Kevin Raber

Photography, Techniques and Whereabouts of Kevin Raber

Tag Archives: HDR


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Second Beach

2nd Beach, Olympic National Park

Along the Washington and Oregon coast lines there are some classic places to take magnificent images of the coast and stacks and crashing surf.  One of the more iconic places is Second Beach in Olympic National Park.  A little bit of a hike through a well marked trail deposits you at this super location.  Sunset being the best time to be there.  I wanted my images to be different than others I saw before of this location. This was shot with an IQ180 and then processed out with one exposure to six levels at one stop increments.  So I had a 3 stop over and under and one normal from one shot.  The Phase One camera takes an incredible image with 12 plus stops dynamic range.  So in one image I was able to hold all details in highlights and shadows.  It’s quite the moment when you look at the histogram of an image like this expecting clipping on highlights and shadows and the Phase One back shows a very nice histogram with toes at both ends.  This allowed me to know I had the information to produce an image like this.  Then using Photomatix I processed them together to make an HDR.  I made adjustments so it didn’t appear to grungy or fake.  I retained enough detail in the rocks but didn’t overdue it.  I decided on a gold tone cast as that is how I remembered this image.  After the image was processed and saved I opened it using NIK Viveza and did some desaturation in the clouds and darkened some corners.  Finally I saved it, flattened it and then did a JPEG at a smaller dimension so I could post it on my blog and FaceBook.  There were number of images from this one nights shoot that were keepers and this was one.  I like the rock in the foreground and texture the water makes.  Hope you enjoy it.  This weekend I will make a 30×40 inch print.


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Cool Scooter

Scooter In Antique Store

A few weeks ago I enjoyed one of my outing with companion photographer Debra.  We try once a month to take a Sunday and go somewhere and just shoot pictures of what we find.  We come across abandoned buildings, funky stores and all sorts of other interesting things.  This shot was in a very cool antique store in a town we never heard of.  They had all sorts of cool stuff in a eerie of stores.  We spent nearly two hours there shooting.  I have published a shot previously of a bank safe hinge shot in one of the stores.  This is a cool scooter type bike on a shelf. I have a bunch more you’ll see soon.


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Stormy Palladium

The Palladium, Carmel, IN

Everyone knows the Palladium in Carmel, In.  It’s part of the Perfroming Arts Center complex.  The other day we had these magnificent clouds and I decided to give it a shot.  Came up with this BW and a few good color images.  I’ll publish some color images later this week.  I like the look of the sturdy building with the storm clouds behind it.  It was done with five exposures blended together on PhotoMatix and HDR program used to blend different exposures together.  Fun stuff but can be too overused.  I n a case like this it works great.


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On The Way To Olympic National Park

Bainbridge Ferry, Seattle, WA

It has been a rainy free days in Seattle. Typical. So, early Saturday morning I am in line to catch a ferry to Bainbridge Island and start my two day trip through ONP. I see the fireboat and ferry coming in with the pink in the clouds, hinting at sin some sun. Bam, got the shot. Color, composition, everything just worked for that one moment. The ONP is going to make a great location for an upcoming PODAS workshop this fall. Hard to take any photos yesterday as it rained the whole time and I mean heavy rain. I am about to head out the door with the Phase One IQ180 and ALPA set up and hopefully today get some decent images. Let’s see what I come back with.


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Death Valley Dunes

The Dunes, Death Valley

This has been a fantastically great trip for spectacular images. We have had good light and good weather and it has been a pleasure making new friends from China. Seems photographers from all over the world like the same things. This shot was done at the Dunes in Death Valley at dawn. When the dunes light up it is a blast as you keep seeing things you want to shoot.


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Red Light

Red Light, Neon Graveyard, Las Vegas, NV

A quick update, tomorrow I head out for an 8 day adventure in the Palouse.  This is a region in SE Washington state that is a very beautiful area to shoot landscape pictures.  I’ll be leading a PODAS workshop there with 28 attendees and 5 great instructors.  I’ll update my blogs as often as I can.  So starting tomorrow look for PODAS Palouse images.  You can follow our blog for this trip at the PODAS Blog by clicking here.  The blog will begin on Wed.

Today’s picture was made in the Neon Graveyard in Las Vegas, where old signs from the strip go where they are torn down.  I focused on a red light bulb and then enhanced it in a few apps on the iPad.  Kind of different so I thought I would share.


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Big Ass Yellow Truck

Big Yellow and Rusty Truck

So, what do you do when you go to an industrial site (Gravel Quarry) and want to make the place look gritty and sort of apocalyptic?  You use a good camera and some of the app you can find on the iPad.  This shot was of a big old dump truck at the quarry, obviously not used much.  I shot a variety of angles of it and this is the one I selected.  I like the flat tire, low angle, and the hose coming off of it.  I pulled the image into the iPAd and used SNapSpeed to adjust the drama, grit, and selective colors.  Enjoy!


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Old Boat

Boat At Seattle Maritime Museum

One day while visiting Seattle I decide that everything I shot I would do in HDR.  I also decided to do this technique with the gritty look.  Needed to get it out of my system I suppose.  So, this was shot of an old boat at a maritime museum with three different exposures.  They were then blended in photomatix.


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Messed Up Train

Messed Up Train Car

Time to change from B&W images to some wow color.  Today’s image was made on some abandoned trains not to far from where I live.   I have been shooting these for several years now.  They are parked on a siding off the road and pretty well hidden and they deteriorate further on every trip I make there.  Actually pretty creepy.  You are missing the smell that goes along with these images.  To shoot this properly I had to shoot three exposures and HDR them together.  Then I took them into iPad and used Snapseeed and PhotoForge to make the final image.  Kind of surreal, which it is.


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Made It To Ireland

Lake Hotel, Ireland

Made it to Ireland.  Today I picked up Steve on of the PODAS instructors and Drew our Phase One support person and we headed to the LAke Hotel where we will be based until Wednesday.  IT’s been an adventurous day as I had to rent a van (one of five) we will be using.  Crazy thing is the steering wheel is on the wrong side and they make you drive on the wrong side of the road.  Pretty crazy and add to that it is a stick shift and you have to shift with your left hand. They call this civilized.  I have another few words for it.  Should make for an interesting week.  This is a simple iPhone shot done of the lake in front of this wonderful hotel.  we bring the big guns (Cameras) out tomorrow. This is a very photo rich area and I am sure we will be capturing some wonderful photography.  I’ll try to post daily but it may get busy.  Days are long and light is good.  More to come.


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A Place

So, what does it mean?

While at my sons wedding a few weeks ago I went exploring and found this corner mechanics shop with a variety of old and rusty things.  The place was a photographers dream thus for the next day or so you will see images from there.  This was one that was just randomly nailed to the wall of the building.   Why a license plate and a horseshoe?  Don’t know but it caught my eye.  There were old tricks, gears, junk, and even a truck that was sold old it had to be from the thirties.  It had a big Redwood tree still on it’s bed and there was tree growing out of it.  Look for more soon.

 

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