Heath OFeeI live in the far southeast quadrant of Calgary in a relatively new community called New Brighton. One of the major arteries that runs through the southeast is 52nd Avenue and I find myself on this stretch of road at least a couple times a week. Two weeks ago on my way to play a round of disc golf I spotted this really cool looking wrecked and abandoned semi-truck/trailer and thought it would make a fantastic HDR photo. I took a day off work this past Tuesday and took this photo:
It’s nice being a little further north during the winter because the sun stays relatively low in the sky for most of the day. This photo was taken around 11am and the sun was still low enough for me to get it well into the frame. I’ve always been a fan of sunbursts, so I made sure to stop the aperture down (this is f/16) to make sure I got that effect.
This photo is my first attempt at using a layer mask in Photoshop…I should probably have already known how to do that, but I try to do most of my post-processing in Lightroom exclusively. Anyway…after running my three exposures (-2,0,+2) through Photomatix, I found that the sky looked a little dirty and was a bit noisier than I would have liked, so I masked in the sky from the original 0ev RAW file. Turned out pretty well I think, and I learned a valuable new skill! As always, critique and comments are more than welcome.
I really like this…
You should see if you can lighten the glow around the trailer a little while keeping it the same on the truck… its burning my eyes..
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But regardless im no critic… This is fucking rad man… This is probably one of my favorite pictures.. if it wasnt for that building in the background it would look like the fucking desert man…. february in calgary… looks like the desert.. whoda thunk…?
That’s actually a very valid criticism Rob. The “halo” effect around the truck is actually due to some careless masking on my part…guess I should go back and clean it up!
But thanks for the comment, I’m really happy with how this one turned out.
It looks awesome, Heath. I’m really enjoying your photos. This photo is sweet: I feel like you have captured a picture of a real live Transformer. 🙂 If it got up and started chasing Shia LaBouf, I just wouldn’t be surprised. Keep up the great work.
LOL…thanks Heather! I probably would have peed my pants if that thing came to life…
Love the photos. Do you use a tripod when taking the HDR photos?
Thanks Toby! And yes, tripod for sure when bracketing the photos for HDR processing. For a while you feel like a bit of a wiener carrying your tripod around all over the place…but that feeling quickly fades 🙂
ummmm…okay this is weird. I was kinda searching for pics of abandoned places around/close to Calgary to possibly check out with my camera this weekend. I somehow came across your picture. Someone has claimed it as theirs!
Check it out: http://www.flickr.com/photos/12354961@N05/4392853636
What a mofo.
Visual plagiarism. Already famous Heath. 😉
Crazy! Thanks for letting me know Steph…the bastard didn’t even link back to my page to give me credit. Just sent him a message…we’ll see what happens. Worst part is, the photo has had about 7 times as many views on his Flickr page than on mine!
Yeah i don’t think he had any intention of linking back to you. His profile is all about how he likes to take pics of graffiti around Calgary..
As for the hits, look at it this way – your image got way more hits than any of his shitty ass pictures as he even commented on it getting so many. 😉
Oh and this is how i found it: http://fiveprime.org/hivemind/Tags/abandoned,calgary