"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

"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

"Gates of Wonder"

"Gates of Wonder"
©David A. Ziser

This is another image from my little neighborhood photo walk the other day.  I was still shooting with the Sigma 85mm F1.4 lens at f1.4 to see what I could get.  I found it to be quite the challenge to get the result I wanted.  More importantly, I had to realize that I was out of my comfort zone with this assignment and WAS missing pretty many shots.

But that's the challenge with self assignments isn't it.  The experience just made me want to try harder to get the shot I wanted.  Practice makes perfect, as they say.  I think it behooves each of us to PRACTICE our craft if, indeed we want to prove our ART.

Anyway, back to this image. I just love the light to high key, mostly white tonalities, of the scene with just the one part of the gate in sharp focus. Look how everything else around it goes well out of focus leaving this one "soldier" all alone in the mist.

Notice too the rhythm of the composition, the easy curve of the lines running through the image, even with most of the lines out of focus.  But still being out of focus, it adds a nice harmony to the overall composition.

Yes, I tweaked the tonalities just a bit in Lightroom 3 and even considered converting the image to B&W, but it was mostly white anyway, I decided to keep the color rendition.

Camera specs: Canon 7D fitted with Sigma 85mm F1.4 lens at F1.4, 1/250 second, ISO 200.  Enjoy!  -David

"Line Of Sight"

"Line Of Sight"
©David A. Ziser

Here is another abstract I made during one of our walks down Finestera street this past week. I saw the sunlight reflecting off the wall and carefully positioned the camera to just have the front wall connect with the back wall above it.  That left just a slight sliver of black to contrast off the bright yellow of the sunlight.

Both walls were heavily textured because of the concrete construction process used down here.  I accentuated those textures in Lightroom with a combination of adjustments.

Next, I adjusted the colors, hues, and contrasts of the scene to arrive at the color palette I wanted for this image. The subtleties of textures and colors playing against the bright yellow streak of light make for an enjoyable visual experience.

Camera specs: Canon 7D filler with 18-200mm IS lens at 145mm F8.0 @ 1/200 second, ISO 320.  Enjoy!  -David

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Hey gang, I’m shortening the post up early today.  It’s the last day down here with our friends, Cindy and Ralph who will be leaving tomorrow, so we’re hanging with them all day. 

Over the weekend I’ll re-cap our HOTS Image Competition and Review.  It went great BTW.  I’ll also post the winning images and prizes too.  Lot's of folks asked when we’ll be doing it again.  I’ll let you know on Monday.

Have a great weekend in what ever part of the world you live and I’ll see you bright and early on Monday.

Adios Everybody,  David

"Shadow Play"

"Shadow Play"
©David A. Ziser

A simple, easy photograph that makes good use of lines - horizontal, vertical, and diagonal along with the implied textures of the shadow play of the thatch like roof above. It was made while taking a short tour of one of the golf clubs in Cabo.

I played with the interpretation both as B&W and color and prefer the B&W rendition.  I softened the shadows even more to give the image an even softer quality.

I love photographing this kind of subject matter when we’re visiting Mexico.  It’s so different than what we’re used to seeing in the Midwest especially at this time of year.

Camera specs:  Canon 7D fitted with 18-200mm IS lens 200mm, F5.6 @ 1/250 second, ISO 200.  Enjoy!  -David

"Red Lining!"

"Red Lining!"
© David A. Ziser

Here we are again with one of my very fun abstract images.  Sort of makes you feel kind of dizzy doesn't it? This image was made during our Scott Kelby photo walk last October. I love our urban photo walks because there so much color to be seen everywhere in the city.This is simply a close-up of one of the building facades on Fountain Square, a very popular place to hang out.

I just went in close and isolated on the brightest colors of the façade.I think it's kind of a fun photograph and I offer it as kind of a welcome to the holiday season which begins tomorrow with Thanksgiving. Don't worry… I'll get back to portrait images in a day or two.

Camera specs: Canon 7D fitted with 18-200mm lens at 100mm, F7.1 @ 1/125 second, ISO 400. 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