Tag: Street Scenes

Annapolis, Maryland – Street Views

The Gray Bull on October 16, 2019

Several weeks ago, my wife and I took a short drive to Annapolis, Maryland. She had learned of a “Kunta Kinte Heritage Festival being held that day. Kunta Kinte was the main character in Alex Haley’s Best-Selling novel “Roots”. I thought it might also be a good opportunity to try some street photography and it was!

Recently, I had read The Complete Guide to Black & White Digital Photography by Michael Freeman and attempted to use some of the techniques discussed in the book in processing these photos. Here are a few of my favorite photographs from our walk around the streets of Annapolis and the Kunta Kinte Festival. I used both Adobe Lightroom and DxO Silver Efex Pro 2 to process the photos. I enjoyed the opportunity to experiment with street photography and am looking forward to more of the same soon.

Which One-0007

Which One?

Girl Talk-2

Girl Talk

Oblivious-

Oblivious!

Pit Master-

Pit Master

How Big--

How Big?

Please come back to visit www.cestlavie4me.com to continue following my photographic journey!

Blog Posts

Post-Processing Explored

The Gray Bull on August 27, 2018

My first camera was a small Kodak Instamatic. I’m sure most of the readers of this blog have no idea what that is or for that matter even care! To tell you the truth, it was so long ago I had forgotten what it looked like myself. So, a quick visit to Wikipedia restored my lost memory!

But, just as way of clarification, it was a small plastic film camera. You just snapped the picture; therefore, we called the resulting photos snapshots. When you had finished your roll of film, typically about 12 pictures as I remember, you would send the roll to your local lab or drugstore to be developed and have prints made. It was a lot of fun opening the envelope and looking at your photos for the first time. There was no such thing as an LED screen on the back of your camera back in those ancient times! Sometimes the surprises were not too pleasant. It was not unusual to have several severely underexposed photos. Also, if you hadn’t advanced the film properly, you might have partial images on your prints. We don’t have time to talk about how you had to insert or remove the film in the camera in this blog!

Today most of us are taking a photographs by using a digital device. Either a DSLR or a mobile phone. In any case we can quickly see the photos and with the available software manipulate the image almost instantly. In the last couple of years, I have rekindled my interest in photography and as the readers of this blog know I have been trying to document my progress as an amateur photographer in this blog. Today I want to share some of my photos with you; but I also want to share what the photos looked like before any adjustments were made with Adobe Lightroom and or NIK software.

Recently, I was in Pittsburgh for a very short visit and had the opportunity to photograph several scenes around the city. One of the first areas that appeared in my viewfinder was the Strip District. This is an older part of the city near downtown the filled with shops, restaurants, grocery stores and even furniture stores. It has become a busy area for both locals and tourists. The photo below is a street scene from the Strip District. This photo was taken in the early afternoon and the sky was extremely bright. The photo right out of the camera was rather dark as you can see from the screenshot below.

Unadjusted Street Scene

After processing this photo in Adobe Lightroom I was able to recover a lot of the detail in the shadows and darker areas and the resulting photo is pretty decent. Below is the screenshot from Lightroom when I had finished processing the photo.

Adjusted Street Scene

Here’s a better view of that photo.

Adjustments made in Lightroom

The next shot was a view of the city skyline from the 16^th Street bridge near the Strip District. Again, the sky was very bright, so the resulting photo was dark as you can see from the screenshot below.

Unadjusted Cityscape

Again, after working through Photoshop I managed to recover a lot of detail and I’m very satisfied with the resulting photo. Below is the screenshot showing some of the Lightroom adjustments that were made.

Adjusted Cityscape

Here’s a better view of that photo.

Adjustments made in Lightroom (2)

As we were walking around the downtown area we passed an alley and I thought it would make an interesting photo. When I uploaded this photo to my computer I decided it would be a much better picture if I processed it is a monochrome image. Below is the screenshot of the image before I started to process it.

