Fresnatic (Back and catching up!)'s photostream  

www.davidrironsjrphotography.com

I know, I know, another shot of the Alki Point Lighthouse! When ever I go to Alki Beach located in West Seattle, I am pulled to the lighthouse! I can miss all of the other possible comps in the area because the magnetic pull coming from the lighthouse is too strong for me to overcome!

I texted a couple of Flickr friends that night and my Flickr friend Jason Hoover came out to meet me! He is the reason I started with HDR photography and it was great to finally catch up with what he has been up to! It has been a lot too! Here is a link to his fantastic photostream, which I think represents some of the best artistic HDR look in the world! www.flickr.com/photos/surrealize/

As you all know, this can be a tough lighthouse to shoot with the eyesore of a fence and prime location right in the middle of million dollar properties, I say properties, because the houses don't all look like a million dollars! I did take a shot from the other side and will post that at another time as the color was good earlier from there! This particular composition is not unique, as Jason was the inspiration for it! Here is his shot from a couple of years ago: www.flickr.com/photos/surrealize/3304226438/

This is a combination of three exposures (-2,0,+2) merged and tonemapped in Photomatix. I shot this handheld with my wide angel lens wide open and at a higher ISO than I normally use. I have a special tripod that attaches to the fence that I have used before, but I figured, just try and shoot it handheld. I don't need a deep DOF here! I did perspective crop the image to straighten the lighthouse, due to the distortion of the lens. I ran through Topaz Adjust to get back details and removed the noise. Final adjustments in Lightroom for highlights and colors, as well as an added vignette.

For those of you waiting for my time lapse video of the Lenticular clouds illuminated by moon light over Mt Rainier, I will post that in a couple of days. So thank you for your patience! Thank you also for your comments, views and faves! I appreciate them! I am finally getting back to a regular presence here on Flickr, so I am perusing more f my friends photostreams! Thank you again for your patience and support!

Please do not use my images on blogs, websites, tumblr, Pintrest, and others without my permission. All images are available for license and sale. Thank you.

Wow! Highest Position Explore #3 March 9, 2012 Thank You!

www.davidrironsjrphotography.com

Well I finally got a Lenticular Cloud near Mt Rainier! Actually, this cloud was forming to the east of the mountain, but since I am on the west side shooting east, the cloud looks to be forming right above the mountain! I saw this driving from my house in Issaquah. I left around 4:00pm to get to the mountain. "Plenty of Time, " I thought. Heck no, traffic was a nightmare! It normally takes me about two hours to get to Mt Rainier from where I live, and where I had to stop, I was still an hour away!

Oh well, I needed to make the best of the spot I found. The location is actually "Dogwood Park," just north of the town of Eatonville. The park is located just off the side of the road next to this fantastic pasture and this spot totally worked for me! I wish I could have arrived about ten minutes sooner, as the mountain was really lighting up!

I returned to this location around midnight, as I had proceeded to Mt Rainier only to be turned around by a Park Ranger. They do not allow people inside the park due to potential avalanche danger. Well then, change of plans. I decided to set up shop above a little creek outside of the Longmire Lodge and shoot a time lapse video of the moon rise!

So After a while, I then returned to "Dogwood Park" and this great vantage point! I shot a cool time lapse of the swirling clouds and rotating stars by moonlight! I also captured the feeding habits of the horses in the pasture! I will post those later. I want you to be able to enjoy this!

This is a combination of three exposures (-2,0,+2) merged and tonemapped in Photomatix. I tightened the crop in Photoshop as well as ran through Topaz Adjust to bring back some detail. Highlight adjustments, noise reduction and slight added vignette added in Lightroom.

Thank you for your views, comments, and faves. I really appreciate them. I am starting to slow down a bit so that I can spend a little more time immersed inside your photostreams!

Please do not use my images on blogs, websites, Tumblr, Pintrest, without my permission. All images are available for license and sale. Thank you.

www.davidrironsjrphotography.com

Well winter has decided to make a quick comeback here in the Pacific Northwest today!. This is the beautifully restored depot for the Northern Pacific Railroad located in Snoqualmie, Washington. This historic depot is essentially ten minutes from my house and yes, this is the FIRST photo of it I have ever uploaded!

