Nikon D7000, Nikkor 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5, 12mm, f/8, ISO 200

We are back!  With another round of our HDR Collaboration series.  A group of online photographers will each take turns sharing brackets from their catalogs, so that we can each have a turn at editing them.  This allows us to visualize outside of the box, sometimes bringing us into different environments than we’re used to shooting.  As well as locations, we may never see with our own eyes!

This is an exit door for the control tower of an Abandoned Power Station.   I decided to process my version as I normally do with my current workflow.  32-bit Tiff adjustments in Lightroom 4.  Also, Photoshop CS6 to correct for some distortion, add a curves adjustment, as well as apply some Tonal and Pro Contrast with, Nik’s Color Efex Pro 4.  As always, back to lightroom for some additional exposure, contrast, highlight, shadow, black point, clarity and vibrancy adjustment!

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Rob Hanson

Thanks for the great brackets, Scott!  I think it’s a testament to your setup that I found so little post-processing was necessary. The lineup was so good that I didn’t apply a crop or straightening at all. Although I ran these through Photomatix as a matter of course, I didn’t go to tonemapping, preferring instead to just take the 32-bit TIF file directly to Adobe Camera Raw.  I did a few quick adjustments there, but nothing special. Then, using Nik Color Efex Pro, I dropped in a touch of Tonal Contrast in certain areas, applied a Darken/Lighten Center to pull the eye down the hall, then fixed a bit of light bleed around one window. There might’ve been a bit of Shadowmapping in there, come to think of it.

If I were there, I don’t think I could’ve resisted the temptation to touch some of those paint flakes.

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Jacques Gudé

Huge thanks to my man Scott for these scrumptious brackets from the Richmond Power Station.  I’m always down for some URBEX goodness.  On to the fun stuff then…  I decided to get a little crazy with this one, I suppose.  Heck, I went waaaaaay off the reservation.  After running the brackets goodness through Photomatix, I tripped the light fantastic through onOne’s Perfect Effects a bit to pump up the volume, pump up the volume with some detail enhancement, and then popped back into Photoshop to get some painterly effect going.  Was that enough?  Of course not!  Instead of stopping there, I opted to focus on the lines in the shot, which I enhanced by cropping square and introducing some stomach churning, vertigo inducing twistetude!  How ya like me now, baby?

Thanks again, Scott, for dishing out the yum yums this time around for us to play with!

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Bob Lussier

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Mark Garbowski

I have noticed that especially when working on an image of an abandoned location where I have not been, I tend to want to create a path to safety. Follow this, I seem to be saying, and you just might escape. The path is a sanctuary. The beyond is weird. This image really lent itself to such an interpretation. Indeed, it could almost have the same effect without any editorial assistance, but I couldn’t resist strengthening the feeling.

Scott, thanks for sharing another great location with us.

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Jim Denham

Really appreciate Scott serving up some sweet, gritty brackets for this round and they tested me pretty well. The depth of the open hall was intriguing, but I really liked the foreground section for the peeling paint and chain fence more, so the focus was placed there. The colors didn’t do anything for me so, after tone mapping, I converted the image to black and white using onOne’s Perfect B&W and the Dramatic Light preset. It’s awfully strong, so had to tone it down a bit so some of the darker details could be drawn out.

Then it was on to Focal Point, where I did something a bit different – applied two planar focus bugs to the front two walls so that the back end of the hall was left blurred. Did some dodging and burning in Aperture then on to Photoshop Elements for a vignette using the gradient tool.

Final results were an image that had detail where I wanted it and mystery everywhere else! I really liked it! Thanks again Scott for the juicy brackets!

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Mark “Silent G” Gvazdinskas

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Mike “Theaterwiz” Criswell

Awesome, the Collab is back in action! Thanks for the great set of gritty Urbex goodness Scott. This was a sweet set to work on for sure, thanks again!

I ran these through Photomatix pro to start the fun. I then started tweaking a bit using Topaz Adjust, blended ever so carefully. When I thought I had this complete I changed my mind and added Focal Point filter, wanted to focus more on the end of the hallway, the frosted glass panels on the left perfectly leads the eyes down the hall so I wanted to mute the outer edges a bit. After Focal Point I cleaned up a bit of noise and made some slight lens corrections and a slight crop to finish it off.

R.I.P. 4/29/2001 – 2/12/2013

Nikon D7000, Nikkor 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5, 10mm, f/5.6, ISO 400

An image I was working on the other night, so I decided to post it!

Nikon D7000, Nikkor 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5, 10mm, f/13, ISO 100

Is it January 30th?  Oh that’s right, Happy Birthday to me!  This is an image from a recent job I completed for Home Trimwork.  This magnificent home is located in Central New Jersey and is quite an architectural masterpiece.  It was truly an honor to photograph this location in the evening hours and the home owners were very accommodating toward my visit.  I hope to share a few more images from this project with you very soon!

Nikon D7000, Nikkor 40mm f/2.8 micro, 40mm, F/18, 1/250th

Here’s a fun shot I did mid 2012 in a shared studio setting.  I used a one light setup and a pyrex dish with DVD covers underneath to give color to the oil and water mixture on top!

Nikon D5000, Nikkor 55-200mm, 10mm, f/22, ISO 100, B+W ND110, 60 Seconds

Your viewing an image I completed about 1 year ago.  I captured it the morning of September 7, 2011 in Cape May, NJ.  This is the sunken Concrete Ship and the blurry silhouette is of an old man that used to play on this ship as a little boy.  This was when it was more intact offshore.  While capturing this image, he decided to walk into my frame and chat with me about his memories.  I showed this image to my wife last night and she was surprised I’ve not published it.  Why I’ve been holding back this long, I have no idea.  Maybe because it’s not perfect in my opinion, something a lot of us creative beings can get caught up in.  If I take away all the technical and perfectionist thoughts I have about this image, I’m left with a memory!

Nikon D7000, Nikkor 17-55 f/2.8, 26mm, f/11, ISO 280

A shot I took during a quick trip to NYC back in August.  I really dig how the patterns never repeat on this cool piece of architecture!  Happy Monday!

Nikon D7000, Nikkor 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5, 24mm, f/8, ISO 200

Happy Halloween, everyone!  I hope your all able to enjoy yourselves this evening even if you were impacted by SuperStorm Sandy! This is an image taken a little over 3 months ago.  It’s always nice to know you have a back catalog of images to work on. I don’t suppose there is any candy behind this doorway!

Nikon D7000, Nikkor 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5, 10mm, f/16, ISO 100

Here is an interior shot I re-worked from a recent job I completed for Home Trimwork.  They do amazing custom trim work, among other great upgrades to your home.  I do wish this dining area had a chandelier, but overall I’m happy with the way I was able to render this room with available light and HDR processing.

Nikon D7000, Nikkor 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5, 10mm, f/9, ISO 100

Here’s a shot of the Revel in Atlantic City New Jersey.  I took this while on Summer vacation in September in Ocean City.  I always wanted to shoot this building and took advantage of the blue hour and 5 brackets from 2 seconds to 30 seconds.  I wonder how the Revel will stand up to Hurricane Sandy?  If things stay on track, it will receive a direct hit.  If you find yourself in the path of Sandy, please be safe!