Trio of shots from Ft. McHenry

I took these shots yesterday after visiting Ft. McHenry for the first time. I would estimate the Fort itself is about two miles from the Inner Harbor, but if you have never visited I would highly recommend it. While I was talking with the park volunteers yesterday I learned that the visitors center (which I thought looked pretty new) had just opened this week, but the "official" ceremony will not be until March, when the park resumes normal operations. I learned quite a bit about the site in my discussions with the volunteers and some of the knowledge I will share about the photos below.

The first shot is one room of the Artillery Corps Enlisted quarters. Up to 16 soldiers called the room "home". With the exception of the hardened walls, the interior actually doesn't look that dissimilar from the tents and connexes that service members reside in while deployed overseas. You have a small bed, a small area for personal items, a place for your weapon, and that is about it. What stood out to me in this photo was the name of one of the enlisted men on the foot of one of the beds and the inclusion of military artifacts from the era (muskets, canteens, etc). You can view the photo up to X3 by clicking on it and try to find more details that I did not discuss. If you find something of interest, please leave a comment below or on the photo in my smugmug gallery! (That always applies for any of my photos, getting feedback on any shot is very much appreciated!)

The second and third shots are "powder rooms" located within the complex. The first photo is of one of the above-ground storage areas. Once again, there are several aspects of this photo and details that you can best view by choosing the X3 viewing option, but two that I wanted to point out is the date on the powder kegs and the roof. The date is from 1814, the year of the attempted attack on the fort that made this location famous. The authenticity of the entire site is pretty amazing, while they do have modern touches for the convenience of guests, it still feels as if you are stepping back in time to what it was like to be at the Fort nearly 200 years ago. The second portion is the roof. During the battle which led to Francis Scott Key composing what would become our National Anthem, a cannon ball from a British ship landed a direct hit, crashing through the roof and landing in the middle of the room. For some reason, be it the cannon ball was a dud or if there was an issue with the fuse, it did not explode. Had it exploded, it is possible that the outcome of the battle would have been quite different. The actual cannon ball itself is located directly outside of the building among several cannons from the era. With regards to the photo itself, the sun was directly behind the building so it was difficult to get the lighting exactly how I wanted it. I was able to make some minor modifications using Viveza to over/under expose certain areas via control points. If you have been reading my blog and keeping up with my posts you know that I have a very special place in my heart for the Nik Software products, the "Control Points" that allow you to tweak small areas of the photo is such an amazing feature to have in a photo editing tool!

The third photo is my favorite picture that I took yesterday, it is of another powder room, except this one is located underground just outside of the walls of the Fort. I mentioned the date on the kegs in the last photo, the date on these kegs are from 1864. The room is protected by a locked wooden door. To get this shot I placed the camera on the tripod with the legs unextended so the overall height was approximately 18" from the ground. I did my best to focus on the powder kegs while retaining some focus on the wooden bars in the door so they were not completely out of focus. I must have taken over 30 shots from this vantage point making minor tweaks to the aperture, length of exposure, and focus point trying to get the shot exactly perfect. Out of all the photos I took yesterday of the Baltimore Basilica, the Mount Vernon Place United Methodist Church, and Fort McHenry, this is by far my favorite shot.

Fort McHenry Artillery Corps Enlisted Quarters

Above-ground powder room at Fort McHenry

Underground powder room at Fort McHenry

Frigid water dragons

I took this shot near the USS Constellation in Baltimore's Inner Harbor yesterday. The temperature was right around freezing and there was a good bit of wind which made it feel colder than it was, thus my calling the water dragons "frigid". You can see some of the traditional paddle boats in this shot, I think that they are open for public rental during warmer weather. If I had wanted to rent one I wouldn't have been able to as the small shop itself was closed.

I didn't do much to this shot, the colors of the dragons are very bright, I actually slightly desaturated the picture to make it look a little less vivid. I think it was pretty interesting despite the cold weather the paddle boats remained in the water. If I owned them I would be concerned with them freezing cracking but perhaps they are made out of some material that is fairly resistant to harsh weather.

I hope you enjoy the photo!