I am very picky about certain locations and this is one of them. I have photos from all four seasons, but just never anything that really, I felt, was worthy of my awesome Flickr friends until now! I wish we would of had a little more snow coverage on the depot, but by parking myself in "The Bush" I was able to hide all of the footprints in the snow! Of course I also had to dodge the snow clumps that were bombarding me and my camera from above during all of this!

This is by far, one of my favorite railroad depots because of the turret and fireplaces. Inside the depot is a little museum and gift shop.

This is six, count em, exposures (-2,-1,0,+1,+2,+3) merged and tonemapped in Photomatix. Normally I use three exposures, but the +2 was not enough to get into the dark shadows on the building, so I went higher. My camera only brackets three shots at a time, so I had to fire the first sequence off and then adjust my exposure setting and fire the next three before I got any cloud movement. Here I used a very shallow depth of field and manually focused...actually since I learned how to manually focus last year, I have rarely gone to autofocus! I moved into Photoshop and cropped. I also applied a slight perspective crop due to the distortion caused by my wide angle lens. I also had to clean up some trash cans and a "Public Restroom" sign that was in the photo. I just did not feel that was appropriate here! I then pulled back the reds, oranges and yellows and then dialed back the overall saturation a bit.

Thank you for your views, comments, and faves! I appreciate them. Looks like sunset may be good tonight. Wonder if I am going to get any sleep before going to work tonight? Might not!

Please do not use my images on blogs or websites without my permission. All of my images are for license and sale. Thank you.

www.davidrironsjrphotography.com

Well here is a later shot of the Seattle waterfront from that great sunset on Wednesday. The earlier shot is here: www.flickr.com/photos/fresnatic/6776413340/ As I stated before, I have been to this location numerous times and have met fellow Flickr friends there too, but never had the light or conditions that I wanted till this past Wednesday. Again, I will attribute that to having Dene with me!

I really liked how the clouds were moving here from the long exposure! Note to self: will have to return to do a time lapse! I have almost been able to check off all of the "Required" locations to shoot Seattle now! I still need a couple more shots from West Seattle and from Gasworks Park!

This is a combination of three timed exposures (45 seconds, 20 seconds and 1:45 seconds) merged and tonemapped in Photomatix. I corrected the perspective with the perspective Crop in Photoshop. Ran through Topaz Adjust to bring back some details. Final adjustments in Lightroom included pulling back overall saturation and adding a slight vignette.

Thank you for your views, visits, comments and faves. I appreciate them. I hope everyone has a great weekend. We have a chance for some lowland snow this weekend, so I know all of my fellow Seattle Flickr friends will be itching to get out and shoot too!

Please do not use my images on blogs or websites without my permission. All images are available for licensing. Thank you.

www.davidrironsjrphotography.com

Hi to all of my contacts! I am sorry to have been a bad contact lately, as I have been extremely busy with work and sneaking in a few outings here and there when I can. So I snuck in an outing to the Seattle Waterfront and texted several Flickr friends to possibly meetup! Well darn it, everyone has plans! I was able to catch Dene www.flickr.com/photos/denemiles/ at work and we were able to catch the color show above downtown from the waterfront!

This is probably my tenth time visiting this spot for sunset, and I finally got the color show I wanted. Oh, that is right! I had Dene with me...she truly is a lucky charm! She will deny that, but I believe it to be true! So I also got the "Blue Hour" shot that I have been wanting for ever...see...Dene is really a lucky charm!!!

This is three exposures (-2,0,+2) merged and tonemapped in Photomatix. Lots and lots of spot removal with the "Clone Stamp!" (I really need to get my sensor cleaned!) This was shot at 10mm to really capture this scene. I did have to do a slight perspective crop, which is required with this particular scene. I then did a little "Dodging and Burning" and ran through Topaz Adjust to regain some details. Lastly, I ran through Lightroom to add a slight vignette and adjusted clarity.

Thank you to ALL of my contacts for your views, comments and faves. I am hoping to slow down a bit to really have some time to visit all of your photostreams and comment on the inspiring work I know that you have been posting!

Please do not use my images on blogs or websites without my permission. All images are available for license. Thank you.