking things. I'm curious what others might thing and am open to suggestions for ways to improve it.

Thanks!

This image can be purchased.

Lawyers Club - University of Michigan Law School

2009-05-12T08:07:00.006-04:00

(Olympus E-3, 7-14mm at 7mm (2x crop factor), ISO 500, exposure 1/400 sec @ f/10)

This shot shows the main entrance to the Law Quad at the University of Michigan Law School in Ann Arbor, Michigan. This particular building is known as the Lawyers Club, and is a dormitory for students attending the law school. The building was constructed in 1924 and was funded entirely by a gift from William Cook, a graduate of the UM Law School.

The picture was taken with an Olympus E-3 with a 7-14mm lens. The image was processed in Photoshop CS4 using the Topaz Adjust filter to bring out a bit more color in the stone and Topaz DeNoise to remove some minor noise. The image was cropped in from the side a bit to create better balance between building and sky.

Comments and feedback welcome.

Visit my ImageKind Gallery for more University of Michigan images