KENS5 Station

Today's photo is a shot of the building housing local CBS television station KENS5. The station is located near the Denman Estate Park Korean Pavilion, and I have wanted to get back up and take some photos of the building for quite some time. I don't know exactly why I think it is interesting, I think it is the giant "ball" on the back that I find intriguing. I have no idea exactly what the ball is for (my guess is something to do with the weather radar, as there are large satellite dishes located just outside of the building itself) but I thought capturing it at the exact angle that I was thinking of would end up making a regular looking building pretty neat.

I used different brackets for the flags in this shot, I actually ended up using bracket for each of the flags, then I used Photoshop and Viveza to blend the layers together to try to make as seamless a shot as possible. I was not able to get the coloring of the Texas flag or the KENS flag perfect, so I ended up making the red color stand about a bit more so if I didn't explain what I did, you would probably think the American flag was the oldest out of the three flags.

KENS5 Station

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Alien world

Today's photo is another macro shot from the San Antonio Botanical Garden. I cannot remember the exact type of flower that this is, but I thought it looked really interesting with the water and the little green bugs crawling around on it. I tweaked the coloring in Color Efex Pro to make it appear just a tad more surreal than it really was.

Alien World

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Welcome... to Jurassic Park!

After posting another photo from Universal Studios in Orlando last week (in honor of the finale of the Harry Potter film series) I decided to process another photo that I took while visiting Islands of Adventure. This shot is just outside of the Jurassic Park area, and was created to mimic the entrance to the park as seen in the original film. I actually went back to look at the original movie clip for this shot and tried to make it as close as possible, including the VERY bright red lettering. These gates are not as tall (or as wide) as the ones in the film, so I slightly skewed the perspective to make the gates appear a little taller than they actually are as well.

Welcome... to Jurassic Park!

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Hogwarts

Today's photo is in honor of the final movie in the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2. This is another shot that I took while visiting Universal Studios' Islands of Adventure in Orlando, Florida. The primary draw of the park is currently the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, which is a recreation of the Harry Potter world for visitors to the park to experience. The centerpiece is a massive recreation of Hogwarts, and you can see the peaks of Hogwarts from most places in the park. I also included two older photos of Hogwarts, from different vantage points, that I took during our trip.

Hogwarts

Hogwarts Side Day

Hogwarts Side Night

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Riverwalk Waterfalls

This weekend I woke up early (well, early than normal on a weekend) and since the sky was mostly cloudy decided to head downtown to see what kind of pictures I could get. Because it was early a majority of the pictures I took I did not have to fight massive tourist crowds, which was a nice change.

This shot is just outside of the Hyatt Riverwalk, looking to the East (in fact, if the wall and steps were not there, you would see the Alamo in the upper left portion of the shot. I used a 64x filter on this shot to smooth out the water, but doing this also allowed me the chance to shoot longer exposures so I have more pronounced sunbeams than if I had taken just a normal photo. I debated on taking out some of the reflection, but ultimately decided to keep it as I think it enhances the overall photo.

Riverwalk Waterfalls

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Enterprise

Today's shot is another photo that I took at the Udvar-Hazy Center back in June, with the subject of this shot being the space shuttle Enterprise. The Enterprise is one of the primary attractions at the center (along with the SR-71 and the B-29 "Enola Gay") and trying to get the "perfect" shot is a lesson in patience, to say the least. This marked my first weekend visit, unfortunately it was also a special day that invited children to get into the aviation career, so it was much more crowded than usual. After wrapping the Gorillapod around a railing I had to wait about 45 minutes to try to get a series of bracketed shots that would not be interrupted by people walking through the field of view. A museum tour group (which can be seen on the right, near the wing of the shuttle) blocked a majority of people walking through and I finally had my chance to get a series of shots. I actually ended up being able to get three sets total, but I think this one came out the best of the three.

I made the white tiles of the shuttle a little brighter (and whiter) than they really were and I also used a combination of the original shots to minimize the motion blur from people in the scene as much as possible.

The Enterprise is eventually going to end up at the Intrepid Museum in New York and the Enterprise will be replaced by Discovery. I am not sure if I am going to have a chance to visit the Center again before that happens, so the shots that I was able to take in June may end up being my personal last photos of the Enterprise before she finds a new home in New York City.

Enterprise

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MiG-21

Today's photo is of a MiG-21 "Fishbed C" that is on display at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum's Udvar-Hazy Center near Chantilly, Virginia. This shot was entirely made possible thanks to my purchase of a Gorillapod shortly before my most recent trip, which allowed me to wrap the legs around the railing to take this shot.

In post processing I selected everything except the plane (and the missile/rocket in the foreground)(I didn't have a chance to see what it was because there were several Air Force recruiting tables set up in front of the railing on that side which blocked the display), and added a touch of blurring and desaturation to make the MiG stand out a bit more from the rest of the exhibits. You can read more about the aircraft at the official Air and Space Museum site, located here.

MiG-21 "Fishbed C"

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Hoth Wampa Cave

Today's photo is another macro Lego Star Wars shot, this one being Set 8089, the Hoth Wampa Cave. The shot recreates the scene from The Empire Strikes Back where Luke is struggling to reach his lightsaber as the Wampa approaches. Luke is ultimately able to channel the Force as the lightsaber flies into his hand, allowing him to free himself from the ice, slice one of the Wampa's arms off, and escape into the frigid cold wasteland of the planet Hoth (I would put spoiler alert at the beginning of that, but I am pretty sure everyone that reads this post has already seen this scene and knows what happens. If this is the very first time you have been exposed to it, SPOILER ALERT!)

The shot was fairly straight forward, with tissues creating the white foreground and background, with an LED flashlight lighting the left side of the Wampa behind the "ice". I took the shot at f/3.5 to give the background a little less focus, but the ultimate snow effect of this shot was something that I picked up from being a member of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (primarily to get the Photoshop User magazine). One of the tips on the site for creating a snow effect was to visit the Obsidian Dawn website (www.obsidiandawn.com) and download one of the snow brushes. After creating two layers with different size and density "snow", I added some blurring, then some motion blur to create the overall effect.

I am totally thrilled with how the shot came out and it is by far my favorite Lego Star Wars shot to date. I still have some other sets that I have put together to shoot in the near future, but this is the kind of shot that I was hoping for when I first decided to try to build, and then shoot, Lego Star Wars sets.

Hoth Wampa Cave

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Behind Home Plate

Today's photo is another shot that I took during the tour of Oriole Park at Camden Yards, this one from directly behind home plate. I took this shot just after we got to sit in the Orioles dugout and learn a little bit about the park (and the two orange seats, one to mark a Cal Ripken home run, the other to mark an Eddie Murray home run)(if you click on the photo to make it larger you can see the seats in left center and right center, respectively). The tour guide was great and the tour was really interesting, I know I said it in my previous post but I highly recommend taking the tour if you visit the Baltimore area and are able to set aside time for it.

Behind Home Plate

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NASA Vehicle Assembly Building

The subject of this shot is the massive Vehicle Assembly Building that stores spacecraft during their final preparations before transport out to the launch pads. Although it does not look like it (as there is nothing around the building for perspective), the building is 50 stories high. Massive doors on the side can open and close, depending on the spacecraft being prepared (the Saturn V for example had just a few feet of clearance between the top of the building, while the space shuttle is about half that height). Unfortunately it looks like I will not be able to see a shuttle launch but I am hopeful to try to view a rocket launch at some point and hopefully will get a chance to visit Kennedy Space Center again in a few years when the next steps are taken toward U.S. based manned space flight.

Vehicle Assembly Building

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