Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center

Just as a reminder, I will be showing at First Friday (which actually runs Thursday and Friday!). For more details, please visit yesterday's post!

Today's photo is a night shot of the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center, located in downtown San Antonio. I took this shot on a Friday night, but there were not many people in this section of the Riverwalk at the time (you can see a few at the restaurant outside of the Grand Hyatt in the lower left portion of the photo). I ended up using quite a bit more Silver Efex Pro 2 for the blending to make the colors appear more natural and I also used the force prospective on the DxO Optics Pro 6 software to make the buildings appear vertical (I think the angle that I took the shot from was very unflattering to the buildings and I wanted to fix it before processing this shot).

Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center

If you are so inclined, please feel free to leave any comments or feedback. Also remember that clicking on the photo takes you to my online gallery hosted over at smugmug where you can view this (and my other photos) in various sizes. If you enjoyed this post, please take the time to pass my post(s) on to others whom you also feel would enjoy my work. Thanks for stopping by!

April 2011 First Friday Showing!

I am once again incredibly fortunate and am VERY happy to announce that some of my work is going to be on display at 121 Blue Star Number 5 Studio Loft as part of the April's First Friday! Juan was nice enough to again invite me to show some of my work and it will be on display both Thursday and Friday night. If you are in the area please feel free to drop by and visit as many of the displays as possible. First Friday is ALWAYS a great time. Hope to see you there!

Cut The Red Wire!

Today's photo was taken along the San Antonio River near the Blue Star Complex. The photo is the backside of one of the silos on the grounds of the former "Big Tex Grain Company", which a quick Google search informed me that Alamo Architects is planning to turn the site into an eventual housing area (likely in the same fashion as Judson's Candy Factory). While the plans for the new site look pretty appealing, what is left of the grain company appears to have several photo opportunities that I am hopefully going to be able to shoot before the structure is destroyed. Although, the "Destruction" series (as I like to call it) recently published by Toad Hollow Photography shows that a demolition can make for pretty interesting photo opportunities too!

Cut The Red Wire!

If you are so inclined, please feel free to leave any comments or feedback. Also remember that clicking on the photo takes you to my online gallery hosted over at smugmug where you can view this (and my other photos) in various sizes. If you enjoyed this post, please take the time to pass my post(s) on to others whom you also feel would enjoy my work. Thanks for stopping by!

Yard Invader!

Today's photo is a closeup that I took yesterday of a dandelion while wandering around the house with my macro zoom lens. I learned through trial and error that the lens that I have (the Tamron 28-300) is not very good at focusing up close for macro shots. The minimum focus distance seems to be about 2 feet, rather than the (spec sheet) 19.3". While that does not make a huge difference for stationary objects (like this) getting extreme close-ups of bugs is going to prove difficult with this lens. So it looks like I will be in the market for a new macro lens in the near future!

Back to the photo, I added some extra bokeh using Bokeh 2 and tweaked the colors quite a bit of the dandelion and seedlings with Nik Color Efex Pro 3 to try to highlight the different subtle nuances of the weed. I also chose to blur the extreme edges of the dandelion to bring more of the focus to the center (and in my opinion the more impressive looking!) portion of the photo.

Yard Invader!

If you are so inclined, please feel free to leave any comments or feedback. Also remember that clicking on the photo takes you to my online gallery hosted over at smugmug where you can view this (and my other photos) in various sizes. If you enjoyed this post, please take the time to pass my post(s) on to others whom you also feel would enjoy my work. Thanks for stopping by!

Gwangju Korean Pavilion

Today's photo is another shot of the Gwangju Korean Pavilion, taken from a vantage point between the trees and path so you can see both the pavilion and the gate (I would like to also get a shot with the headstone as well but I think I am going to need a fisheye lens for that). I really like how calm and tranquil the park is and I still find it hard to believe it is so close to the hustle and bustle that is I-10 and Loop 410 here in San Antonio. Every time I visit the park it feels like I have been transported to another country. It is truly one of the most unique attractions that I have come across in San Antonio!

For processing I added the border and added a touch of the vignetting via Silver Efex Pro 2. I also used the blur tool set to 50% to help de-emphasize the sides a bit and draw more of the focus to the center of the shot.

Gwangju Korean Pavilion

If you are so inclined, please feel free to leave any comments or feedback. Also remember that clicking on the photo takes you to my online gallery hosted over at smugmug where you can view this (and my other photos) in various sizes. If you enjoyed this post, please take the time to pass my post(s) on to others whom you also feel would enjoy my work. Thanks for stopping by!