Before any adjustments

After I had worked the photo in Lightroom I decided to move it to NIK’s Silver eFex software. Below is a screenshot showing the photo after adjustments in both Lightroom and NIK.

After adjustments in Lightroom and NIK

Here is a better view of this photo. I think the resulting image is very moody and somewhat mysterious. This is probably my favorite photo of the ones I took on the trip to Pittsburg.

Adjustments made in Lightroom and NIK

As I have mentioned before in previous posts this blog is not about how to instruct you in doing anything because I’m just learning myself. What I do want to do is continue to share my progress as an amateur photographer. To this point I feel that I am making reasonable progress with my new hobby. I can also see that I have a long way to go in the areas of correctly using the exposure triangle, composition and post-processing, but progress is being made. Please come back to visit www.cestlavie4me.com in the future.

Blog Posts

New York Scenes

The Gray Bull on July 4, 2018

One of the most photographed and photographable cities in the world is New York City. Everywhere you look it seems that a great photograph is just waiting to be taken! The skyscrapers, skyline, Financial District, Central Park, Broadway and the theatre district, river views, harbor, churches, and street scenes everywhere are a photographer’s delight! The key problem is to find a shot that hasn’t been taken a million times before. Perhaps the best bet is to try and take a photo in a somewhat unique style or from a non-traditional point of view.

A few days ago, I spent a couple of hours on Manhattan Island attempting to photograph some sights without taking the same photos I had seen before. It was a very challenging enterprise and I did not always succeed. The beauty of photography in New York is even when you fail at an attempt to photograph something in a unique manner, you still end up with a nice photo! The following are a few of the photos from my day in New York.

It seems you can get any information you need via a smartphone.

Get Info Here?

Get Info Here?

There are millions of people in New York and sometimes it may feel that even the signs are watching you!

Who's Looking?

Who’s Lookin?

The New York Theatre District features some of the most famous musicals in the world. It just so happens that there is also music on the streets.

Mazel Tov

Great music. Mazel Tov!

The traffic is always heavy and it is difficult to catch a taxi, Uber or Lyft in NYC, but there are other means of city transportation.

It's the Hat!

It’s the hat!

New York can feed your body and your spirit!

Food Carts and St. Patrick's

Food Carts and St. Patrick’s

Please come back and visit www.cestlavie4me.com to check out more of my photographic exploits.

Blog Posts

Where is the story?

The Gray Bull on May 4, 2017

Since I started my interest in photography as a hobby there have been many new topics for me to explore. You know the basics, how to shoot in manual, jpeg vs Raw, Photoshop, Lightroom, composition, HDR and on and on. I have even opined about some of these topics in this blog myself. These, and many more aspects of becoming a good photographic artist are important to invest time in mastering. I continue to be amazed at how much I’ve learned and how much more there is to learn about photography.

Lately I have been considering the concept of storytelling with a photograph. This is a subject that has come up many times in some of the YouTube videos I have viewed, along with books and blogs on photography that have occupied my time. Interestingly, many of the photographs that I see do not always convey any significant or obvious story to me. I suspect that has also been the experience of many of you reading this post.

Naturally, this brings us to the question of how to tell a story with photography. For example, consider a landscape photo. At first, I could not see any story in a photo of a mountain, waterfall or some trees. I just thought that I was viewing some good photos. How about macro photography? What is the story that is told by examining a closeup of the inside of a flower or the wings of a butterfly? Even street photography sometimes appears to have no story that I can discern. Maybe I’m just looking at a photo of a man talking to a woman or some graffiti art on the side of a building.

I have arrived at the conclusion that my difficulty in finding stories in photographs is really a problem of my seeing. What does that mean? Simply put, it means I have been focused, pun intended, on looking at a photo from a technical viewpoint. Since I am in the learning phase of photography, it has been natural for me to try to view the focus, clarity, color or tone, composition and many other mechanical aspects of photography. I have not put any time or effort into looking deeper into a photo to find a story that is meaningful to me. It might not even be what the photographer intended but I suspect in many cases it is exactly the story the photographer intended.

