Barn – Carnation

23. November 2012 · Comments Off on Barn – Carnation · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , ,

I don’t know why but I seem to have a thing for barns!  I found this one between Duvall and Carnation, I actually have no idea where it is but I’m calling it Carnation for this posting.  The barn was right next to a big cow shed full of cows eating and I took quite a few pictures of them too.  But it was a litte dark and the cows kept moving so the images didn’t come out as well.  I was also going as fast as I could as I didn’t want some angry farmer to come out and give me a hard time, fortunately that never happened.

Anyway the sun was going down and this barn looked really good.  I loved the textures in the wood and the things hanging inside the barn were cool too.  I took a few pictures of the barn, one from the side (this one below) and a couple from the front, but the frontal ones didn’t look as good – the building had too much wide angle distortion and  I didn’t catch the orange sky that’s off to the left in the image below.

The barn had a load of cables coming off the roof and they really ruined the image.  So I took all those out in post processing.  I also tone mapped the image to bring out some of the shaded areas and give the sky a little drama and ended up with the image below.  Oh there was also a huge tire in the bottom right hand corner that was just distracting, so I took that out too.  Pretty pleased with the end result though.

The guys unpacked their new Nokia 920 today, it’s a white one.  Very “stormtrooper”.

Red Barn – Duvall

03. June 2012 · Comments Off on Red Barn – Duvall · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , ,

Lisa, Abi and I drove over to Duvall yesterday to go to the Big Rock Classic Car Show and on the Duvall/Carnation road passed this red barn. On the way to Duvall the sky was totally overcast and I didn’t think a picture would look that great, so I decided to remember the location for another day.

After visiting Duvall and the car show the clouds parted and blue sky appeared (in fact it got really warm) so on the way home we stopped by the barn to get a shot.  I’ve driven this road many times and I must have passed this barn, but I’ve never noticed it before.  So Lisa and I think that the owners probably recently painted the barn as it was very red.

Lisa pulled over and I jumped out, I didn’t want to keep her waiting so I didn’t bother with a tripod, I just hand held multiple shots so I could HDR a nice image when I got home.  When I processed the image I didn’t want to over do it, I really wanted a natural look as the barn looked great just as it was.  I know the color here looks saturated but it really was this red.

I think the image came out nicely, the fact that the whole image is composed of the primary Red, Blue and Green colors really makes it stand out.

Carter found out that you make wine from grapes so he started a little wine processing plant with Master Chief.

Barn – Conway

22. April 2012 · Comments Off on Barn – Conway · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , ,

One of the advantages of driving yourself to a location and not using a tour bus is that you can stop any time you want to take a picture.  This is exactly what happened yesterday on the way home from Mount Vernon.  I was driving towards Conway when I saw this barn.  It looked pretty old and not in great shape (which always makes a great picture) so I parked up and grabbed the gear.

The barn was quite far from the road and in front of the barn was a ton of dandelions.  The yellow flowers against the green grass were the thing that actually caught my eye.  To the left of the barn was a load of farm equipment (tractors, plows etc.,) which really looked terrible, so I figured out two options to composite the picture.

The image I’m posting tonight was the first one I tried.  Placing the barn just off center to the left let me get a load of the yellow dandelions with out the farm equipment.  The second attempt was of the farm directly in front of the camera.  The second image looked OK (in fact Lisa said it was her favorite), but it didn’t have many flowers and wasn’t, in my opinion, a good composition – this huge barn in the center of the screen was too obvious – too much “in your face” so I went with the first (my favorite).

The sky in the picture looks quite cool but didn’t look like that to the human eye.  I had a very thin layer of cloud above that looked almost white.  It was pretty boring but you never know what it will look like on the computer.  When I got home I added some contrast and dropped the color temperature of just the sky to make it look a little more dramatic.  This (I think) really helped the sky and made it a valuable part of the image rather than something that you want to distract the user from.

Cater and the dudes decided to chill out in the hottub today with a load of ducks!

Picnic Shelter – Rosario Beach

16. April 2012 · Comments Off on Picnic Shelter – Rosario Beach · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , , ,

When I was in Rosario Beach I walked past this picnic shelter.  The tour guide suggested taking a shot through the window turning the window into a frame for the beach outside.  I actually tried this but wasn’t overly pleased with the end result.  But before I left I thought I’d try one last picture.

The building was made up of large wooden logs and there was a rustic slightly weathered look to the interior.  There was a lot of sunlight streaming in the the window and a stone floor and fireplace.  I figured it would make a good HDR image as it was really dark in the roof and corners and very light by the windows.

So I placed my camera on it’s tripod and took the shot below 5 times and used Photomatix to create the end result.  The completed image captured the wood grain and color really well.  Fortunately everyone else had just left the building so I didn’t have to remove anyone in post processing.

The Halo guys found some sand and a digger and decided to try some construction.

Antique Refinishing Barn – Redmond

16. March 2012 · Comments Off on Antique Refinishing Barn – Redmond · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , , ,

Last week I was going though a bit of a panic over my Picture a Day challenge.  I figured I was around 70 days in and I was running out of things to shoot.  Then I was driving home the other night and just figured I should stop complaining and just go out and take some pictures, and the result was some nice shots.  Tonight I continued my, “get out there with the camera” plan and took this shot of an Antique Refinishing Barn on the Redmond to Fall City road.

I’ve driven past this barn many times and considered stopping for a picture but the weather has been so drab I didn’t bother.  However tonight we had some blue sky so I figured it might be the time to grab a shot.

When I got there I pulled over on a side road and got the camera out.  I tried taking some shots from the road but they didn’t look very good.  So I checked nobody was around and ran onto the property and took the shot below.

There is kind of an ironic joke when you look at this image, I mean the company finishes antiques, yet the barn they do it in is falling apart!  I guess it’s like the old adage of a mechanic’s car is always falling apart.  Anyway I think it makes a really nice image.

Hopefully we have some nice weather this weekend and I can get out there and grab some more images.

Carter is continuing his efforts in learning everything circus!  Tonight it’s hoop spinning.

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