Tag Archives: landscape

Morning in Rome

Posted by Mike on

Delta Lake Dam & Bellamy Harbor
Rome, NY

This was going to be the morning when I realized my sunrise concept from last weekend.  I allowed myself to sleep in a little so as not to get to the dam too early.  There were some clouds starting to move in so my hopes were high.  The first image is the one I envisioned.  The sun is far enough North to almost rise over the Delta Lake dam.  What I discovered after grabbing this image is that the viewing angle is too low.  There is more color and drama in the sky behind the dam, closer to the horizon.  I wasn’t about to climb a tree to get a better view.

I didn’t let it discourage me!  I packed up my camera and headed down to Bellamy Park in the South of Rome.  Every morning as I drive over the barge canal bridge on my way out of Rome I get a great view of the canal and the park as the sun is throwing color into the sky.  I was hoping I could get there before the sun crested the trees.

The first image is a single shot with my wide angle lens.  I was able to capture the kayak launch, the park and the view East along the barge canal.  And then I had another idea.  I rotated the camera into a portrait orientation and grabbed five images encompassing about 150 degrees of viewing angle.  This would be a very cool panoramic view.  This allowed me to bring the Mohawk River with the pedestrian bridge into the same view with Bellamy Park and the barge canal.

The last image is my pano.  When setting up to capture your images for a panoramic you have to remember to set your camera to manual mode.  You do not want the camera refocusing or adjusting the settings while you grab each image.  Once I had all five images it was an easy process job using Photoshop to merge them into my final image.

All in all I had a great morning at both ends of Rome, NY.  I even managed to be back home by 6:30am so I could start my laundry.  I know, not very exciting, but at least I can process images while the washing machine does all the work.  Now I have to get those clothes out on the line to dry…  🙂

 

MLCreations Photography: Landscapes &emdash; Dam Morning

Dam Morning
Olympus OM-D E-M1, M. Zuiko 12-40mm f/2.8, 3.2s, 16mm, f/16, ISO 200

 

MLCreations Photography: Landscapes &emdash; Bellamy Park

Bellamy Park
Olympus OM-D E-M1, M. Zuiko 12-40mm f/2.8, 1/40s, 14mm, f/16, ISO 200

 

MLCreations Photography: Landscapes &emdash; Mohawk Meets Barge Canal

Mohawk Meets Barge Canal
Olympus OM-D E-M1, M. Zuiko 12-40mm f/2.8, 1/40s, 14mm, f/16, ISO 200

Easing Into the Night

Posted by Mike on

Wordless Wednesday
Delta Lake State Park

 

MLCreations Photography: Blog Post Related &emdash; Easing into the Night

Easing Into the Night
Olympus OM-D E-M1, M. Zuiko 40-150mm f/4-5.6, 1/125s, 40mm, f/16, ISO 200

Little Cascade

Posted by Mike on

Pixley Falls State Park

 

MLCreations Photography: Pixley Falls &emdash; Little Cascade

Little Cascade
Olympus OM-D E-M1, M. Zuiko 12-40mm f/2.8, 3.2s, 17mm, f/16, ISO 200

Low Flow

Posted by Mike on

Buttermilk Falls State Park

 

MLCreations Photography: Buttermilk Falls &emdash; Low Flow

Low Flow
Olympus OM-D E-M1, M. Zuiko 12-40mm f/2.8, 5s, 15mm, f/16, ISO 200

Highlights

Posted by Mike on

Delta Lake State Park

Yesterday was a short work day.  My company offers summer hours which allows us to work four, nine hour days and then only have to work four hours on Friday.  With this being a long weekend, and it was a very long week for me in which I had unintentionally worked nine-plus hours all week, I allowed myself to take advantage of the summer hours offer.  It isn’t something I regularly participate in but I needed it this week.

Of course, I never did mention to Mother Nature that this was my plan so she decided to hit us with a little rain in the afternoon.  It was OK with me though, I did some reading and I am not afraid to say I took a cat nap too!  By the time dinner rolled around I was ready to go again.

We actually had a tornado watch in affect most of the evening up until 9:30pm.  As far as I know a tornado never did make an appearance.  With me being the adventurous kind (not really) I decided to catch the sunset but chose to stay close to home for my exploration.  I drove to Delta Lake State Park as the clouds started to roll in.  The earlier rain had basically cleared the beach area and I found I had the sunset to myself.  I was running back and forth along the beach capturing images for over an hour.  It was a good way to end my work week!

I found an interesting composition which included a small, water filled depression in the sand.  I aligned myself with this small water pool and the setting sun which created a very nice line of highlights.  By including the sun I had to be careful about lens flare and as you can see in the first image I wasn’t able to remove it all with camera orientation.  I ended up using my ‘finger blocking the sun’ trick to get a second image without the flare and used Photoshop to combine the two images.

After processing the image I felt there was empty space on the left which was not adding anything to the composition.  I regretted not turning the camera into a portrait orientation while I was at the beach.  It is a practice I typically follow but in my enthusiasm over the empty beach I forgot.  I decided I still liked this image but needed to change the orientation through a drastic crop in Photoshop.  I basically threw away over a third of the pixels I had captured but the end result is the image I wanted to have.

 

MLCreations Photography: Blog Post Related &emdash; Highlights-1

Highlights – Start
Olympus OM-D E-M1, M. Zuiko 12-40mm f/2.8, 1/8s, 12mm, f/16, ISO 200

 

MLCreations Photography: Blog Post Related &emdash; Highlights

Highlights
Olympus OM-D E-M1, M. Zuiko 12-40mm f/2.8, 1/8s, 12mm, f/16, ISO 200