A Few Extra Days in Omaha!

My visits to Omaha, Nebraska have usually been short ones. I arrive in town and set up for the Omaha Summer Arts Festival. Immediately after the show I must head back home. I have never been able to leave myself time to see or photograph any of the city. That changed this year. I was at the Mulvane Art Fair last weekend in Topeka, Kansas. It made more sense to drive to Omaha on Monday instead of driving home. I would have had to drive right back where I just came from on Wednesday. 

I spent Monday evening exploring a few areas and took a few pictures, but mainly I was trying to decide where I could shoot the Transit of Venus on Tuesday. The Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge was one of the things I wanted to shoot while in town anyway and I realized the people on the bridge would make perfect silhouettes for the setting sun during the transit. Several of the images worked out quite well. As soon as the sun set I quickly headed to the rivers edge to photograph the bridge with downtown Omaha behind it.

On Wednesday evening I arrived downtown a little before sunset in order to check out a few locations I had in mind. Several of my favorites are included below. The skyline reflected in the water is within a few hundred yards of where my booth will be located in this weekends show. The statues and sculpture are in front of the CenturyLink Center.

The Evolution of an Image!

Not too long ago I was shooting film. I would take my film in to be processed and anxiously go pick it up as soon as they said it was ready. Fuji Velvia, a positive slide film, was my film of choice. It was also preferred by most professional nature, landscape, and architecture photographers. Sometimes I miss the sharpness, extra contrast and rich color that you got from looking at a Velvia transparency. Despite all the good things about digital,  matching the look of Velvia is not an easy thing to do most of the time.
Today I shoot everything with a high end, high megapixel camera. I have it set to capture in what they call "raw". This is the image in an unprocessed state. Shooting in raw will give you color and contrast that is dull compared to what you saw and photographed. Many things may need to be adjusted until this image looks the way you remembered it. However, who says it has to look exactly how you remembered it. Neither film nor digital have ever recorded things exactly as we saw them anyway.

 

 The top image was taken last November on Orange Beach in Alabama. This is how the raw file looks in Adobe Bridge before any type of adjustments have been made. This image is surprisingly dull considering it was about five minutes before sunset and the sun had just popped out from behind the clouds. The light was about as sweet as it gets. Its also has not had any sharpening applied to it.

This second image was processed back in November not long after it was taken. Many adjustments were made with the raw converter in bridge. The image was then opened in Photoshop where some final adjustments were made. The last thing I do is sharpen the image. It may seem strange that it needs to be sharpened. I have a $7,000 camera body with a $1,200 lens attached. I have a very steady tripod and use good technique to create the sharpest image possible. However, this is one of those little things about digital that most people don't realize.

The other day I felt compelled to fiddle with this image a little more. Originally I had opened up the shadows some which is probably closer to the way our eyes see it. However, darkening the shadows and kicking up the contrast brings out more color and accentuates the shapes of the dunes. It dawned on me that this is close the way a perfectly exposed Velvia transparency would have looked. Next time I print "Orange Beach Sunset" I am going with this version unless someone talks me out of it.

The Eisemann Center!

I went over to the Eisemann Center in Richardson yesterday evening. It looked like a chance of some clouds and color in the sky for sunset. About 25 minutes after sunset the clouds off to the west pinked up and I was able to get them reflected in the front glass of the center. Just inside the entrance they have some lighted sculpture things high up on the walls. Kinda cool! I had about five minutes to shoot inside before they locked the doors for the night. I also wanted to photograph the dancing water that is across the street and have the Eisemann Center behind it. A red car was parked between the two while I was there. I guess I will get that shot next time.