Great Falls

This past Saturday myself and about 30 other people from Road Runner PhotographyMeetup Group braved the cold weather for an early morning shoot at Great Falls.   The sunrise was not exactly epic but we made the best of it.  I got to visit with some old friends and meet some new ones and that part is always great!  When I finally got my camera out of the bag I saw this shot in my mind  and made it happen.   Because the clouds were less than ideal I thought it best to use long exposure.  In this case I exposed for 3 minutes.   The RAW file was triple processed using the smart object technique in Camera Raw.  This allowed me to process the RAW file for the rocks, the water, and the sky, blending them together in Photoshop.  

A Photographers Playground

Yesterday I was driving during the day and noticed a storm drain area on the side of the road with these incredible sheets of ice.   I was busy with my day job so I could not stop, but there was no question that I would be visiting this great spot right after work.  The time between arrival and sunset was about 30 minutes, but what a great period of time!   It looks like this area was flooded prior to the recent freezing temperatures, the flood waters receded, and the big sheet of ice cracked when there was no water underneath to support the ice. 

The trees in the background are a bit cluttered and not quite what I envision as a perfect landscape, but this was a lot of fun none the less.  

First Picture of 2014

Each year I try and get out on New Year’s Day to take a few pictures.   Yesterday I took a day trip to West Virginia with friends.  Our first stop was the Mount Storm Power Plant.   Due to a traffic jam and police road block we arrived a little later than we had hoped, so I decided to just work on some long exposures.  The picture above was an 8 minute exposure using a Singh-Ray 15 Stop ND Filter.   I used the Flypaper Presets with Nik Color Effects  to achieve the color effects.   Click here to check out the Flypaper Presets and use the code (donr) to get a 15% discount.