This thought occurred to me due to a recent photo contest at my local photography club. The topic was Street Photography. The initial photos I took were ok from a technical standpoint but there was something missing. It became clear to me that I was just taking a photo of a scene that looked like it might be a good photo for the competition but I was not tuned to looking for a story to photograph. That caused me to finally go back and look at photos on Flickr, 5oopx, Instagram, Facebook and my club’s website to concentrate on stories. Slowly I began to see something I had missed before. The lighting and beauty of a landscape that may never occur again in precisely the same way. Did the picture give me an experience of being there when it was taken? I saw photos of the inside of a flower that displayed the awesomeness of God’s creation.

Hopefully, I will be a better photographer in the future by looking for the story in addition to successfully mastering all the technical manipulations to create a good photo. Back to the Photography Club competition. I managed to use my smartphone’s camera to capture some scenes that I hope convey a story with emotion. The first one is of a woman who was talking on her phone while waiting for her car to be washed and I could tell she was receiving some bad news. I was close enough to take the photo without being noticed. The next photo was of an older man just sitting on a bench. It struck me that he probably spent a lot of time at his age just sitting and possibly thinking of times gone by. As I am also getting older this connected with me in a particular way. Here are the photos for you to judge if you sense any emotion or story in them. Come back to www.cestlavie4me.com in the future to read more of my adventures in the journey to becoming an artist in photography.

Bad News

Killing Time

Waiting

Blog Posts

Urban Photography

The Gray Bull on May 25, 2016

I have found that taking photographs of people in their urban surroundings is very enjoyable for me. In a previous blogpost I discussed what types of photographs I wanted to take and decided that I like to point the camera at anything I enjoy! Is that something that appeals to you or do you tend to concentrate on one specific type of subject matter? Have you considered trying new subjects and challenges? With summer approaching and good weather to be found throughout the northern hemisphere, now is a great time to get out and explore taking photos of different subjects and situations.

Recently, I had the opportunity to take some photos at both a local street festival and in the historic city of Annapolis, Maryland. I consider these to be urban photography although some of you may prefer to call it street photography. Since these are my photos I have decided to use the term urban photography. My hope is to display people interacting with one another in an urban setting or just being a critical element of an urban scene.

The first several photos were captured at the OneLoudoun Festival in Ashburn, Virginia. Ashburn is a suburb in the greater Washington DC metro area and OneLoudoun is a real estate development that is attempting to mimic a downtown area in a city. If you visit, then you can decide for yourself if this idea is successful. The picture below is entitled Conversation. I caught sight of the couple in conversation in the midst of a crowd of people. I processed this photo to highlight them and at the same time to deemphasize the rest of the scene. I wanted the effect to be subtle and my style seems to gravitate to lightly post processed photos.

The next picture from the festival featured a dog. Usually, I am not the person who has much interest in photographing animals, but this scene caught my attention with the dog, his owner and the costumed person in the background. Since the dog was a black and white breed and his owner was wearing black tights, a white top and boots with white fur trim I decided to process this as a monochrome image. I did use a slight tint just to make it look a little different.

In America, we have a provision in our Constitution that permits citizens to own firearms. The actual text of that amendment is as follows “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed”. Depending where in the world you live, this might be a concept that you disagree with. Many individual states also have laws that allow for citizens to carry firearms on their person. A weapons permit is required to do this. The Commonwealth of Virginia has laws to allow the carrying of firearms and if you are interested click on this link http://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title18.2/chapter7/section18.2-308.01/

The rationale for this discussion is found in the next photograph from the festival. This scene was interesting because the two blue balloons are harmless and photogenic. If you look closely to the left of the woman with the balloons you will see a man wearing a red headscarf. Note that on his hip is a handgun. I thought the juxtaposition of the innocent balloons in a scene with a handgun was a great opportunity for a photograph. I tilted the image in post for a little extra effect.

Now the last picture from the festival was of a family behind the stage where a band was playing to the crowd. I watched the dad take several pictures of the family and I took candid pictures of them at the same time. The one below is entitled Why me? And I think you can surmise the reason for the title.

