Hoover Dam – Nevada

17. September 2012 · Comments Off on Hoover Dam – Nevada · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , ,

I looked through my picture library tonight and decided to post this image from Hoover Dam.  This is a really rare picture of the dam with nobody in shot.  Talk about having patience I waited ages for this image.

Obviously there are two sides to the dam, there’s the water side (this side) and the “dry” side.  It was ridiculously hot there and getting a good picture in direct sunlight was proving to be difficult.  But this one really came out well.  I stupidly didn’t have a wide angle lens with me so getting “everything” in to really show the dam was very difficult.  So I had to chose compositions that showed enough to make an interesting picture but still showed the majesty of the dam.

This really is an amazing piece of engineering, especially when you consider when it was built (1931-1936).  In this image I’m standing in Nevada, looking across the dam towards Arizona.  I have no idea what the purpose of the large towers are but they look really cool coming out of the aqua marine water.  When I looked at this image when I got home it’s almost like a landscape from “starwars” or something, it just strikes me as something from another planet.  For this reason I LOVED the image.

What made this fun to take was I was using a new tripod but to get the picture I wanted I needed to put the tripod onto the bridge wall.  However I needed to get the camera as low to the bridge as I could.  So I turned the legs upside down and turned the tripod over, so the camera was hanging upside down under the top of the tripod.  People were walking past me looking at me like I was nuts.  but this was the end result so well worth the stares.

This is art imitating life!  Tonight I got home with a horrible headache, I think Carter was feeling it too hence the picture.

Alfa Romeo 8C Superleggera – Redmond

16. September 2012 · Comments Off on Alfa Romeo 8C Superleggera – Redmond · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: ,

I thought I’d take a break from Las Vegas today, you really can have too much of a good thing.  So I decided to post a car instead.  Yesterday I visited the Exotic’s Car Show in Redmond and saw some pretty cool cars.  One of my favorites was this Alfa Romeo 8C Superleggera.  Now I’ll be honest I have never seen one of these before.  At first I thought it was some sort or “bat mobile” rip off, but once I got close it was very obvious that this was a real car.

The owner of the car was demoing some of the cars features.  As the car came out in the 1930’s it didn’t have any turn singles on it.  Instead it had these little arms that popped out on either side when the driver pulled a lever.  The car has amazing lines (the front engine compartment and wings being I thin the most impressive) and a beast of an engine.  It has a V8 3.8 liter engine and when the owner fired it up it really did sound like the bat mobile.

Obviously being something very different the car had people round it all the time.  I was pretty patient and waited and waited but I really wasn’t going to get a shot without spectators.  So I decided to cut my losses and do some magic in Photoshop.  So you can’t see them now but there were people all around the back of the car, and all along the other side.  It took me a couple of hours to remove them but you really didn’t want to see loads of people standing around the car.

To hide some of the “Photoshop” work I applied a heavy vignette too, that also had the benefit of drawing you in to the car.  I think the end result is pretty good and the car was amazing.  I really wouldn’t be surprised if this was the inspiration for Tim Burton’s bat mobile car, to me it looks pretty similar.

Carter was on candle duty tonight, this time to put them out.  Master Chief just watched.

Hard Rock Cafe – Las Vegas

15. September 2012 · Comments Off on Hard Rock Cafe – Las Vegas · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , ,

One night while in Las Vegas we hit the road with our cameras to see what we could find.  Without a doubt the best time to photograph Vegas is when the sun goes down.  There was so much to see (both amazing buildings and very strange people) that I took hundreds of pictures.

As we were walking down the strip we came across some very strange individuals.  The latest thing (I didn’t see it last time I was there) is for people to walk the streets dressed up in costume and try to get you to photograph them for a fee.  They will either pose on their own or with you but either way it costs.  Now we had no interest in these people but as we were carrying camera’s and tripods they sometimes took an interest in us.

When we reached the Hard Rock Cafe I wanted to take a picture.  The cafe was actually on the other side of the road but if I crossed I would have been too close to get what I wanted in frame (I neglected to take my super wide lens).  So I decided to shoot it as traffic shot past (that’s what the red and yellow lines are at the bottom of the image).

Anyway as I’m trying to take a picture, this “nutta” comes up behind me dressed as Frankenstein monster.  The dude was huge, well over 6′ 5″ and he clearly wanted me to shoot him instead.  Much to other passers by enjoyment he started getting super close behind me, mimicking what I was doing.

So you have to imagine my dilemma, I’m standing there with $10,000 of camera gear with a 6′ 7″ green monster encroaching on my “personal space”.  What should I do?  Tell him to get lost, leg it, whack him with the tripod? (All crossed my mind.)  In the end I thought sod it, and completely ignored the lune and took the picture below.  Once he realized he wasn’t getting anywhere he buggered off and left me alone, and I got the shot I wanted.

I wasn’t sure what the traffic would come out like, there were a lot of cars on the road but they were all pretty low and didn’t affect the scene on the other side of the road.  So I just took a few shots and decided I’d see what it would looked like when I got home.  After processing I think this came out pretty well.  I like the red and orange lines showing the traffic lights, and the Hard Rock Cafe guitar looks great.

Carter and Master Chief have been trying different kinds of Soda recently, as you can see they have gone through quite a few!

Chandelier – Las Vegas

14. September 2012 · Comments Off on Chandelier – Las Vegas · Categories: Image a Day · Tags:

I have loads of images from Vegas but I couldn’t decide what to post tonight.  I sat here for a few hours post processing images and the came across this chandelier image.  Lisa really liked it so I thought I’d make this tonight’s picture.

I photographed this chandelier in the Eye Candy bar in the Mandalay Bay, we were sitting at the bar on our last day (we were actually waiting for the right time to leave – how sad is that?)  And I say the chandelier and thought it might look cool.

I selected a really shallow depth of field so the small light at the front was in focus and everything else was blurred.  The light really was this orange and the picture is a pretty accurate representation of the real thing.

I was at work today and saw this pen and I thought I’d bring it home for Abi.  Anyway Master Chief and Carter didn’t like and I found them trying to beat it up!  Ironically the pen won.

Madalay Bay – Las Vegas

13. September 2012 · Comments Off on Madalay Bay – Las Vegas · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , ,

I posted a few pictures over the last week or so from my trip to Las Vegas, and told everyone that I stayed at the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino.  Now I’ve never stayed there before I usually end up at Caesars Palace and because I’m stuck in the middle of the strip I’ve never made it all the way the Mandalay Bay.

When you drive into Las Vegas, this is the first hotel you come to and during the day it it looks pretty impressive as it’s all gold.  One of the nights there we grabbed our gear and went for a walk.  It was really hot out (over 100 degrees) and pretty humid for Vegas, and we walked from Mandalay to Caesars.  Along the way we took loads of pictures and tonight’s image was the first.

These hotels are really well designed, as once you get in, you can’t get out.  We literally couldn’t find the door and when we did we found ourselves on a private road for the hotel that didn’t lead anywhere, to get off the premises we had to go back inside and find another exit.

However before we did that I took this picture.  This is another example of trying to capture something in a different way or from a different perspective.  I didn’t want the typical “frontal” shot of the hotel, I wanted something different.  From the private road we could see the sides of the hotel, some really cool palm trees and a bridge (left hand side of the picture) that was above us and lead to the strip.

I shot this and when I got it off the camera it looked terrible.  The colors were all wrong and it took me a while to get them right, as we saw them that night.  But I have to say it was worth the effort as I’m very pleased with the finished image.

Carter wanted some frozen pineapple tonight while Master Chief looked on with envy.

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