Howdy everybody!

Well, I do have a few new tutorials I’m going to get finished soon (I hope.) But, as usual, I’ve been getting distracted by – taking more pictures. You know, its awful hard to get things done around here sometimes!

Anyway, this past weekend I braved the rainy weather and made a short trip back to one of my favorite little parks – Freemans Mill, located in Gwinnett County, Georgia.. It was actually cool today, and the mist made for some very nice images. The biggest challenge was keeping the equipment dry while taking photographs.

I hope to have a few images from this trip for sale in my gallery soon. Until then, enjoy the image below!

Ok, maybe not exactly faking a sunny day. And when I took this series of photographs up at Hurricane Shoals park in Jackson county Georgia, was I really thinking about making them look like its sunny and pleasant outside. Because actually it was rainy, dreary, cold, damp and generally awful outside.

After being faced with another excruciatingly rainy and cold weekend here in North Georgia I decided I was going to take some photographs damn it, even if I had to dodge rain and try to keep my hands from freezing. Some of my photographer friends just hang up their hats when we are at the apex of nasty, cold, rainy and dreary Georgia weather. Which normally runs off and on from late November thru early March.

Myself, I go nuts. I need to take photographs, even if they all suck and I throw them all in my virtual trash can. I still think I learn from doing it. And I can sometimes pick up a few tricks that let me shoot in our nasty winter weather. Thats how I pulled off this trick.

Ok, here is the situation for this particular shoot. Now, I have to say I cheated a little here in regards to being to avoid people in the shot. This is a very popular county park, and if you see this post, you can see what I was dealing with in the past. Soooo….. first it was cold, no one is going to get in a cold river and two, the park was closed that day. So yeah, I’d say I kind of took advantage of no one being around. Accept maybe a few other crazy folks just like me with their cameras. But, we knew how to stay out of each others way.

Fading North Georgia Limited prints for sale thru March.

I started off just playing around with my kit lens, which is pretty good on the Pentax line. Not doing it for me today though. With the rain we’ve been having lately the river is really swollen and I’m not going to get close enough to really get the impact I want with a kit lens. So, I break down and attach my trusty old 200mm manual. Much better, now I can focus in on various aspects of the river and rock features for what I really want to show.

So, here are some before and after shots.

Before:	After:
Hurricane Shoals -04 Before
Before:	After:
Hurricane Shoals -03 Before
Before:	After:
Hurricane Shoals -02 Before

Maybe I took the colors a bit on the extreme side. I don’t know, I sorta like the look.

How did I achieve this effect? Here are the basics.

• I created an HDR (high dynamic range) of the image.
• Open the HDR in my image editing software and apply a custom filter that emulates Fuji Velvia 50 slide film stock. This warms up the image quite a bit.
• Create some custom layers to lighten and darken portions of the image. This is to fake a  hint of directional light.

Thats about it. So, what do you think? Like it? Let me know about any techniques you use on days like this.

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In this weeks post I wanted to share with you more creative ways to take pictures in your own backyard. This time its about long exposure.

A few days ago I decided to brave the cold weather we’ve been enjoying in the south and take some pictures. I like taking pictures in my yard, its a place I’m familiar with, never fill rushed to get through and leave and its (of course) close to home.

I’ve been very fortunate to live with a stream nearby, and I like to walk down to it to clear my thoughts or look for interesting photos. We’ve also been having a lot of rain lately which has widened the stream and increased the water flow. I walked down along the stream below some of the larger rocks and spied a great place to try.

Fading North Georgia Limited prints for sale thru March.

- scroll to the end for a video about this shoot -

I’m sure a lot of you aren’t going to have a creek or stream handy so you can also try out a local park. Here is one I visit all the time.

Because I’m photographing water, long exposure makes sense for this shot. If you don’t know what that is, you basically leave the shutter open longer which causes moving parts of the image to blur and become softer. This how you get that silky look in a lot of water-centric photographs.

