Josh Friedman Photography: HDR

Showing posts with label HDR. Show all posts

Friday, August 18, 2017

Four Seasons: Landscape Photographs of Yardley's Picturesque Lake Afton

Winter, spring, summer or fall

All you have to do is call

And I'll be there

You've got a friend

(Carol King)

Lake Afton sits about two miles from my home in Yardley, Pennsylvania (lower Bucks County). Most days, I drive past and admire this picturesque and peaceful spot. Each year, I photograph Lake Afton in different seasons, lighting conditions and times of day: with fresh snow in winter, budding dogwoods of spring, soft mist on a summer morning, and colorful foliage in autumn.

I have taken the photographs in this post over several years, and I hope there will be many new images in the years to come. Until recently, summer was the missing piece of my collection. Thank you to the Friends of Lake Afton (FOLA), a non profit organization which keeps the lake safe and looking beautiful. In recent years, the lake has had a problem with algae, particularly in the warm summer months. FOLA has taken many steps manage this situation so that folks can enjoy the lake throughout the year.

WINTER

January 17, 2016

January 29, 2016

February 5, 2016

January 6, 2017

February 21, 2016

March 16, 2016

February 8, 2017

January 7, 2017

SPRING

April 29, 2017

April 2, 2010

May 14, 2016

April 22, 2016

April 23, 2017

April 28, 2017

SUMMER

July 11, 2017

August 3, 2017

August 11, 2017

FALL

October 25, 2014

October 24, 2015

October 26, 2015

November 20, 2015

November 23, 2016

December 6, 2015

December 15, 2016 (with setting supermoon)

Monday, August 3, 2015

Photographs of the 2015 Manhattan Skyline: Views from New Jersey and Brooklyn

"A life is not important except in the impact it has

on other lives"

Jackie Robinson (Brooklyn Dodgers)

This post is lovingly dedicated to the memory of my dad, Harry Friedman. He passed away on July 15th at the age of 91.

Manhattan's skyline is one of the most recognizable images in the world. When my parents were born in the early 1920's, the Flatiron Building (21 floors) was one of the tallest buildings in Manhattan. During their childhood (my mom grew up in The Bronx, while my dad was in Brooklyn), iconic structures like the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building were completed. This past year, the new World Trade Center (the "Freedom Tower") has been a significant addition to the city, as well as being a symbol of American resilience. Other new skyscrapers are on the way, and they will contribute to the Manhattan skyline's ongoing evolution.

To see some of my earlier photographs of Manhattan, click HERE. The new images below (all taken in July, 2015) are from three locations, each on a different day: 1) Jersey City, New Jersey (morning of July 5th); 2) Weehawken, New Jersey (evening of July 13th); and 3) "DUMBO" in Brooklyn, New York (morning of July 19th). Each of these areas offers a beautiful view of the Manhattan skyline. The New Jersey locations are back-lit in the morning and front or side-lit at sunset. From DUMBO (Brooklyn), Manhattan is front-lit in the morning and back or side-lit at sunset.

When I started shooting these photographs of the changing Manhattan skyline, I was focusing largely on the view from New Jersey. I took the first of the photographs below early in the morning (July 5th) at the Liberty State Park, in Jersey City, New Jersey. This is directly across the Hudson River from Lower Manhattan. The location offers terrific views of both Lower Manhattan (including the World Trade Center) as well as Midtown Manhattan (i.e. including the Empire State Building, Chrysler Building, etc.). The park is home to the "Empty Sky" New Jersey 9/11 Memorial - a beautiful, emotionally moving tribute to New Jersey residents who lost their lives in the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks.

On the evening of July 13th I went to Weehawken (near the Lincoln Harbor Yacht Club), New Jersey to photograph the Manhattan skyline at sunset. This is directly across the Hudson River from the Empire State Building and midtown Manhattan. At Sunset, it offered beautiful light on Lower Manhattan (and the World Trade Center).

I took the last batch of photographs in Brooklyn. My dad grew up there until he was 18, when he left to serve in the Army Corp of Engineers during and after World War II (largely in Germany). A few mornings after he died, as a tribute to my him, I photographed the Manhattan skyline from Brooklyn ("DUMBO" - Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass). There is an area near the Manhattan Bridge, right by the river, that offers wonderful views of the Brooklyn Bridge with Lower Manhattan, or the Manhattan Bridge with midtown.

I chose the above Jackie Robinson quote in memory of my dad, a childhood fan of the Brooklyn Dodgers, and a big fan of Robinson. Through his positive spirit, his sense of humor, his warmth, and his general enthusiasm for life, my dad had a tremendously positive impact on my life and our whole family.

Lower Manhattan just after Sunrise. July 5, 2015.
From Liberty State Park, Jersey City, NJ.

"Empty Sky" New Jersey 9/11 Memorial and
World Trade Center (Freedom Tower). July 5, 2015 (Morning).
Liberty State Park, Jersey City, NJ

Binoculars and Empire State Building. July 5, 2015 (Morning).
From Liberty State Park, Jersey City, NJ

Lower Manhattan with World Trade Center. July 5, 2015 (Morning).
From The Hudson River Waterfront Walkway,
Jersey City, NJ.

Empire State Building. July 13, 2015 (Evening)
From Weehawken, New Jersey.

View of Midtown Manhattan
From Lincoln Harbor Yacht Club, Weehawken, NJ
July 13, 2015 (Evening)

Manhattan Skyline (photo stitch from 5 exposures)
From Weehawken, NJ. July 13, 2015 (Evening)

Lower Manhattan at Sunset (July 13, 2015)
from Weehawken, NJ.

