Tag Archives: photography

Across The River: Republishing 9/11 Photos For The 10th Anniversary

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View from train approaching Hoboken

I’ve been commuting to NYC on and off for quite a few years now. Which has put me in the position to see a lot of things, the most memorable of those trips was taken on the morning of September 11, 2001. I had been riding the train to Hoboken, NJ where I would normally then transfer to the PATH train and travel to the 9th street station, near my office. Instead, that morning as we approached Hoboken Terminal, we saw the plume of smoke already haunting the skyline. By the time we were stopped and off the train all public transportation had been shut down and I was left stranded with a ring side seat for what was to unfold that day.

Across The River

Across The River is my attempt to give a proper, modern, facelift to the gallery of photographs that I took that day which I first published a few days after the attacks, 10 years ago. I’ve not altered the photographs, but have reprocessed them at a more larger resolution, and with the addition of photographs of the NYC skyline before the attacks as well as images of memorials in the days and years since I hope to have been able to add just a little context to the collection.

Visit Across The River

The previous 9/11 Gallery, as published in September 2001

FDNY 2001-2011: Published with a President

With many groups and individuals using this 10th anniversary of the attacks to pay special tribute it isn’t a surprise that there are others putting together similar collections of images that tell the story of the World Trade Center. I’m honored to have been asked to contribute a photograph to the newly published “FDNY 2001-2011: A Decade of Remembrance and Resilience”. The book is an amazing collection of images of the events and heros of the days following the attacks, put together by the FDNY Foundation, and has a forward written by President George W. Bush. You can purchase the book here.

FDNY: 2001-2011: A Decade of Remembrance and Resilience

Slideshow: 18th Annual Millburn Auto Show

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This year was the third time I’ve taken photographs at the spring classic car show in the neighboring town of Millburn. Each time its seemed like its grown and I’ve left wishing I had more time to soak in the beautiful cars and interesting lines. This years entrants ranged from a Ford Model A to a million dollar Enzo Ferrari. Watch the slideshow above or See the set on Flickr.

See more Car Show Photographs on Flickr or check the Anybody Want To Have A NJ Photo Outing website for upcoming picture worthy events in NJ.

First Encounters: Photoshop CS5 HDR Pro

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Results: Candied Park, an HDR Photograph

There’s been lots of buzz surrounding Content Aware Fill in Photoshop CS5 but I’ve seen a bit less about the updates to the photo merge and HDR features. These were the tools I was most interested in taking for a spin when I installed the upgraded applications. If they delivered at making it easy to create High Dynamic Range Photographs, particularly that are more photorealistic then fantastical and candied looking, then it would save me from buying other apps to do that processing or forgetting the genre existed all together.

After watching a video of the new HDR Pro features and some desire to play with new toys firmly seeded I decided to rattle off a few bracketed exposures while in Central Park earlier this week and give the new HDR Pro a spin. I hadn’t gone out intending to shot for HDR and without a tripod the handheld, roughly steadied and quickly taken photos aren’t the best platform to use for an analysis of the application. Still, I have to say I was really happy with the results and the lack of manual input and fighting in the process. Features like image alignment and the new ghost removal features performed better then expected and gave me passable results.

I’ll leave the in depth analysis and comparison between tools to other people, but I thought it would be helpful to others to see a quick rundown of my proces to create the two photographs featured.

Input & Setup

I wasn’t really out expecting to shoot photos for use as HDRs, I was just walking around Central Park between meetings with a Nikon D90 [3 shot bracketing], 10-20mm lens and no tripod. So as the lighting got rough for the wider landscapes I did my best steady shooting and fired off a few image sequences in different parts of the park. Once back in Lightroom I processed the images with a pretty flat baseline setting [killing sharpening, flattening curves & black point, etc.] and then followed the workflow Matt outlined from there to process 2 sets of images — a 3 shot sequence and a 5 shot sequence.

Sequence 1: 5 Bracketed Exposures

Sequence 2: 3 Bracketed Exposures

HDR Pro Workflow

After chugging along a little while importing the files I poked around the presets to see what could be done with the HDR app. the range of presets covers all the bases – from way over processed and stylized to far too flat, but none were right for more then a starting point for my style and photos. Picking the photorealistic preset I got to work adjusting sliders and the tone curve. Turning on Ghost Removal and cycling through the images in the sequence made a big difference and help remove some weird artifacts in the fast moving clouds.

Photoshop CS5 HDR Pro Sliders

Sliders were tweaked until I had a clean and somewhat flat image — for these images raising the Exposure up and then bringing the Highlights back down seemed to result in the most desirable and even overall exposure. After getting a result I liked I closed the HDR Pro dialog and saved the image as a TIFF and switched back to Lightroom to finish processing the photograph.

