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.