Replacing Gloomy, Tropical Skies

January 16, 2019 HDR, Photography, Real Estate, Sky 0 Comments

It’s a new year and and a new opportunity to maybe stay more on top of making regular posts??  Hahah – we’ll see about that!  Happy New Year!

My first post of 2019 is actually a group of photos that I took last May.  I photographed a property in McDonough, GA on a day when the weather ended up being cloudy during the day and gloomy and drizzly at sunset.  Although the client didn’t make the request, I decided to do sky replacements for all of the outdoor shots; it seemed like the only option!  I had to cover my camera in a large plastic bag (with custom-cut holes) and stand out in the drizzle for almost 30 minutes to get the twilight shots (I know, poor little me).  The ten photos below are some of the final photos that I submitted.  The client was very happy (and therefore, so was I).  Just click and drag the slider on each image to see the before and after for each image…

 

I don’t have an extensive library of blue sky/puffy cloud photos, so I only used three or four different skies for the first seven photos. I’m surrounded by trees where I live and it’s not easy to get photos with lots of sky and minimal clutter. Some of these skies are from vacation photos and one was taken from a big-box store parking lot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not only did I have to replace the sky, I had to Photoshop three of the lamp posts back on and add reflections on the water. The lights and reflections were an important part of the ambiance had to be corrected.

 

The replacement sky that I used is from a photo that I took with my (now old) Samsung S6.

 

Rannoch Moor :: Glencoe, Scotland

November 30, 2013 Black & White, Landscape, Nature, Scotland, Sky, Travel 1 Comment

While in Scotland in September I visited Glencoe in the Scottish Highlands. I had been there once before but it was during my earlier photography days and all I had was my old Canon Snappy point-and-shoot film camera. I had my new, beloved Nikon with me this time, and a tripod, and a polarizing filter…and a bit more skill and experience =) It was nice to get out for a day and just think about photography.

We stopped first in Rannoch Moor, the entrance to Glencoe. Rannoch Moor is beautiful and wild and will give you a serious case of wanderlust. You can walk for miles and miles and miles out into the open and over the hills. Parts of the landscape can be seen in the movies “Rob Roy” and “Trainspotting.”

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Stormy June

June 29, 2013 Nature, Sky, Weather 0 Comments

We’ve had a stormy June here in the Atlanta area. There have been a lot of great clouds and stormy skies. This shot is from a couple of evenings ago when storms passed to the east and to the west but never quite made it to where I am. I love the summer time pattern of late afternoon and early evening thunderstorms. I love the way the sky darkens and everything seems to calm down before the rain moves in. To me it is so peaceful. It’s not so peaceful when the storms come with hail and high winds and knock down a bunch of trees on your street (like we had a couple of weeks ago…power was out for just over a day). But still…it’s my favorite part of summer.

A Little More HDR

April 28, 2013 HDR, Sky 0 Comments

**Update #2: Since posting my last comment about the original image not being a very good HDR creation I have removed the original image. I just couldn’t leave it there for anybody to see. I was just getting started with HDR and I don’t think my original captures were very good. I have posted an updated version in which HDR toning was not used.

**Update: Since posting this photo I have come to realize that it is not a good HDR image. There shouldn’t be shadows behind the clouds. I have recently learned how to do 32-bit HDR processing and I love it. You can produce much more realistic-looking images than this one.

Original Post:
My, it’s been a little while since I posted anything.  There is a future life in my imagination where I have the time and opportunity to get out and shoot interesting things and places whenever I want to.  That life hasn’t happened yet, haha!  I know I’m not alone =)  I stopped to capture several brackets for this scene while on my way out of a parking deck recently.  It was such a nice day and everything was so green – and the sky was good for an HDR.  Like I said in my last post, I’ll re-process this when Photomatix makes its way into my life.  I’m hoping I’ll be able to get rid of the “HDR look” of the sky. It looks like there are shadows behind the clouds.

Experimenting With HDR

March 11, 2013 HDR, Sky 0 Comments

I have finally started to experiment with HDR after spending a lot of time looking at other peoples’ HDR creations. I think I’m going to like it =) I’m not sure if I like the way the sky looks in this image or not, but the clouds were moving pretty quickly and that’s why it turned out looking that way. I processed this in CS6 but I’ll re-process it after I get Photomatix.

 

Gorgeous Sunset

October 16, 2012 Nature, Sky, Weather 0 Comments

Just a few photos from a gorgeous sunset last week.  I noticed a warm orange glow in my parents’ backyard one evening (the house faces west).  I went out front and was greeted with this scene…

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Lake Lanier

July 30, 2012 Nature, Sky 0 Comments

I stopped by Lake Lanier this past Saturday, just for fun, and took a few shots with my polarizing filter on my camera. I don’t know why I always forget to use it. After seeing what a difference it made with the blue sky and the puffy clouds, though, I don’t think I’ll forget it again. It didn’t hurt that the water was such a pleasant shade of green contrasted against the muddy orange-ish/brown-ish shoreline.

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Happy 4th of July!

July 4, 2012 Sky 0 Comments

It was a pretty hot 4th of July here in the Atlanta area! I completed my 14th Peachtree Road Race in the morning and then took the afternoon nap that makes the 6.2 miles worth it. I love that nap. I look forward to it every year. I checked out the fireworks in the evening and at the last minute decided to take my camera with me. I’m glad I did! I managed to get an okay spot and got some pretty clear fireworks pictures. It isn’t a huge fireworks display, but the advantage to that is that you don’t have to deal with too much smoke in your pictures, which is nice.

 

Moon in the Early Evening Sky

April 8, 2012 Sky 0 Comments

I don’t have a lens that is good for shooting pictures of the moon so I do the best that I can. There were some storm clouds rumbling past to the east one evening last week and the sky just looked so cool. This was the best that I could do with the equipment that I have – at least the moon is exposed correctly!