"Into The Light"

"Into The Light"
© David A. Ziser

I made this image during a flight home from New York a few years ago. We had to travel through Detroit which has completed a brand new airport - and, boy, is it a cool airport. Walking through the long corridor connecting two of the terminals was a kick and kind of reminiscent of the walk to the United terminal at O'Hare airport.

I managed to pull off this shot while there were not too many people in the scene. It was mid-day Saturday and travel traffic was down a bit for the weekend.

The challenge was timing the lights just right to get the beautiful rich colors I wanted to capture in the final image. I don't mind the slight blur of the travellers, in fact I think it adds a sense of motion to the scene. Anyway, I hope you like the urban landscape captured here.

Camera specs: Canon 40D Fitted with 18-200mm IS lens at 18mm, F 3.5 @ 1/25 second, ISO 500. Enjoy! -David

"Sunrise Over The Big Easy"

"Sunrise Over The Big Easy"
© David A. Ziser

This was the view from our hotel room window early Saturday morning. The sunrise gave us very strong and very vibrant colors in it’s earliest moments.  We are on the 19th floor of the hotel and with our room being in a corner of the hotel floor plan, I thought that including the left wall of the hotel in the composition worked quite well. 

I like how the lines of the wall lead you right into the horizon and the rising sun. But at the same time the viewer may resent the fact that I cut off the left side of the sunrise too.  The hint of the reflections in the windows carry the color into the building.

I struggled with the crop but I think this composition serves the image best.  Hope you enjoy it.

Camera specs: Canon 7 D fitted with Sigma 8-16mm lens at 8mm, F4.5 @ 1/13 second, ISO 1000.  Enjoy!  -David

"Reach For The Sky”

"Reach For The Sky”
©David A. Ziser

I’m a big fan of shooting “up” when touring any big city downtown location.  This day was no exception.  We had a bright, clear day sky which served as a brilliant backdrop for this cityscape.  I carefully blocked the sun’s direct rays with the tree you see in the foreground. I also like the touch of nature among the concrete buildings.

The wide angle lens really accentuates the buildings’ climb to the sky. One thing that fascinates me with the image are the contrasting colors and shapes in the scene.  I enhanced those colors with a tweak or two in Lightroom. For me, it’s just a fun visual of the urban landscape.

Camera specs: Canon 7D fitted with Sigma 8-16mm lens at 8mm, F18 @1/500 second, ISO 200.  Enjoy!  -David

"Wrong Side Of The Bars"

"Wrong Side Of The Bars"
©David A. Ziser

This image was captured during another down-the-street photo walk yesterday. I had given myself an assignment to shoot with Sigma’s 85mm F1.4 lens exposing the images at only F1.4.

As I passed by one of the homes I liked the streaking bright light across the rough textured wall on the other side of the fence.  I framed up the shot and pressed off a few frames.  The very wide aperture threw the bars of the fence well out of focus.

Next it was into Lightroom 3 where I tweaked the colors and tonalities. Originally the fence was quite a bit lighter, but with the “Black Level” slider, I was able to darken it’s tones considerably.  The darken result was to give the image the look, in my eyes, of a prisoner’s view of haunting prison bars.

The bright streaks of light beckon the prisoner to hope and freedom, but the dark bars forbid him from making that journey.

Camera specs: Canon 7D fitted with Sigma 85mm F1.4 lens @ F1.6 (it got nudged up from F1.4 inadvertently), 1/800 second, ISO 200.  Enjoy!  -David

"Blue Steel"

"Blue Steel"
© David A. Ziser

This image was made during our Scott Kelby Photo Walk in Cincinnati, Ohio in October. I'm always a big fan of the urban photo walks and this year was no different. We headed out in a different direction than we've done in the last three years so that really gave me a chance to see the city from a new perspective.

The primary building in this photograph is a large skyscraper in the background. It contributes the small, repeating rectangles to my composition. I rotated the image just slightly in order to introduce more diagonal elements into the scene.

I love how the two heavy, black, dark structures in the foreground simply rip crossed the more delicate rectangles in the background. I manipulated the tonalities in the scene to really play the darker tones against the lighter tones in this composition. I think it's the contrast of the smaller repeating rectangles against a large black areas in the foreground that add interest to this image.

I also like the fact that there was not one line in this composition that is either perfectly horizontal or vertical. I think it's the play of the diagonals across the scene that add to its interesting, abstract nature.

Camera specs: Canon 7D fitted with 18–200mm IS lens at 70mm, F7.1 at 1/200 second, ISO 400. Enjoy! – David

"Bridge Traffic"

"Bridge Traffic"
© David A. Ziser

This is an image I made as we were approaching the Oakland Bay Bridge (I think). It was quick bright and hazy on our approach to San Francisco.  I grabbed this image. But don’t worry – LaDawn was driving– just as we were making our approach to the bridge.

I really like the soft curves of the bridge structure against the faint hills you see in the background.  The haze did a great job of adding subtle nuance to the colors and depth of the scene.

I enhanced the colors just a bit in ACR by kicking up the Vibrancy slider slightly and added the gradient to the sky.  On my first pass, I thought I had what I wanted.  I even added the image to my post ready to go.  Something was just not working for me though. 

The bottom right of the image, the approach showing the traffic was sort of a plain-Jane brown – it just didn’t fit the tonality of the rest of the image.  That part of the bridge was much closer to the camera and wasn’t being affected by the more distant haze.

Back to Photoshop I went, brought it the Color brush and gave that part of the image the same blue wash as the rest of the image.  Now I think it works.  Who says you can’t get a good image from a “drive-by-shooting”?

Camera specs: Canon 7D fitted with 18-200mm IS lens at 155mm F10 @ 1/800 second, ISO 800.  Enjoy!  -David