AGO Photography

52 Week Project: Week 35

Alan Olson — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 13:00:39 +0000

This entrance light to the ore docks at Two Harbors has made an appearance on my blog way back in what seems like the dark ages when I wasn’t paying attention to composition (rule of thirds, anyone?). I was back in Two Harbors in July and had some nasty, harsh noontime sun, which made shooting a bit difficult for a second chance at this light.

After doing a little post production work, I decided to try some extreme changes and actually kinda liked how this version came out. I feel it gives a grainy texture to it and it looks like it was shot on some old film. I wouldn’t make a print of this but was a good exercise in getting me out of my comfort zone.

Exposure: 1/600 sec, Aperture: f/11.0, Focal Length: 135mm, ISO 200

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52 Week Project: Week 34

Alan Olson — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 13:00:46 +0000

I found this cool old building (established in 1908) in Superior, WI last month and loved the orange color. I spent sometime walking around and never could quite get the composition that matched my vision of what I saw. In the end, I grabbed a few photographs of the door.

I would like to say I have some profound wisdom about entering doors or that this symbolizes something but in the end, I just really liked the orange color.

Exposure: 1/60 sec, Aperture: f/11.0, Focal Length: 28mm, ISO 200

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52 Week Project: Week 33

Alan Olson — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 13:00:21 +0000

While driving back from Walker, MN last month, I found this abandoned building south of Garrison (with a separate abandoned gas station as a bonus) which is pretty much a guarantee that I will stop and shoot. I used the Aged Photo preset in LR2 rather than B&W. I might have to go back sometime as I’m not quite satisfied with how the composition turned out.

Exposure: 1/640 sec, Aperture: f/4.0, Focal Length: 41mm, ISO 200

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52 Week Project: Week 32

Alan Olson — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 13:00:03 +0000

While up in Duluth, MN, I spent one evening down at the Leif Erickson Park shooting. Across the street from the park is the Duluth Armory. For this photograph, I took the the exposure the camera came up with and then bracketed it by -2 and +2 and then infused the three images together using LR/Enfuse. I used the adjustment brush in LR2 to drop the exposure of the sky down a little more and boosted the clarity. It was a good experiment and one I’ll probably try a bit more of in the future (as you can tell, I need a little more practice w/the Adjustment Brush.)

Exposure: 1/160 sec, Aperture: f/7.1, Focal Length: 28mm, ISO 200

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52 Week Project: Week 31

Alan Olson — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 13:00:42 +0000

During a week-long work trip to the Duluth/Iron Range area, I found a decent amount of time to get out and shoot after hours. As I was sitting in my hotel room in Mountain Iron, MN, the sunset was way too good to pass up. I shot a few frames from my window and then moved outside to capture a couple more. Next to my hotel was a small pond/drainage area that provided a nice reflection of the light (as well as a small stake I could rest the camera on). I metered for the yellow/orange just above the tree line and came out with this.

The only post production was to crop out some parking lot lights on the right side. Other than that, this is what came out of the camera.

Exposure: 1/50 sec, Aperture: f/8.0, Focal Length: 28mm, ISO 400

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52 Week Project: Week 30

Alan Olson — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 14:26:34 +0000

I’m a sucker for glass blocks so when driving through Gilbert, MN last week, I found some on an old bar that went out of business. I thought the American flag was a nice little bonus.

Exposure: 1/400 sec, Aperture: f/7.1, Focal Length: 28mm, ISO 200

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52 Week Project: Week 29

Alan Olson — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 01:37:38 +0000

This was taken during an overnight stop by Hurley, WI (same night as this one). I was messing around with a circular polarizer to enhance the sky a bit and had a few shots that turned out okay however with this version, I opted to use LR2 instead to get the same effect. Now I just need to get rid of the power lines.

Exposure: 1/160 sec, Aperture: f/7.1, Focal Length: 135mm, ISO 100

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52 Week Project: Week 28

Alan Olson — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 13:00:08 +0000

This is a photograph of the City Dock in Bayfield, WI and almost didn’t happen. Jennifer and I were on the west side of the Bayfield Peninsula hoping to get some nice sunset shots over Lake Superior but it was not to be with the cloud cover. We drove back and ended up walking around downtown Bayfield for an hour or so. I was pretty much ready to call it a night but having brought the tripod along, was determined to get a couple of shots in.

This came out of the camera as is with the exception of some minor tweaks with the Black Clipping and Highlight Recovery and I cropped out a bush in the bottom left that was distracting. I took only two shots from this angle and the second one was taken only about a foot to my left and yet looks nothing like this version at all. Moral of the story, if you bring your tripod on vacation, make sure you use it.

Exposure: 10.0 sec, Aperture: f/11.0, Focal Length: 35mm, ISO 200

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52 Week Project: Week 27

Alan Olson — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 13:00:25 +0000

I spent a night in Marquette, MI a couple of weeks ago and hung at at Presque Isle Park for the evening. The sun was rather harsh and with zero clouds, a decent number of the photographs weren’t that good.

I took a few photographs of the lighthouse but was looking for something different (or something I hadn’t seen while looking for places to shoot online). I found a park bench that was facing the lighthouse and shot through it. I darkened the overall look a little using LR2′s Tone Curve.

Exposure: 1/250 sec, Aperture: f/11.0, Focal Length: 60mm, ISO 200

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52 Week Project: Week 26

Alan Olson — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 15:04:11 +0000

Last week while out of town on visit, I drove through Hurley, WI. The weather was pretty miserable for a good part of the day and I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to shoot. The monsoon stopped and the clouds broke up a bit allowing for some nice lighting. This is a cannon that sits by the downtown area and is a memorial to Sgt. Felix Obertone.

Exposure: 1/60 sec, Aperture: f/11.0, Focal Length: 28mm, ISO 100

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