Storm Photos: Part 1
What a week of weather. I don’t know if anyone else can understand how an event like we had can be as exciting as it was to me. The low pressure system that brought all the rain, wind, tornadoes and snow, was record-breaking. The aftermath of that storm demanded that I document it. Granted, I didn’t get to see everything I wanted, but that’s usually the case when it comes to my excursions. I head out with one idea in mind, but end up somewhere else entirely. I took Friday off from work just to drive around. The photos below [...]
Tuesday's Storms
This week is going to be wild and wacky in terms of weather. I’m hoping that we get enough rain so the Salt River is flowing and maybe some outlying washes become rivers because it sure would be fun to shoot a few photos of those thing! Tuesday night was the second wave of storms, Monday having been fairly week. Tonight though, tons and tons of rain…at last look we had almost an inch of rain at our house! (see my weather station). Before the storms came in though, there were some great clouds and falling rain that just HAD [...]
Contrails over the desert
I took these awhile back, but never posted them on the blog. I noticed some awesome contrails over the desert and so I drove out at lunch to take some shots. Contrails usually don’t show up too well on bright, sunny skies, but the usage of HDR and a polarizer filter can really bring them out. These are all HDR, shot south of Hunt Highway.
San Tan Mountains
On Monday, Lyla and I took a little trip in my car out to explore around the San Tan Mountain area. There is so much to see over there and it’s only 10-15 minutes away from my house…I just haven’t taken the time to look around. I will say that I can’t wait until Lyla is a little older and understands what I’m doing. I think maybe she will enjoy the outings to different places and love to explore with me. Hopefully…crossing fingers. So here are the results of the little excursion. A simple HDR photo of some rolling hills. [...]
Aston Martin Vantage
One of our favorite places to eat is Joe’s Farm Grill and while we were there the other day, we stopped to get coffee next door. Sitting in the little covered area across from The Coffee Shop was one of the owner’s cars, an Aston Martin Vantage. What a sexy vehicle…the lines and the look was too perfect to pass up. I snapped a few shots and stitched them together to make an HDR, plus did some enhancements and smoothing to really make it shine.
Working at Paradise Bakery
My car is being fixed, it had a bad engine coil and some warped drums on the front brakes, so I’ve been sitting and working at Paradise Bakery on Germann and Gilbert. I do love this place…the people have been friendly, even offering to get me a refill of my diet Coke. Had a fantastic omelette for breakfast and if I’m here any longer, looks like a decent salad for lunch. It’s actually been quite fun and an easy place to focus on work. I’ve gotten a ton of stuff done this morning. If you’re curious, the cup in the [...]
Some recent HDR photography
I wrote not too long ago about my first real HDR photo, which you can read if you missed it. Basically it’s the art of combining three or more photos of one scene, shot at different light levels, and turn them into a surreal looking finished product. I’ve been really going nuts with it in the last week and I think my abilities in this manner area really getting better. I’m posting the best ones of the bunch below, hope you enjoy.
My first HDR photo
Most of you are probably asking what HDR means. I actually asked myself that when writing this blog, because while I know what an HDR photo looks like, I always forget what it stands for: High Dynamic Range Imaging…or HDR (the “i” gets dropped) Read more here if you want to learn the details. The simple explanation is a merging of multiple images of one scene shot at different lighting levels. Some cameras can take many photos in a row and do something called “bracketing” where it will alternate between lightning levels. You then take those images and combine them [...]
Mike is a Phoenix Wedding Photographer based in Arizona and can be contacted via all the normal methods and then some.