Written by Keith on March 7th, 2010
Sunrise at the Milwaukee Art Museum
Sunrise pictures can be striking, with the layering of colors in the sky as the sun peeks over the horizon. Even more striking is including an architectural beauty – in this case the Santiago Calatrava-designed Milwaukee Art Museum.
The Burke Brise Soleil (seen in the picture to the right) is usually photographed when the wings are expanded, but I also enjoy it closed, with Lake Michigan as its backdrop, looking like the bow of a ship rising from the lake.
This photo uses a technique called HDR (High Dynamic Range) in order to show clear definition of the building in a difficult lighting situation. Even the barely-risen sun produces a great deal of light, making it difficult to show the detail in the darkened building.
Milwaukee Art Museum at Dawn
Here’s another example of a photo using HDR. This photo is taken before sunrise, in the early dawn – which still produces a lot of light in the sky. A jet stream can be seen in the sky behind the Art Museum, adding an interesting dimension to the photo.
With HDR, I take 3 photos, bracketing the exposure to get one that captures highlights, one that captures shadows, and a third for mid-tones. I’ll describe this technique more fully in a future post, but by combining the 3 photos, I can produce a photo that has much more tonal range than a single photo is capable of producing.
Milwaukee Skyline
A final and very different view of the Milwaukee Art Museum, this one taken shortly after sunrise. The museum is in the center of the photo, across the breakwater, with the US Bank building just to its right and the Discovery World Museum all the way to the left. Although difficult to see in this light, the moon can be seen high in the sky above the Discovery World Museum.
This last photo is not HDR – the lighting conditions are more even across the scene so the camera is able to capture all of the available tones in the picture.
For more photos from this early morning visit to the lake front, click here.
VN:F [1.8.4_1055]
Rating: 5.0/5 (4 votes cast)
Posted in General, Photos | 2 Responses »
Tags: Burke Bries Soleil, HDR, Lake Michigan, Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee skyline, reflections, skyline, sunrise
Written by Keith on February 28th, 2010
Sunny Winter Day
What a difference lighting can make to invoke a mood when viewing a photograph. The photograph to the left was taken at Busch Conservation Area on a sunny weekend morning a couple of days after a snowfall in the St. Louis area. Coming from Milwaukee, the snow in St. Louis is both less frequent and less heavy, so you take advantage of it when it falls.
You can tell this is a few days after the snowfall since the trees have no snow on them – the sun has effectively melted most of the snow.
Contrast the first photograph with this second photograph, taken at the same location, but on a different type of day.
Overcast Winter Day
The overcast sky invokes an entirely different mood when viewing this photograph. You can almost feel the cold – in contrast to the first one where the sun creates a warmer feeling. The tones in the first photograph are warm tones, while the second lacks any warmth at all.
Snow scenes can be difficult to shoot, since the automatic exposure control in most cameras is fooled by the sheer amount of bright, white snow.
The automatic exposure control does an excellent job of determining the overall light available in a scene, setting the correct exposure to get a correctly balanced photograph. With snow, however, the camera tries to average out the scene and is unable to, due to the pure whiteness of the snow. The result is often a gray snow instead of the bright white you saw when taking the photograph.
If your camera allows you to, the correction for this is to adjust the exposure by one full stop. This will let more light in and render the snow more accurately. Depending on the amount of snow in your scene, you may need to adjust the exposure control by more or less than one full stop. And with digital cameras today, it’s easy to experiment. Take the scene several different ways and see which one works best for the specific scene you’re capturing.
Click here for some additional photographs from Busch Conservation Area. The first set were taken on a sunny winter day, while the second set were taken on an overcast winter day.
VN:F [1.8.4_1055]
Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)
Posted in General, Photos | 1 Response »
Tags: Busch Conservation Area, lake, overcast, snow, sunny, trees, winter
Written by Keith on February 7th, 2010
Laumeier Sculpture Park
It was a cold and overcast day at Laumeier Sculpture Park in St. Louis, Missouri. Snow had fallen a week or so previous, and there were just some remnants of the snow left.
This happy fellow is a sculpture built into the ground, with steps surrounding it to provide a place to sit and contemplate. The snow and the trampled footsteps all around add some texture to the ‘face’.
The mostly overcast skies provided good light with manageable shadows – you can still see shadows in the face, but they are not as sharp as they would be on a bright sunny day, and they add texture and depth in this case. This photo was taken for 1/200th second at f/11 (ISO 200), using a focal length of 60 mm.
Laumeier Sculpture Park
This next photo shows a massive sculpture – filling a large area and serving as a focal point for many of the sculptures in the park. It is clearly winter, with none of the green foliage to set off the bright red tubing.
The scale is indicated by the trees in the background. While they are a ways off, it is still apparent that this sculpture dominates the landscape. This photo was taken for 1/400th second at f/11 (ISO 200), using a focal length of 35 mm – a fairly wide angle focal length necessary to capture the entire sculpture.
To see more pictures taken at Laumeier Sculpture Park, click here.
VN:F [1.8.4_1055]
Rating: 5.0/5 (3 votes cast)
Posted in General, Photos | 1 Response »
Tags: Laumeier Sculpture Park, sculpture
Written by Keith on November 23rd, 2009
Frosted Leaf
My picture of the month for October 2009 is this frost-encrusted autumn leaf taken at Brown Deer Park in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Early morning walks in Fall are great for finding scenes like this. In this case, there was a frost overnight, but often you’ll find heavy dew glistening in the morning sunlight that can create beautiful closeups.
To see pictures of the month from previous months, click here.
VN:F [1.8.4_1055]
Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)
Posted in Photos | No Responses »
Tags: autumn, fall colors, frost, grass, leaf
Written by Keith on November 22nd, 2009
Bird in Silhouette
Recently, I revisited the Busch Conservation Area, a vast nature preserve that is abundant with wildlife, lakes, and forests.
On this morning, I got there before the sun was up – there was fog on the water and the leaves had not yet turned their vibrant colors.
I was not the first to arrive, however, as there were a number of people in canoes and small boats fishing on the water. As the sun started to rise, the fog started to burn off of the water, leaving a bright, reflective surface saturated with color.
The dew was heavy as it glistened from the grass and hung to the silk lines of a spider’s web.
Below are some of the pictures that I took on that early October morning.
VN:F [1.8.4_1055]
Rating: 5.0/5 (3 votes cast)
Posted in General, Photos | 5 Responses »
Tags: bird, Busch Conservation Nature Center, fog, lake, silhouette, spider web, water
.jpg "Busch Conservation Area")