Here is one picture from the shoot

Things you would like to have with you for that type of shot are:

• Tripod
• Shutter release or a camera with a timer
• Neutral density filter

Check out my latest Photobook – “Parts” – see preview >

You’re going to need the tripod to have a steady shot. This is because the shutter is going to stay open longer than you can hold the camera still. The shutter release/timer is to also help keep the camera steady. Believe it or not, just pressing the shutter release can shake the camera enough to blur the image. The last thing, the neutral density filter works a lot like a set of sunglasses for your camera. It lets you keep the shutter open longer for a more dramatic effect.

Creek at 3:00 PM

And this is an exposure around 5:00 PM. Notice there are fewer hotspots. Also, the water is more silky.

Creek at home 5:00 PM

I’d love to hear from you about your creative backyard ideas too! Leave a comment with your thoughts.

The shoot – videoblog

(link for Google Reader users)

I just came back from a short trip over to the old bridge and mill spillway in Buford, Georgia. This spot is (I think) part of the Gwinnett Environmental& Heritage Center, or possibly Brogan park. I can’t really be sure.

Anyway, I attempted this spot early on a Saturday morning. Biggest problem, I hate getting up early… and I got there around 8:30 am. Sometimes I can get away with this lazy behavior with a ND filter. But, the biggest problem you will run into doing this at this spot is that the sun points directly in the barrel of the lens.

Buford Mill Spillway - too bright early in the morning

So you end up with something ugly and not very useful. Kind of like the photo to the left. And I was actually hiding behind a tree attempting to get a decent shot (silly me.)

Fortunatly I was able to talk my family into letting me come back later that day and try again. So, we packed up and drove back over around 4:oo pm.  Arriving around 4:35 pm. Just so you have an idea if you’re using something like Google Earth  to figure out the angle of the sun, this was in late November.

Another tip when getting there is if you’re coming down 85 south is to take the Georgia Mall exit but head to the Lawrenceville off-ramp, not the Mall ramp. When you get to the bottom of this ramp which is a tight cork-screw, you will see a little old gravel road that leads directly down to the old bridge. Jump off right there and park directly above the mill spillway. Now, I can’t endorse this being totally legal, I’ve done it a few times, and I know lots others that do as well. But, I can’t say whether the park frowns on it or not.

Buford Mill later in the day. Much better.

The shot I got later in the day was much better. Which turned out something like the photo to the right. See more natural and landscape photography.

Now, this photo is actually an HDR composite with some post-work to pull off the final image. Some other tips for this location is its really tricky to find a nice shot. Its a wide spillway, and if you don’t want to attempt to cross the water then look for a little island that should center you directly below the entire dam.

Another thing you will have to contend with is the junk. This spillway is below the mall and a major interstate. And as you might have guessed by now, lots of crap. Bottles, cans, tape, string, paper, bags… its a real mess. So, you are going to spend some time in post cleaning this crap out of the image.

Parts the automobile sim… By Mark Hewatt Book Preview

Check out my latest photobook, Parts at blurb.com

Finally, I played around a little more in post to come up with one more interesting image. The first image is what the orignal unprocessed photo looked like.

Buford Mill Spillway instructional - original

This is the second, tone-mapped image.

Buford Mill Spillway instructional - toned

And finally, the finished photograph with some added texture and depth-meddling.

Buford Mill Spillway instructional - finished composite

I hope this little list of ideas help you come with of your own neat ideas on how to take a very plain and average photo into something much more interesting.

Oh, hey this stuff is some of the first work I processed on my new laptop. Which is a Lenovo Thinkpad SL410 . Its a great little computer for those that can’t swing a macbook pro or, have a lot of dedicated PC software and programs. Its super-fast and has a nice display. Also, very sturdy and so far, very dependable.

Purchase photography from my gallery >>

I’m shocked, just shocked by my luck at Little Mullberry Park, located in Gwinnett county, Georgia.

