Throwing a Hail Mary
January 2, 2010 by Alec
Filed under Featured, Landscapes
This set of images was taken on the night of Dec. 23 and during the day, Dec. 24, 2009. Our epic snowstorm blowing in, my friend Chet and I decide to head to Duluth and take what comes our way. We arrived in the harbor at night, but in reasonable conditions. The winds were blowing at 20 mph or higher and the temps were in the mid 20’s. Not bad by Duluth winter standards. We drove in to the Blatnick Bridge area and then the Harbor proper to catch an ore ship arriving. On the 24th traveled from Ilgen Falls back down to Split Rock Lighthouse in the snow and wind. A great two days.
All these images are experiments in post processing with Lab Color and Gradient Maps. Many of you don’t know what these are and don’t care. I hope you enjoy the images regardless. Some of you will understand these terms and are curious about how to work with them. If so, post a comment and ask. For those well versed in these, please feel free let the rest of us know how you use them.
A selection of these images and other landscape work of mine is available for purchase at my new gallery site. http://acjphoto.zenfolio.com Here you can order prints and framing. Its wonderfully easy to use and the product quality is excellent. Even better, with this service I was able to dramatically lower my prices!
Happy New Year to all!
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Really great stuff Alec. Love the gold/yellow toned one and the one with the lights in motion blur. The perspective shot under the bridge rocks too. Hell I guess I like em all!
I would like to know much more than I do about Lab Color and gradient maps than I do! Please give more on this. This info. is hard to find….
Hi Janelle,
I’m going to put together a quick “start to finish” video on a shot to demonstrate how I’m currently working with both. Thanks for the post.
Hey Janelle, I’ve decide to post a few references here for you. I know its not super helpful, but I’m not feeling nearly educated on the subject of Lab color. So, I hope these two help:
http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/310/310838.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lab_color_space
Everything I’ve read refers to the following book as a super good publication:
Margulis, Dan (2006). Photoshop Lab Color: The Canyon Conundrum and Other Adventures in the Most Powerful Colorspace. Berkeley, Calif. : London: Peachpit ; Pearson Education. ISBN 0321356780.
I hope you find these useful.
Alec, that second image, a time photo of a ship coming into the harbor– how did you do it? The people were frozen in place, but the boat moved all the way through.
Hey Kevin,
To specifically answer your question, I have no idea! Honestly, this was a one frame shot. We arrived in the harbor just as the ship did…no time for anything. Get a tripod down, get camera on it. Start blasting. I was in AV mode, f/8 ISO400 which produced a shutter of 17 seconds. No time to make adjustments. Hail Mary! There is a slight motion blur to the people, but for the most part I have to assume they stood still (or were frozen stiff) during the exposure. As always, thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment.
Terrific set of images! Awesome trip.
Travis