Finishing back in Lightroom 3 Beta 2

Lightroom 3 Before and After - Sequence 2

Since I started with unprocessed photos and didn’t take the stylizing of the image very far in Photoshop I was left with a bit of a boring image when I was done. Turning back to Lightroom [or you can use Camera Raw] I made some final tweaks to the image adjusting the saturation, tone curve, sharpening and all the normal processing I’d do to a single image coming off my camera.

Results

Results: Central Park Hiking an HDR Photograph

While seasoned HDR vets may have other styles of working or a need for additional settings the HDR Pro updates in Photoshop CS5 are enough to make this particular landscape photographer happy and keep me from looking for other options. That’s something I can’t say for the CS4 offerings.

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Things That 'Just Work': Nikon D90 Sensor Cleaning

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Often the goal of a new technology or new feature for an exiting technology is to lead a silent existence while making the owner’s life easier. Rather then being in your face forcing you to notice it, or worse, not working as intended and doubly frustrating the device’s owner it hums merrily along unnoticed.

I’ve been shooting steadily with the Nikon D90 dSLR since November of 2008. It struck me only last week in part because I was shooting some sky photos — which are notorious for making dust apparent1 — that in all that time I hadn’t had to do a manual sensor cleaning like I had often with my previous camera. The built in sensor shake/cleaning that Nikon has added to some of its recent camera bodies, and that triggers automatically each time the camera turns off or on, just works.

Nikon D90 Cleaning Menu

For those who don’t live and breathe camera tech, digital cameras have a sensor in the back of the device that records the light coming in to make a picture. This sensor replaces the film that once served as the capture medium. With lens changes, weather & static electricity, dust and other small particles can get inside the camera and create little spots in the recorded image. With film cameras this dust would attach itself to the film and be taken away when the film advances or is changed. With digital cameras, because the sensor is fixed and doesn’t get replaced like film, the dust accumulates over time and can degrade the quality of images coming from the camera.

Dust Spot Example

Camera manufacturers have been working on ways to solve this problem, mostly by having some type of material in front of the light capturing sensor that shakes, discharges static buildup or does other magical things to try and keep the area directly in front of the sensor free of dust.

I won’t say Nikon has already perfected the technology, but I’m more then happy to say that what they’ve done so far seems to “just work” for me. And that makes me happy.

Though now that I’ve said all this out loud I’m bound to not get hit with a splash of water in my camera as I change lenses near a waterfall or something.)

1 The small apertures associated with shooting bright objects like the midday sun create a narrower beam of light which can accentuates the specks of dust near a camera sensor. These dots also have a hard time hiding in an otherwise solid area of color like the sky.

A Best Camera: The Casio WQV-1 Wrist Camera

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Commercial photographer and serial iPhone camera user Chase Jarvis has recently popularized the idea that “the best camera is the one that is with you” in a big way. Armed with a camera small enough that you’re willing to carry it everywhere you become free to capture moments, record mental notes, and other save images that would have otherwise passed you by. Though his weapon of choice is a cell phone camera my weapon has recently been an artifact of a decade ago picked up off of eBay — the Casio WQV-1 wrist watch camera. Though it only takes postage sized [120×120 pixels] black and white images it does so in a way that satisfies my bestcam needs.

Chase Jarvis Late Train Home new profile pic Enter

Ancient BUT Charming

Everything about the Casio Wristcam screams ancient technology — from the sub megabit images, to the slow slow buffer, to the infrared syncing of data from the watch to your desktop computer. (Remember Palm Pilot organizers?)

REMOTE SEND

Casio had made a few models of watch cameras in the 90s with this model being the first — later models had quicker buffers, longer lasting batteries and even color images, but the line didn’t seem to last very long. They can often be found on eBay, but fluctuate wildly in starting price.

With all its flaws and having been far surpassed by even the worst of camera phones, the images from this original spy style watch camera often capture the essence of the subject — and its this quick, sketchbook style documentation of an object that I’m looking for when I’m on the go and want to remember a moment for a later, more serious or deliberate photo session.

Following The Best Camera Idea Through

This “best camera” notion is something that I long ago realized and took to heart and has dictated a lot of the style and subjects of my photography a mix of landscapes, observational and local travel style photos. It is also why, on the morning of September 11, 2001, I was carrying a camera on my commute into Manhattan that historic and haunting morning.

Chase has taken so many photos with his iPhone camera that he put together a book of the snapshots, moments and saved images in a recent book entitled The Best Camera and has an iPhone app and photo sharing site of the same name.

Buy The Best Camera Is The One That's With You by Chase Jarvis on Amazon.com

Your own best camera doesn’t have to be a wristwatch or a camera phone — I carry a point and shoot digital camera or my DSLR with me quite often. But if your only camera is one that you leave behind more often then not consider buying something you’re willing to travel with as a compliment.

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