Annapolis is a very historic city here in America. It is the capital of the State of Maryland and it was also the first capitol of the United States prior to Washington DC. It is also the home to the U.S. Naval Academy. The first picture was taken on Main Street near the harbor. This area is a very tourist oriented neighborhood filled with shops, restaurants and bars. I noticed several Naval Academy Cadets standing outside of a restaurant and thought the scene was interesting due to the four people and dog (again an animal) in the foreground. Their facial (not the dog!) expressions are all quite different and tell various stories. Feel free to guess what you think those stories might be.

The last photo is of a traffic control officer. It looks like his hand signals are giving contradictory instructions. Actually he is signally to pedestrians on both curbs that they can walk. Just as I snapped this photo a gust of wind blew in from behind me and blew my hat across the street behind the officer. He was kind enough to run after it and grab it before a car had the great opportunity to run over it!

Thanks for visiting C’est La Vie Photography Blog and come back to see another post in the not too distant future! Feel free to leave a comment.

Blog Posts

Using Lemons to make Lemonade!

The Gray Bull on July 6, 2015

Recently, I decided that I wanted to work on some new photographic themes. Living near Washington DC I decided to capture some scenes that the average tourist does not see when he or she visits. Now that I have been taking photographs for a while I decided to do some preparatory work. I took the Metrorail to the Shaw Station and then walked around the neighborhood. As I saw interesting residential buildings I took some pictures of them with my smart phone. I then used my recorder app and made notes about the location and where I thought the best position to take the photograph would be. When I finished my day and returned home I found that I had selected 10 different locations that I thought would make interesting photographs.

Bistro Before Editing

I then did some research on where sunrise or sunset would be relative to these locations. This helped me to decide whether to take pictures in the morning Golden hour or in the evening Golden hour. After all of this preparation I felt quite proud of myself! The only other decision I needed to make was when I would take the first set of photos. Since I was quite excited about the potential I selected this past Thursday morning as the day to start the project.

On Wednesday evening I checked weather.com and saw that Thursday would be partly cloudy, but no rain was in the forecast. So at 4:30 AM on Thursday I drove into Washington DC full of excitement and anticipation of a great photographic journey. I just knew I would have beautiful, colorful morning skies as backgrounds to my shots. As I was driving on the George Washington Parkway, I noticed that the sky was partly cloudy and now I started to get concerned along with being very sleepy! I arrived at my designated parking area, took out my camera, gadget bag and tripod and started walking to my first location. Within five minutes of leaving the car it started to drizzle and a few minutes later rain was falling profusely from the sky!

I decided that I could either go home or use this opportunity to take some different photographs. So I decided when you have lemons the best thing to do is to make some lemonade! Since the ground was wet and it was still somewhat dark and cars and buses had their headlights on along with the buildings beingwell lit; I decided to do some motion blur shots with the added benefit of reflections on the wet street. When the rain stopped I took a few pictures of some of the buildings that I originally planned to photograph, needless to say I did not have the beautiful colorful sky I originally wanted.

Bistro After Editing

As I was looking at my photographs in AdobeLightroom V. 6 that evening, one of them caught my eye and I decided to do some additional editing on it. I noticed that the sky was bland and colorless, so I decided to add a new sky using Adobe Photoshop Elements V. 13. This was going to be a challenge as I just barely knew how to use Lightroom and I had not spent any time with Photoshop Elements! Fortunately, I had a nice sky photograph that I had taken some time before with my smart phone. I proceeded to look at several videos on YouTube that described using layers and layer masks. After multiple attempts I had a reasonably decent copy of the Bistro you see in this post. Although I made some mistakes, for first attempt I think it turned out rather well.

Lesson learned: Preparation is great and important nut you also have to be flexible and find a way to turn a problem into an opportunity to photograph! Keep shooting and come back to visit this blog again in the future or subscribe to the RSS Feed at the top left of the page.