It's Day 3 in my blog series: 6 Days of Canon 6D Images from Route
66. Each day I will post a few of my favorite images along with some
photography tips - from the "Mother Road." Hope you enjoy the "ride."
Location: Tucumcari, New Mexico.
This post is a bit different from my two previous posts in this series. Tonight – after a long day of driving, shooting, downloading, processing, blogging and posting on Google+ etc. – I'm focusing on making a picture. It's the image that opens this post, and it's one of my favorite images from the trip so far. The message here: take the time to make a picture.
I had the idea to make this image when we stopped in Tucumcari on the first full day of this road trip. On that first stop, I took some okay shots of the totally cool Blue Swallow Hotel sign, but I did not want to bother the owners with a request to make this image, which would have involved moving the car into the exact right position for the shot.
Well, upon returning to Tucumcari very early the next morning, specifically to make this image, I asked the owners of the Blue Swallow Hotel, Kevin and Nancy Mueller, If they could help me out. They said sure.
While I was sitting in in the driver's seat, steering, Kevin pushed the car into exactly right position. Talk about helping out a photographer! Kevin rocks!
I moved to the passenger side of the car. Crouching down, I shot, hand-held, with my Canon 14mm lens.
HDR was needed to capture the entire dynamic range of the scene. Above is the processed HDR image from the bracketed sequence below. I know the image looks flat. Read on.
When I process my HDR images in an HDR program (Photomatix or Nik HDR Efex Pro), my goal is to create a digital HDR negative. After that, I go into Photohop or Lightroom to adjust, fine-tune and crop my image. I teach this kinda stuff on my workshops.
If you are interesting in learning more about composition and light, check out my on-line classes.
Hey, I know this all looks like fun. It is. However, we're working our butts off on this road trip – shooting, processing, posting, grabbing a bite to eat, and driving. It's not easy having fun. :-)
And speaking of driving and having fun, here's a shot of me with my trusty Canon 6D and our hot wheels for this awesome road trip. It's a Dodge Challenger RT - one of the cool cars in the Hertz Adrenaline Collection.
Here's a photo tip for the image above: Isolate the subject's head from the background.
If you are interested in buying a Canon 6D, check out Adorama. If you want to rent one, perhaps for a road trip, check out BorrowLenses.com.
All the gear I've packed for this trip is listed here.
Okay, it's time to get back on the road.
Explore the light,
Rick
P.S. Want to join my 2014 Route 66 Photo Caravan/Workshop? Shoot me an email for info.
This site powered by (designed and hosted on) Squarespace. Use one-click to get started with your own awesome Squarespace site.