Itsukushima Shrine

I had a series of about 8 shots of this Itsukushima Shrine scene and all I had to do was layer the 0 EV exposure onto the +2 EV exposure and paint the bright areas through on the left side of the photograph and I would have had a quick shot that was natural and pleasing to my senses… No, I had to go and create an HDR version on top of the two other exposures, create a couple of other layers for different colors, LucisArt, and a few filters so I could selectively add them to each area. I seriously spent 2 hours trying to figure out were I was going with this and completely hated it, I was about to just trash it when I found the perfect Nik filter that suddenly created a look that I was happy with.

Erfenbach

So here I am in Germany and I finally had some free time this weekend to cruise around the countryside and shoot the amazing rolling fields with such vivid yellow colors and wicked clouds contrasted by deep blue sky. Perfect shooting conditions. Today I have been sitting here showing one of my friends the process that I use with merging different HDR versions of the same shot with a DRI and then layering them together in Photoshop and this is the result.

5 Stories of Pagoda

Well I am in Germany now training for my new job and awaiting a work visa for Turkey. I may be here anywhere from 3 weeks up to 4 months. I thought I would quick post up a photo I took of the 5 Story Pagoda at Miyajima. This island was such a cool little spot. The shrine, the temple, the pagoda… All super photogenic. This photo is kind of out there, but I couldn’t really reign in the sky with my current Photoshop skill set.