Manipulated Reality

This was done as part of a teaching demonstration yesterday and while I have already posted a variation of this photo (click), I thought I'd post the doctored photo.Everything thing you see here is "real" and existed in the original photo. The difference between my original post and this one is that there is software that will amplify and adjust the various bits of information, including color, contrast and sharpness. My own take on a photo like this is that it is interesting but that it isn't lasting art. Frankly, the first one may not be either.

Gig Harbor - One More Look

Gig Harbor has to be one of the more photogenic towns I have visited. I would love to go back again.

Fall Reflections

I was looking at some photos I took while staying overnight in a picture perfect town in Washington named Gig Harbor. I had passed this one over, in part because out of the camera it looked a little drab. But, thanks to a little help from my friends (Aperture and Photoshop) this photo is filled with color.

Before the Start

In the minutes before the start of a sailboat race, things can look a little chaotic. The challenge is to cross the start line (not visible in this photo) after the starting gun goes off, not before. Before the race, then, you might have boats that are going in opposite or seemingly random directions.All of this happened in slow motion on the nearly calm day Deb and I were in Gig Harbor, Washington, a few years ago.The dull, cloudy day is made to look a little brighter due to some Photoshop magic. A tutorial is in the works for those who might be interested in knowing the technique.

Slowly Going Nowhere

Somebody once said that a good definition of sailing was "slowly going nowhere at great expense." These boats were photographed leaving Gig Harbor in Washington state on a nearly windless day and they were certainly moving at a deliberate pace.Though it was a generally gray (a typical western Washington) day, the boats in this Saturday regatta were still photogenic.

11-04-09 Two Halloween Fairies

A year ago my wife, my mother-in-law and I visited Gig Harbor, Washington, and happened to arrive just in time to experience Halloween festivities. The street in front of our bed and breakfast was blocked off and it was filled with all sorts of characters, including these two beautiful fairies. Here's a view of main street. (click) A few minutes after I took the photo of the fairies, I stepped across the street and found this. (Click)

02-24-09 Gig Harbor, Washington

By Scott Shephard

This photo is really two photos that I layered in Photoshop. One photo is exposed for the sky and the other is exposed for the water. If I had taken only one photo, I would have been able to get either the interesting clouds, which are fairly bright, or I would have gotten the sky reflected in the water, which is the darkest part of this scene. I often layer photos but normally I use a tripod. Because I had no tripod, I had to try hard to get exactly the same thing in both frames. I was close but not perfect. The hard part was aligning the masts in the sailboats.

Canon 5D, 24-105 4.0, variable exposures, iso 400