Frigid water dragons

National Cathedral

On my last trip to DC I was able to get a shot of St. Matthews Cathedral in downtown Washington DC, which I had considered the best photo I have taken thus far in my short HDR photography career. Well, I think that has been bested by this shot. I think it is a combination of the lighting, colors, and of course, the 17-40 L lens (which helped capture all of the details). Another feature that I think makes this shot is the vantage point.

I arrived and took some shots from the floor when I noticed a balcony one level up. I asked one of the volunteers if it was possible to take some shots from there and she said it is not open except for special occasions, but there was a tour that was in the process of leaving that went up there if I hurried and join that. I jumped at the chance and went on the tour, which lasted about an hour and a half. Our tour guide was very knowledgeable and I learned quite a bit about the cathedral, but to be 100% honest I joined the tour just so I could get a shot from a higher vantage point. The cathedral itself is built off center, so although this shot is lined up to the center of the back of the cathedral, you can clearly tell that the "center" moves as you get closer to the camera. The tour guide said that this was because the architects wanted to make the view "interesting".

The tour also went up one more level to a very narrow balcony, unfortunately there was not enough room to get up my tripod and get a shot from there. If the tour had been the tour guide and myself there may have been enough room, but with a group of about seven people or so our group took up almost the entire length of the balcony.

I hope you enjoy this shot, I surely do (in fact, it is the first photo to replace St. Matthews as my desktop wallpaper!). Which shot do you like more, this one or the one from St. Matthews, and why? Feel free to leave comments in the comments section below or my smugmug online gallery, which you can reach by clicking on the tab near the top of the page.

As always, click on the photo to see it from sizes ranging from small to X3!

National Cathedral

Baltimore from across the Inner Harbor

This shot of the Baltimore skyline was once again stitched together using Photomerge in CS5. I couldn't really capture everything that I wanted from just one shot, so I took a few and put them all together. I don't know the names all of the buildings that are visible in this shot (the Aquarium is the building with the neon blue wave, and the Baltimore World Trade Center is the tall tan building located just to the left of it) but the rest I am not quite sure of.

After enjoying a delicious meal at Fogo de Chao we walked around the Inner Harbor for a little bit. During the walk I noticed a large flag on a hill that was pretty illuminated and I thought it at first it was Fort McHenry (turns out it wasn't, as that is located much farther to the east), so I drove around the Inner Harbor to try to find the location. I drove past the hill and pulled into a small parking area, which turns out led directly to the water front and made for such a good vantage point that I didn't even bother trying to get up to the hill at all. I think this was a series of 5 shots that Photomerge used to create the scene (I am not 100% positive because I actually did the first processing of the shot two nights ago, and worked on it yesterday to get ready for posting it today).

I am sure there are other areas and views that are better overall in Baltimore, but with the results after processing and the vantage point, I think this makes for a very good photo overall.

I used Topaz Labs InFocus product to help "sharpen" the image a bit, in some areas the product is very good, while in others it is a bit lacking (sometimes it tries to sharpen large areas such as the night sky for no apparent reason). But I think it enhanced the quality of this photo so I used it on top of my other processing tools. I hope you enjoy it! (Once again, I know it bleeds a little into the next column. I think I am going to do that for all of my panoramic shots I post.)

Baltimore across the Inner Harbor

Christmas tree at Power Plant in Baltimore

This shot is the first that I have processed from a 10-ish day vacation in the Baltimore/Washington DC area. I took a few shots around Fells Point (it wasn't that bad, but the wind blowing off the water made it feel a lot colder than it really was) and a pretty nice skyline shot I have to work on, but I liked this one the most, thus I processed it first.

It kind of fits the Christmas theme on several of the pictures I have posted so far, honestly I think this tree looks nicer than the one at Alamo Plaza. This area is located a block from the Inner Harbor, and if I recall correctly a pretty popular night spot on weekends. I am not from here and am not totally familiar with all of the restaurants and bars visible in the shot, but I don't have to know exactly what is in the shot, I just know that I like the way the shot came out.

Christmas tree at Power Plant in Baltimore