Photography, Techniques and Whereabouts of Kevin Raber
Three trips to Antarctica and I have thousands of images that are standout. I think it is time to gather the images together and make a book. There are not enough hours in the day and I do have a regular job. I have a lot of trips with images still waiting for editing and printing. Today’s image was shot from a zodiac on a cruise in Paradise Bay on my first trip to Antarctica. I love this image and the reflection. Shot with a P45+ hand held.
I made it to the Hood Valley area between Washington and Oregon and the Skamania Lodge where my sons wedding will take place on Sunday. It’s raining and dynamic. Kind of what you expect for this area. Many of the family have arrived with more arriving tomorrow. Within the first five minutes of being here the clouds broke open and produced a rainbow. Luckily i had my iPhone so I grabbed a shot. I knew the only way if would work was should in HDR so I set up the shot and let the iPhone do it’s thing. Now I use an app called AutoHDR and it takes a few seconds to analyze the scene. And just before it started to shoot the sequence of images these two kids jumped in the shot. I was like what!! but you know what they made the shot and added the foreground. So, sometimes things just go your way.
Well the day has finally come. By the time you read this I will be on my way to Oregon for my oldest sons wedding How cool is that. I am very proud of what he has accomplished. A dedicated soldier in Army SF he has seen and done more than most of will ever do in a lifetime. He is marrying one of the nicest person I know and I know they will be very happy. This will be the first time in many years that my whole family will be together. My three sons, their mom and lots or relatives. It should be a great weekend. To start the weekend off here is another BW image from Moab. Shot with a Phase One P65+ on an APLA camera.
I love Chicago! It’s a fun city to visit, easy to get around and offer many attractions, but more than that I love photographing there. Great architecture no matter where you look. I am leading a Phase One PODAS workshop in July on architecture photography in Chicago. It will great to share with the attendees the interesting possibilities on shooting in this great city. It will be an intense three day workshop and will cover interior and exterior photography, a boat cruise and image manipulation and processing. We have only one seat left for this workshop. In any case todays image is one I love taken from a bridge showing the old rivet ironwork and the new stainless steel buildings.
This is an image I shot while in Moab last year. On some trips you are lucky to have dynamic weather. When this happens you get skies that work with you. This shot was made with a P65+ on an APLA camera. It looks great in color but is so much more dramatic in B&W.
The other night after experiencing some dramatic storms the skies began to clear and just turn wonderful colors and they were so dramatic. My friend Debra grabbed me and we drove the block it takes to get to the Performing Arts Center. I jumped out of the car and began shooting away. I had grabbed my GH3 and shot in HDR mode – 5 exposures per shot. This technique allows my camera to shot over exposures opening up shadows and underexposures allowing highlights to be recorded. I then bring my images into Capture One and do perspective control (straightening lines on building so they don’t or do distort). Then I process he images to tiff format and run them through PhotoMatix combing all the exposures into one image. Then I took the image into photoshop and run them through a series of other programs. In this case I used a plug in called Topaz Adjust. So here is my artistic version of PAC at a dramatic sunset. I have more so look for them soon. Also, finished up some dramatic Moab B&W Images. Stay tuned.
Thought it was time for a rust shot. I love rust and have quite a few new images on the subject so prepare yourself in the coming weeks. This was shot in Buenos Aires of an old abandoned ship at dock. It literally looks like one day they docked the ship and then just walked away from it. There are dozens of these ships along several docks in Buenos Aires.
I have had so many great experiences on my three trips to Antarctica. Each trip has been life changing. It’s not hard to point a camera in any direction and get a great shot. It becomes overwhelming at some points. But I’ll take overwhelming and I’ll take 24 hour days. Because in the end you end up with images like this. Today’s image was shot with a Canon 1DS Mark II with a long lens at one of those 3 hour sunset – sunrises that happens in Antarctica. I have been working on a ton of images from Antarctica and a dozen other places. With all my travels I have a large backlog but you can count on and endless number of images to be viewed on this blog.
Enjoy!
This image says it all. Time for renewal. Exciting week coming up. My oldest son gets maried next weekend. So much to look forward to. This picture puts me in the right frame of mind. Hope it helps you too.
Moab can be quite dramatic. On one of my trips to Moab I came during a stormy few days. The results were just great. Here’s a shot taken in Moab while a storm came in at sunset. Shot with a P65+