Elevation infatuation

Yet one more elevator — this time cement instead of grain.  Fully read in on how they work and completely up to speed on Buffalo.

First attempt with TopazLabs Topaz B&W Effects, pretty much a rip off of Nik's Silver Efex Pro II.  Similar controls but the NIK UI is more elegant and the sliders update on the fly rather than when let go — but with the Nik stuff at 6.5x the price there should be some difference. Sky was a somewhat noisy so destructured in Viveza 2 and Glamour Glowed in Color Efex Pro then masked to isolate the effects. Storage bins dodged and burned.

Likely the last of the Sea Cruise posts for a while.  Canon 7D, EF 24-70 f/2.8 at 30mm, f/5.6, 1/320, ISO 100.

Lazaretto Point Light and Lehigh Cement Elevator - Lower Canton

Huey Huey babe, Huey Huey babe...

More from the sea cruise.

The dot over the i is 6' 4 3/4" tall.

Verizon marketing excellance

At Lazaretto Point

Amidst the Vane Brother's Canton Marine Terminal

Pennsylvania Railroad grain elevator and the NS Savannah in the Vane Brother's Canton Marine Terminal

Done cruising — Inner Harbor Wall

Come on Huey Huey babe...

Won't you let me take you on a sea cruise.  Early returns from today's cruise of Baltimore Harbor.

Walk the plank at Domino Sugar

At roost on Fort Carrol

Heading in, apace, from Key Bridge

Fort Carrol Light

180 degrees

around from M&T Stadium, right after the storm.

Looking east

America's 911 Ride

Below are links to the Americas's 911 Foundation 2011 Ride snaps. All taken the morning of 8/20/2011 at the Maryland House Rest Area on I95.

Appologies to all those I couldn't photograph and those whom my sexagenarian reflexes caused to be rendered very out-of-focus, especially all those who made some sort of gesture.  In addition to my very suspect reflexes your helmets, visors, windsheilds and at times your speed made getting the shot quite challenging. Photography is for me, a hobby, not a profession and my sports photography skills are a bit rusty. Of the nearly 1,300 photos taken, about 185 made the cut (some of which could be better in the focus department) and found thier way into the galleries. Sorry I couldn't get one of each of you but I hope you will enjoy seeing your fellow riders.

Feel free to download these images for your personal use, several sizes are available including full size images by clicking on the preview image (not the thumbnail but the image that is shown when the thumbnail is clicked). Most of the imges are cropped to 5x7 although some are cropped square and a very few are cropped to 8x10. The time and camera information are available by pressing the [I]nfo button in the context menu that appears when you mouse over the preview photo.

The images are stored on SmugMug — click on the image below to be taken the SmugMug gallery that has the images in the sequence they were taken. Click here to be taken to a gallery that has the images arranged by orientation to make them eaasier to view on rotatable devices like an iPad.

These images are available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Advance man waiting for the Ride

Get baked!

At Baked and Wired in G'town.  Ghost post — Urban Dictionary required to decode "Get Baked". Ghost distantly related perhaps to Ned, so operating with a 3GS, ergo no Hipstamatic yielding in addition to Baked and Wired cupcakes an upside-down tech cake.  Hipstamatic here simulated in Photoshop CS5, not on iPhone4 but on flush Mac Pro with JennieW actions. So go and get baked.

Thirteen

Cellblock Thirteen, Eastern State Pennitentiary, Philadephia, PA.  The "Punishment Cellblock" — like the others aren't punishment enough.  The camera sees in the dark better than I do so these snapw were pretty much aim it and hope.  

It has pretty much much being a printing party since the new Epson 4900 arrived on Thursday, so I though it would be a good idea to curtail the paper consumption with a quick trip to Philly and the Eastern State Pennitenitiary. It has been cloudy and raining for the last couple of days so the light was good low contrast stuff. This is the third visit for me, prior visits were in August 2006 and March 2010.  I don't recall having seen Cellblock Thirteen before.

First snap shown taken mounted on the Gitzo, 5D MkII with the 24-70 2.8L at f/8.0, ISO 200 at 24mm with a pair of three shot brackets with +2ev exposure comp applied on the second series, I think, it could have been -2ev on the first bracket. Combined in HDR Efex Pro and finished in Color Efex 3.

As usual there were a lot of snaps, click here or either of the snaps to see the gallery.

Same as above except only one three shot bracket at 60mm.

It can always get worse

So Jack called this afternnon to offer kudos on the most recent patent (7,979,303) and we got talking about the B&Ws from the Old Idaho Penn.  He liked the snaps but not the venue.  I told him I had worse, I almost never take photos of or in a cemetary.  I can only think of four times, Arlington National, the Mumma cemetary at Antietam, Oak Hill in Georgetown (from the nearby park) and Congressional Cemetary at Pennsylvania Avenue at the Anacostia in the District.  The Congressional shots were taken on my birthday almost 5 years ago and never processed.  I guess I didn't much like the results.  Mostly maybe becuase I went to get some snaps of the centopaths but I only took 29 snaps total and the centopath snaps were decidely not very compelling.  The colors were worse and I was using the 45 TS-E for one of the first times and that didn't work so well either.  But...

in the spirt of being a contrarian, they got processed today to show it can always get worse — or at least the venue can. Kinda like the piece in today's NY Times Dealbook about the sentencing proceedings in the Raj Rajaratnam insider trading case.  Anyway, four shots from the Congressional Cemetary ca fall 2006, I understand the centopaths have been restored since.  All with a fairly heavy dose of the Color Efex 3 Midnight filter.

Lastly, some centopaths — designed by Benjamin Latrobe

Lamont Cranston

Lamont Cranston?  Is he related to (Tommy) Lamont DuPont, maybe he is the founder of Cranston, RI or perhaps the patron of Harvard's Lamont Libray or maybe the leader of the band, or the father of the erstwhile CT senatorial candidate or his brother — once of the Hilltop and now of the Circle?  Nah, none of these, he is the classic pulp superhero, The Shadow.  The Shadow as in "Who know what evil lurks in the heart of men? The Shadow knows!". Five from the dark side of the dark side in the Old Idaho Pennitentiary, Boise, ID — August 2006.

First and last two from a multi-shot brackets on the original 5D, mounted on the Gitzo. Dramatic, like Lamont himself, B&W conversion on top of a mild HDR sandwich.

"The weed of crime bears bitter fruit. Crime does not pay... The Shadow knows!"

A couple of more

The flagship snap

141...

shopping days until Christmas.  Reprocessed snap from in front of the flagship Saks store on Fifth Avenue on Black Friday 2011.  Should probably make that trip again in 2012.   All with HDR Efex Pro, with darkened, de-structurfed, de-contrasted Granny's Attic preset applied to the background masked off the subject, further finishing with Color Efex 3. Suggested by Nik webinar.

A couple of blocks up Fifth.

The other side of the Avenue.

Rock Center

Remember me to Herald Square!