Brooklyn Bridge and Lower Manhattan.
Early Morning (July 19, 2015)
From "DUMBO", Brooklyn, NY.

Manhattan Bridge and Midtown Manhattan.
Early Morning (July 19, 2015)
From "DUMBO", Brooklyn, NY.

Brooklyn Bridge and Lower Manhattan, with
World Trade Center. Early Morning (July 19, 2015)
From "DUMBO", Brooklyn, NY.

View of Manhattan Bridge from Washington Street.
Brooklyn, NY (morning of July 19, 2015)

Thursday, March 26, 2015

"Here Comes the Sun": How to Create a High Dynamic Range (HDR) Photograph of a Sunrise

"Little darling

It's been a long, cold lonely winter

Little darling

It feels like years since it's been here

Here comes the sun..."

George Harrison

(The Beatles)

Perhaps it was our "long, cold" winter in Bucks County, Pennsylvania that had me itching to take a sunrise photograph. I took the Delaware River and Train Bridge photograph just a few days ago, about a mile from my house. A beautiful sunrise somehow combines wonderful drama and color with sense of peacefulness. Its the literal and symbolic beginning of a new day. A fresh start.

Photographing a sunrise can be tricky business. Once the sun starts to come up, you are faced with a subject with both very bright areas and very dark areas. While our eyes magically sort this out, the camera has a harder time. If you take an image with a correct exposure for darker parts of the scene, the sun will be overexposed and washed out. If you get a correct exposure for the sun, the rest of the image may be nearly black.

There are a few ways to photograph a sunrise in a manner that replicates what our eyes see. If there is a clear line between the bright area and the dark area, a graduated neutral density filter can be handy. However, often situations are more complicated than that. For example, in the first image below (Delaware River and Train Bridge) the areas of relative dark and light are juxtaposed throughout the scene. Its not a simple matter of the top being bright and the bottom being dark. For situations like this, I like to create a High Dynamic Range (HDR) image from multiple separate exposures. For the Delaware River and Train Bridge photograph, I took eight separate exposures (you can see each of these exposures under the photograph). If you would like to learn more about the process of creating an HDR photograph, please skip to the bottom of this post.

Here is a sampling of my sunrise photographs from the past few years. In addition to a few images near my home in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, I have included iamges from The Bahamas, Acadia National Park (Maine), Myrtle Beach (South Carolina), Pittsburgh, and Washington, D.C. To see more of my photographs or to purchase an image, click HERE.

Delaware River and Train Bridge
Yardley, Pennsylvania (Bucks County)
March, 2015

Here are the eight separate exposures used to create the above
HDR photograph. These all have ISO 200 and Aperture of f/16.
The shutter speeds range from 1/2 second (upper left)
to 1/200th of a second (bottom right).

Old Chevrolet Truck
Hopewell, New Jersey (Mercer County)
April, 2013

Delaware River from Lumberton Footbridge
Lumberton, Pennsylvania (Bucks County)
December, 2014

View from "The Cove"
Atlantis, The Bahamas
December 2014

Acadia National Park, Maine
View from Cadillac Mountain
August, 2011

Cherry Grove Pier
Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
April, 2014

View from Mount Washington,
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
February, 2014

U.S. Capital
Washington, D.C.
August, 2014

CREATING A HIGH DYNAMIC RANGE (HDR) PHOTOGRAPH: For 99% of my images, I prefer to shoot in manual mode. When I want to create an HDR photograph of a particular scene, I usually place my camera on a tripod. This avoids any blur in your image (i.e. if you are using a slow shutter speed). Also, it insures that each of your exposures has close to the exact same content. You then take a series of exposures (holding constant the "aperture" - the size of the opening of the shutter), and changing the exposure speed in regular increments. You want to make sure that you have a correct exposure for each part of the scene - from the darkest part to the lightest part.

As an example, let's look at the Delaware River and Train Bridge photograph. To create this, I took eight separate exposures. For each of them, the aperture was f/16 (because I wanted a pretty wide depth of field). For the darkest parts of the scene (i.e. the bridge and the ground in the lower right) the correct shutter speed at f/16 was 1/2 second. I then shot a series of exposures at regular intervals ("full stop" increments) until I reached the brightest part of the scene (the sun needed a shutter speed of 1/200th of a second). I then had eight separate images (you can see each of these exposures above, under the Delaware River and Train Bridge image). Once I returned home, I uploaded all of my images onto my computer. Then I used HDR software (I use "Photomatix") to merge the eight exposures into one image. This final image has the correct exposure for each part of the picture. I then used Photoshop and OnOne software to put the "finishing touches" on the image.

Saturday, October 18, 2014

Autumn in Bucks County, Pennsylvania: New Landscape Images and Great Locations for Photographers

In Bucks County, Pennsylvania, the temperatures are cooling off, and the autumn foliage is warming up. Trees that were predominantly green a few weeks ago are now a combination of gold, orange, green and rust. Its truly a wonderful time for photographers in southeast Pennsylvania to capture the turning leaves, the rolling hills, the historic covered bridges, and the rustic landscapes. Between late September and mid-October, I returned to photograph a few of my favorite Upper Bucks County areas. What follows are some of my new images in four beautiful areas. If you have questions about these or other great photography locations in Bucks County, email me at: Joshfriedmanphoto@gmail.com. To see more of my images, or to purchase a print, visit my ETSY SHOP.

1) HIGH ROCKS VISTA SECTION OF RALPH STOVER

STATE PARK AND TORY ROAD

PIPERSVILLE, PENNSYLVANIA