"Into The Sunset"

"Into The Sunset"
©David A. Ziser

I made this image last week during our catamaran sunset cruise.  We've taken this cruise once before last year and it is quite a photographic adventure.  

This image was made right before the sun settled below the horizon.  The timing was perfect with beautiful orange textures in the sky and the alignment of the ships on the horizon which gave me this great sunset composition.

OK, I did tweak the colors a bit in Lightroom 3, removed one small boat that just didn't look right, and slightly extended the sea and sky on the left.  The minor adjustments, I think, really added to the overall impression of the image.

Since we've been talking image competition all week, I thought I would finish the image with two color key-line strokes added around the image to accentuate the predominant colors in the scene and give the image the look of a gallery presentation. Be sure to double click the image to see the larger version.  I love it!

Camera specs: Canon 7d fitted with 18-200mm IS lens at 200mm, F8 @ 1/500 second, ISO 200.  Enjoy! -David

Friday Wrap Up; The Costco Adventure Continues; & Creative Color Test Prints

Good Morning Everybody,

Today is our last day in this very beautiful part of the world, albeit a bit chilly today.  We head back to home sweet home tomorrow about mid-morning arriving after a short layover in Dallas, finally to touch down at the Greater Cincinnati Northern KY airport about 6:00 p.m. tomorrow evening.

It's been a great trip – we’ve enjoyed the colors, sounds, tastes, unusual customs (like the Day of The Dead), blue skies, ocean breezes, and fabulous sunrises and sunsets, shared with great friends.  But it will still be nice to get back home and prepare for the holidays - my favorite time of the year. Hope you're looking forward to it too ;~)

Costco Update: The Printing Adventures Continue

OK gang, here is the latest from our Costco photo adventures.  Sarah and I finessed the portraits we captured last Saturday and had them looking great - now could we get Costco to do the same?

Then it hit me, I had the solution.  Costco needed to see exactly what we wanted but I had no test print available to show them. I opted for the second best thing. I loaded the test print and several of our portraits onto the iPad.  They looked WONDERFUL!  Now I had exactly what I needed to show the Costco photo department - a target print and a sampling of the portraits.  Off to Costco we headed.

Once we arrived we were lucky to connect with Rafael, one of the nicest guys in Mexico and luckily he spoke pretty good English too.  That’s Kent and I with the iPad and the old prints from the other day.

We showed him the prints from our previous visit then pulled up the same images on the iPad along with the test print.  He saw what were talking about immediately.

I asked him to run our 8x10 test target without corrections to see what we would get.  Ten minutes later we hit the jackpot - the test print looked perfect!  I turned the rest of the images over to Rafael - 15 8x10's; 12 5x7's; and 105 4x6's.  As the prints were coming off the Noritsu printer, Rafael placed them on the counter for our approval - they all looked great!

About 20 minutes later we had the completed order in hand and were headed to the check-out. 224 pesos later, or about $17 US, we were on our way. OK, I bet you're really curious about what we paid for the images, right? Prepare to be amazed!

I've shown the cost conversion below:

• 8x10's - $9.00 MX or $ .67 US
• 5x7's -   $1.50 MX or $ .11 US
• 4x6's -   $ .90  MX or $ .07 US

I know, I didn't believe it either - pretty darn inexpensive and still printed on Fuji's Crystal Archive paper - I don't know how they do it.

Today we'll spend a little time getting all the 8x10's and 5x7's framed and deliver the entire "order" to the families in time for the holidays.

DAZNOTE: Getting the test prints on the iPad worked like a charm. You don't have test prints to carry around with you all the time, just upload them to your iPad ;~)

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Hey gang, that wraps up our Cabo adventures.  We're going to savor one more day in this wonderful land of paradise.  Hopefully LaDawn and I and all my pixels will make it back home safe and sound so I’ll see everyone again back in a slightly cooler Cincy bright and early Monday morning.  Have a great weekend and I'll see you then!

Adios, 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

"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

"Three Sisters"

"Three Sisters"
© David A. Ziser

With today being the anniversary of my 3,000th blog post, I thought I should work the number three into my “image of the day” post ;~) This image was made earlier this year. We were attending a family function and on the way home passed a beautiful sunflower field.  I steered the car down the country road to get much closer to this very beautiful site.

I took several images that afternoon and already have posted a few of those images here at DigitalProTalk.  This is another one of my favorite images from that afternoon shoot.  With all the bright colors already present I wanted to accentuate those colors and contrasts even more.  I worked on the image a bit in Lightroom 3 and then over to Photoshop for a few experiments and then back to Lightroom 3 to finish up my post production work.

I really like the stylized almost surreal effect that I was able to create with this image.  It reminds me, ever so slightly, of one of the van Gogh paintings.  Compositionally I like the three sunflowers gracing the foreground of the image.  Behind them are five new baby sunflowers about ready to blossom.  The background is nicely out of focus leaving the three bright sunflowers in the foreground as primary points of interest making for wonderful color play throughout.

As I was working on this image I couldn't help but think how cool it may look printed up in a much larger configuration and hanging in our home.  Over the weekend I’ll just give that a try.

Camera specs:  Canon 7D fitted with 18–200mm IS lens at 200mm, F8.0@ 1/500 second, ISO 400. Enjoy!– David