Flooded

Ok, so with the new website, (relatively) new logo and new camera (well, new since my last business card), I am doing a revamp of my business card and was hoping to get some help from all of you.  On the right hand side, you will see six different shots of Pittsburgh that I’ve selected for possible candidates.  My current card features a picture of the Brooklyn Bridge, but I think for this round I am going to go with the ‘Burgh.  If you have a second, you can click on each picture to view it large and then let me know which one you like the best.  I value everyone’s input, so let me know if you have any other suggestions.

Next on the agenda today.  Congrats to the Boston Bruins for winning their first Stanley Cup in almost 40 years.  It was a very well deserved victory, with Tim Thomas, the Boston netminder, playing lights out goaltending in winning the Conn Smythe for MVP of the playoffs.

On to today’s post.  It has been absolutely beautiful here in Pittsburgh for the past three weeks or so, with maybe a day of clouds here and there.  The next couples days, however, are looking pretty ugly, with rain forecasted for most of them, I thought I would play along with my post.  I took this one a few months back on a photowalk with Mike Theaterwiz Criswell.  We were a little concerned earlier in the day that the clouds would hamper the day in terms of shooting, but then they started to get some nice textures, and the HDR just added to the drama.  This is a view from the North Shore, on a boardwalk that at the time was completely flooded by all the rain we had had.  The immediate foreground is completely underwater, with the planks from the boardwalk being visible underneath.

This is a seven shot HDR processed with HDR Efex with further edits in Photoshop.  There was a slight halo over the skyline and bridge, so I used the -2 exposure to mask that in.  I added a Tonal Contrast filter to the entire image (I normally don’t apply it to the sky, but in this case I was going for a more ominous look) as well as a yellow curves adjustment layer for the bridge.  I desaturated all tones other than yellow, added some a Progressive Sharpening filter in onOne and finally some film grain.

Thanks for stopping by and taking the time to vote.  Catch you all tomorrow.

Oh P.S.  Lovin’ the fisheye.  Will post some stuff soon, just been busy shooting with it.