Sunny Florida at f/11 project #02 - Downtown St Petersburg

Downtown St Petersburg is not exactly Manhattan, but then again I would not want it to be.

Finally the "Sunny Florida at f/11" project continues.  When I was visualizing this photograph, I thought the large cloud above really dwarfed downtown St. Petersburg's minimal skyscrapers.  It seemed almost like some large, natural mothership looking down upon lesser, artificial creations.  So I composed the shot with the buildings very low in the frame to stress the largeness of the cloud even more.  

Also, a first:  using Photoshop's "lens correct" filter.  This made all the buildings stand up straight, not just the one in the dead center.  To apply this filter in Photoshop CS4:  FILTER --> DISTORT --> LENS CORRECTION  Then use the Vertical Perspective slider toward the bottom until all the buildings stand up straight.  Thanks to Ken for first explaining this tip.

In my mind I want the next photograph in this series to be of palm trees along the beach, a more traditional Florida landscape.  I will see what I can find.  If you have any tips for a location like this in the St. Petersburg/Clearwater areas, please let me know in the comments below.

Unedited Series 01 - Yurakucho Lantern

No post editing done on this jpg of a Yurakucho lantern in Tokyo Japan

I have said several times lately to some of my DSLR Photography Lesson students that I edit every single one of my photographs, that I never post any online without at least some editing, and that post-processing can be up to 50% of the process of producing the final photograph.  Then earlier today I was talking with Bob Kroll, a photographer far more experienced than I, about how just even a little over one year ago my post-processing workflow was embarrassingly simplistic.  

So this gave me an idea for a new series of posts called "Unedited."  By unedited I mean a jpg straight out of my Nikon D300, with no post-processing done outside of the camera in any photo editing application, not even any cropping.

The debut image for the Unedited series is a shot I made back in February of 2009 after meeting with great Tokyo-based photographer Alfie Goodrich.  We had met at the Foreign Correspondents Club which is in the very photographic Yurakucho area of Tokyo.  Alfie has photographed a lot there himself.  The lantern in the above shot does not have any deep spiritual meaning or anything like that, it is merely a small restaurant's sign.  Looks much more impressive than some rectangular corporate signage doesn't it?  

Could this image be improved with some editing?  Sure.  The reds might be toned down a bit and maybe some shadow detail pulled out.  A little sharpening might help define the kanji characters as well.  However, I am satisfied with the results I got just from the jpg, and at least for me personally, this photograph is a nice reminder of a well spent day with another photographer during my time in Tokyo.

SHOT DATA:

• Nikon D300 
• Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D
• aperture:  f/2.8
• shutter speed:  1/250
• iso:  800
• handheld

Kosodate-zizou and pinwheel

A kosodate-zizou statue staying cool with its own pinwheel fan

 The temples and shrines of Japan are full of a wide variety of photography opportunities.  On this particular occasion, the whirring pinwheel caught my eye.  I did not have a tripod with me, but I thought the pinwheel might be spinning fast enough that I could handhold a shot and capture it in motion blur beside the very still statue.  

The statue is called a kosodate-zizou, and they are for the well wishes of a newborn child.  They are adorned with various hats and scarves.  I had never seen a statue "dressed up" before going to Japan.  Something about it is just very curious to me and causes my brain to have to think on the paradox of putting soft material on a hard statue.  Somehow it seems to be a very compassionate thing to do, like, just because the statue is made of stone does not mean its head does not get chilly from time to time.  

After work contemplation

Staying away from the crowds, just my style too.

While I was photographing an event, I noticed the man pictured above looking out over the Bank of America Tower's expansive lobby.  The work day was finished and a social gathering was just behind him, but he took his drink over to that balcony and chose to stare off into space instead.  I was really interested to know what he was thinking and why he was off by himself.  

The yellow tones are natural as the large windows of the building's lobby were being flooded with late afternoon Florida sunshine.

Which type are you?  The go off by yourself to do a little thinking type, or the type that would be in the middle of all the after work socializing?

Bank of America Tower St. Petersburg Florida

The tallest building in St. Petersburg, Florida - Bank of America TowerI photographed an event in Bank of America Tower in downtown Saint Petersburg last week.  At the time I did not know it was the tallest building around.  Having lived in Tokyo though, it is not exactly a tower to me.  The inside is actually more impressive than the outside.  I really liked the late afternoon light filtering through the glass-walled lobby.  I have a shot of that I will put in a future Photo Story post.

For post processing on this shot I did my most advanced cloning work yet.  There was a street lamp right in the middle of the lower building.  Can you tell where?  I also used one of Aperture 3's new brushes, the dodge brush, to lighten up the building's face.  

I like doing architecture photography, but do not often make the time for it.  

At long last a wood stork at Kapok Park

This wood stork flew conveniently right over to my side of the pond! Thank you Mr. Stork!One bird I have been trying to photograph ever since moving back to Florida one year ago is the wood stork.  I have seen them many times, but have never been in a good position or circumstances to photograph one.  That was until I joined the NPPF meetup group on a Sunday morning photowalk to Kapok Park.  

New photo friend Marc was also there, and he happens to be a Nikon shooter as well.  He had let me borrow his Nikon 2x teleconverter, but it did not work with my somewhat older Nikkor AF ED 80-200mm f/2.8D lens.  So he very generously offered to let me use his Nikkor AF-S 70-200mm f2.8G lens which works perfectly with the 2x teleconverter!  On my Nikon D300, this gave me an effective focal length of 600mm!  However, I can tell you I quickly found 600mm to not even be enough.  So if you do drop $10,000 on Nikon's 600mm lens, you still may not be satisfied.  

Marc's generosity did not end there though.  The wood stork was on the far side of the pond from me when I first spotted it.  It would have taken me a good 10 minutes to walk all the way around the pond over to the sandy bank it was on.  I saw Marc just a few dozen meters from the wood stork and waving at me.  He had spotted it first and was going to have the best chance to shoot it . . . until he startled it over to RIGHT in front of me on the far bank!  What a pal.  

I never had a totally clear shot, as reeds and tall grass were in the way from my position on the boardwalk, but nonetheless I was finally glad to be able to make a shot of a wood stork.  Thanks Marc!

Sitting Pelican at Vinoy Park

One day I will photograph a pelican like this just skimming the water's surface.

I have stated before in another blog post my desire to photograph a pelican just skimming over the water, and how after a few attempts I am yet to be successful.  Well, I was not even close with this shot of course, but I could not pass up a chance to photograph such a friendly and accomodating bird.  Actually, I was not the only one to photograph her/him.  Kelley during our first DSLR Photography Lesson did too.

To me a pelican is a SUV of a bird.  It's a rather large bird, can hold a lot of stuff in its billowing bag of lower jaw skin, can dive and crash into water in a nose dive unscathed, and they are all over the place.  Since they are always around and not really afraid of people, you get the impression you could just go up to one and hug it, though I have never actually tried.  

If you want to find one when you visit Florida, just head to any fishing pier.