Stone Structure

I joined a friendly group of Somerset County photographers for an early morning walk around Duke Farms in Hillsboro.

The early morning weather was cool, and the skies were clear. I met up in the parking lot with a large group of photographers from all over Somerset Country. I already knew a few people - like Terry Lyons - but the rest were strangers.

Duke Farms is the former estate of Doris Duke, an American heiress, horticulturist, art collector, and philanthropy, past. The estate was opened to the public last year. It is a fantastic place with ponds, barns, wildlife, wildflower fields and incredible scenery. There were plenty of photo opportunities.

We walked over instead of taking the tram. As with any large group of photographers, each of us was interested in different things, and each of us saw the park differently. We strolled, stopping at park features we found interesting. For me, that was the landscape and the flora. I got into fascinating conversations with fellow photographers about camera equipment, photography tips and kids.

Following a fire in January 1915, the building remained abandoned. Doris Duke used the ruins as an outdoor sculpture gallery, placing individual marble statues of human figures in linear arrangements along the walls, which can still be seen today.

Duke Farms has a small greenhouse filled with Orchids. One could spend an hour inside. I couldn't. The orchids are misted every five minutes, and the humidity becomes unbearable. However, by far, this was my favourite part of the walk. I saw a few picnic tables, but I'm not sure visitors can bring food in.

There is so much I didn't get to see in the two hours I was there. I will certainly return with my camera and my family and do another walk myself, perhaps more slowly and deliberately.

The image in this post is of the abandoned hay barn near the southern gate to the park. At the time of its construction, the Hay Barn was near the centre of farming activity, but as more land was purchased and the farming moved elsewhere, the structure was no longer needed as a hay press.

Image is HDR from three exposures (+2,0,-2) combined in Photomatix Pro. You can see more of the photos on 500px.

My HDR Workflow

I like HDR photography a lot. I've been messing around with it for a few years. Most of my efforts have been hit or miss. Not all subjects lend themselves to HDR photography, and my technique and workflow are shoddy.

Recently I discovered an article by where he detailed his workflow for creating beautiful HDR. I put the piece away but only recently found the time to try out his workflow on a few of my images.

The image in the header of this post is the original image of a fire truck for the Rocky Hill Hook & Ladder. I took the photo about a month ago a few days after Hurricane Irene blew through New Jersey. The Rocky Hill Hook & Ladder were out helping residents with flooded basements, cutting fallen trees, and keep idiot motorist off the flooded road and bridges in the area.

I started with a single RAW image and used Topaz Noise to remove some noise from the high ISO image. I created four virtual copies in Adobe Lightroom and adjusted each +4/-4 and +2/-2 stop before combining them to create an HDR image in Photomatix Pro. I then tone-mapped the HDR image using Enhancer Painterly. That image is below.

29 August 2011 | Nikon D40 | AF-S DX Nikkor 50 mm f/1.8G

I then imported the resultant image into Topaz Adjust and applied one of the standards presets. I think it was crisp. The result is the following. What do you think?

Rocky Hill Fire Department | 29 August 2011 | Nikon D40 | AF-S DX Nikkor 50 mm f/1.8G

Nassau Hall

My 52-week photography is going well. I've shot my images on weekends and posting them on the blog on Sunday evenings. I spend time during the week thinking and planning the what and where of the images I want to capture. It has worked well.

I was on 500.px and Google+ this week looking at some of the incredible HDR images captured by +Trey Ratcliff and others. This weekend I wanted to do more HDR imagery and thought that perhaps the Princeton University Chapel might be a great place to try. The chapel has very beautiful stained glass windows that reflect light all around the inside of this beautiful building.

Planning out your photo shoot is important. You want to consider what equipment you might need -- lens, tripod, etc -- and think about the lighting conditions for the time of day. You also want to make sure that you know whether the location might be crowded. You don't want to set up a tripod in a hallway that might be crowded or where people might be might get in the way of your shot.

After deciding to shoot the chapel I researched the operating hours and timing of any services. I wanted to be sure the chapel would be empty so I planned on being there around 9 AM. I wanted to create HDR images so that meant using my gPhoto Raspberry Pi kit or Sofortbild with a tripod and my AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G. Things didn't work out the way I had planned.

When I got inside the Chapel was empty except for two people sitting near the back. I had noted the sign outside the chapel indicating that services started at 11 AM today. I looked around to find the spot down the middle of the pews to set up my tripod. Before I could even get the tripod open one of the two people yelled at me that I could not set up my tripod because of services. I played stupid, asking her what time services started. "10 AM", she insisted. I persisted, "This will only take me 10 minutes". "No", she insisted worshippers would be arriving any minute. I put my tripod down and looked around. Perhaps I could come back another day. The Chapel is open from 7 AM to 7 PM daily during the school year. After about 20 minutes -- no one came in or out during this time -- I picked up my camera bag and left feeling a bit dejected.

I tried not to let the encounter bother me. I chalked it up to meet the wrong person on a wrong day.

I walked around -- it was very cold outside -- trying to find another subject. The campus doesn't have much colour this time of the year; mostly shades of grey. My hands were starting to feel numb so I set up my tripod and captured a few exposures of the back of Nassau Hall before walking over to Panera for a hot coffee. Brr.

The image is an 8 exposure HDR (+/-1 EV steps) taken with my gPhoto-Raspberry Pi rig and combined and tone mapped in Photomatix Pro with minor adjustments in Adobe Lightroom.

  • Camera : NIKON D40
  • Lens : AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G
  • Shutter speed ( 0EV ) : 1160
  • Aperture : f/11
  • Focal length : 18mm