High Scaler – Hoover Dam

19. September 2012 · Comments Off on High Scaler – Hoover Dam · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: ,

Tonight’s picture captures another sculpture from Hoover Dam.  This piece of art work is pretty new though, the piece was commissioned in 1998 and depicts one of the most dangerous jobs required to build the dam.  The job is called a High Scaler and involves sitting in a little “bosun’s chair” and being suspended hundreds of feet in the air and setting charges into the face of the canyon’s walls to remove lose rock!  The status is based on Joe Kine who carried out this job for a few large dams in the 1930s and 1940s.  The monument is dedicated to the 98 men who lost their life during the dams construction and actually sits on the visitors car park.

So as you drive up you see this statue and it grabs your eye immediately, it’s really impressive.  We parked up and I immediately ran to the sculpture to get a picture.  Unfortunately the statue was back lit and my first few shots captured a great silhouette.  It took me a few attempts to get the angle right so I could light the front of the statue.  Ideally I would have had a flash with me to light it up even more, but it was ridiculously hot and we couldn’t be bothered to go back to the car to get them. (That’s terrible to admit but the truth).   So I made do and eventually go the shot below.

The statue is not that high off the floor (around 6 feet).  But I didn’t want the floor in the shot so I had to get quite close.  But I love the blue sky in the background the and red rock he’s climbing.  When I got home I was very pleased with the image and think it came out well.

Sometimes at night you just need a nice bowl of cereal.  The guys saw a commercial on TV and ran to get out some Life!

Mandalay Bay Restaurant – Las Vegas

18. September 2012 · Comments Off on Mandalay Bay Restaurant – Las Vegas · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: ,

I’m not sure why we like the images we do, I guess it’s all down to personal taste.  Sometimes there’s an image with an interesting subject that attracts you, other times it’s a place you’ve been to or want to visit, maybe even someone you love or care for.  Hopefully you like an image because it creates an emotion of some kind in the viewer.  But every now and then you find a picture that you like but you don’t really know why.

Tonight’s image kind-a falls into that category.  Truth be told I know why I like the image, but it’s not obvious.  I think the literal definition of photography comes from Greece and means “drawing with light”, and it’s not until you really start to dabble in photography that you start to learn how important light is.  The reality is it doesn’t matter how amazing or beautiful a subject is, it it’s badly lit it won’t be a great photograph.  Learning to manipulate late and use it well is a never ending challenge.  This is something I’m still working on

One of the reasons I like HDR photography is that you get to draw with light after the fact.  Sometimes when you take a picture you can’t control the light, you can’t manipulate it how you want and you get what you get.  With HDR you take multiple images with different exposures and when you get home you create a new image by merging the images together, taking the light from each picture to produce the desired result.

Today’s image was taken at the Mandalay Bay. We walked past this restaurant every day and there was never anyone in it.  I loved the lighting and thought it would make a great HDR.  This was made up from 3 separate images and then merged together in Photomatix and Photoshop.  While the direct lights are a little bright they don’t detract from the image.  In the end I think the image came out pretty well.

The Halo guys decided to play on their climbing frame today, lots of exercise, loads of fun.

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.

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.

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