Little Mullberry park sports these features:

• 890 acres
• 2 fish ponds
• play area
• hiking trails
• 2nd highest point in Gwinnett county
• nature preserve
• and… a 30ft waterfall

I’d read quite a few times on various hiking sites about a waterfall located in this park. And I’d never really made an effort to fully explore much of this park to substantiate this claim. Until this weekend.

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I got up early on a November morning, 38 degrees – plenty cool enough to keep my overweight self from dying of a heat stroke to get out this phantom falls and get off a couple shots. I arrived around 8 AM, and started walking down the main asphalt path from the eastern parking lot. Now, during this hunt I had no real idea where this thing was, and since its not really advertised I wasn’t sure which way to go.

So, I made the fateful mistake of going cross-county after walking about .5 miles into the forest, thinking hey if they don’t talk about this thing, it must be way back on a hiking trail. So, after huffing and steaming and almost going head-first down a ravine, I ended up at a slow-moving stream. And realized I was going to  have one hell of a time finding this elusive falls.

I clamored  back up the far side of the gully and had to stumble around a huge tree that had fallen. I then heard the flapping of wings and spotted a hawk perched on the top branch of this fallen tree. It was a very agreeable bird, allowing me to switch lens and squeeze off some photographs.

Right about then two hikers passed above me on the trail and I asked them about this so-called waterfall. My bird flew off then at the sound of us humans talking, drat! But, both of these hikers knew where the waterfall was, on a paved path – the one I had originally been on! Disgusted with my lack of patience, I thanked them and started back down the hiking path towards the trail head.

Walking back down this hiking trail I realized this park completely changed its character from a pedestrian walking park with a playground and fishing hole, to something more rugged and wild. There were little streams, boulders, dense pockets of trees and types of wildlife. I had taken a few photos along the path, but so far nothing I’m really happy with yet.

Whew! Ok, back to the paved path. The two hikers had explained to me that I should turn left once on the main trail and look for a sign that said “Caution, Steep Grade”. Steep grade? Here? And after being exhausted, sweating and blowing hard from hauling an extra 30 pounds of crap up and down through the woods and gullies in my quest for this secret spot?

And there it was, the sign! I stumbled towards it and looked up… the waterfall! And not some dinky little thing but a good 30 footer! With all the recent rainfall it was pouring water nicely, great for some long-exposure. I had to stumble down into the gulch that the fall poured into, getting myself soaked with ice cold water, but it was well worth it.

Ok, some details if you want to come and shoot this particular and unique waterfall in a county that has only a few really known locations (I happen to know of a couple more that are less known, but those are for another post.) First, stay on the main asphalt path if you park at the Fence Rd. entrance. I think  you want to stay on the Hog Mountain path and it will descend down to the falls. I can’t be exact on this  yet due to my overland journey.

Also, if you plan to shoot early, be in place by 9 AM -ish below the waterfall in the winter. The sun will still be below the top of the hillside and  you can expose longer. Wear boots, by golly I was cold in my walking shoes. In the fall the leaves will cover a lot of water making it look like solid ground, carry a stick and test it out first.

I have these prints for sale in my online gallery if  you would like to purchase one for your wall.

Gwinnett County Parks page.

Over the nice weekend went down to South Gwinnett and visited Yellow River Park. Its one of their newer parks that allows access down to the river, which is a great spot to try some long-exposure photography.

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I spent around an hour here, shooting 60 or so images. There are lots of great spots. One thing I would suggest is to wear solid shoes and apply a bit of bug spray, you are down in a river bottom. Also, show up around 4pm or later to get a decent angle on the sun and be able to expose your “film” longer.

The 500+ acre park is mostly wooded. Its a mixture of pine and hardwood with hiking trails throughout. The spot I visited had many large boulders and rocks that you can climb up on and take a look around.

You can visit the Gwinnett County parks page for more information.