Opening Weekend At Oriole Park At Camden Yards

Today's photo is a picture that I took all the way back during the Orioles Opening Weekend against the Minnesota Twins.  I purchased season tickets this year and got to enjoy an incredible season that has the Orioles making the playoffs for the first time since 1997!  I also had the good fortune during the game yesterday (which was J.J. Hardy bobblehead day, as a part of Fan Appreciation) to catch J.J. Hardy's 22nd home run, despite being hit hard enough, by someone behind me, that my sunglasses flew off (which is what I am reaching down for in the video after making the catch). If you would like to see the video, you can watch the highlight on the MLB website. I also posted the photo of me posing with the ball and the J.J. Hardy bobblehead to my Facebook and Google+ page if you would like to view them.

I took this shot from the top level of the stadium, directly behing home plate.  I used a different format than usual for creating this image, rather than relying on Photomatix for the HDR process I manually combined a regular, an under exposed, and an over exposed shot that I took from this vantage point.  I used some masking to make the crowd a bit brighter, the field a bit darker, the scoreboards a bit easier to read, and the buildings a bit brighter.  I could not get exactly what I wanted using the program, so I decided to do it myself.  I also added some of the Nik Color Efex Pro effects to the final shot.

It has been an incredible season so far, and it is not over yet! I hope you enjoy this photo (and the small story about my fortunate catch yesterday) and hopefully I get a chance to get some great postseason photos too!

Opening Weekend At Oriole Park At Camden Yards

Please feel free to click on the photo above to view it in various sizes.  Clicking on the photo also takes you to my online gallery, hosted over at smugmug, where you can browse this (and other) photos that I have posted.  If you enjoyed viewing this photo, please take a moment and leave comments and/or feedback.  Please also feel free to pass the link of this photo on to others if you so desire.  Thanks for stopping by!!