Photomatix – heath ofee dot com

Sit Tight

Heath OFee — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 13:10:45 +0000

Last week I had the pleasure of providing the brackets for the most recent game of HDR Tennis on Facebook. The game wrapped up last night, so I thought I’d post my version on the blog today.

Canon EOS 50D, Sigma 10-20mm f/3.5, 13mm, F 11, ISO 100

RCAF 273

Heath OFee — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 13:10:24 +0000

We as photographers always hope for ideal conditions when we head out for a shoot, but unfortunately, things don’t always work out as planned. When conditions don’t pan out exactly as planned, it’s important to keep shooting and make the best of what you’re dealt…you never know what kind of inspiration you’ll be able to find.

I found myself in this situation last week when I made a visit to the Aero Space Museum of Calgary. I arrived and paid my $10 to get in, only to find the Calgary Airport Authority setting up a stage, speakers and hundreds of chairs in preparation for their annual general meeting the following day. As a result, some of the planes were re-positioned (closer together of course) to make room for the stage and chairs. Conditions were most definitely not ideal for shooting, but I made the best of it and found as many interesting shots as I could given the conditions. With any luck I’ll have another couple to share from my short visit.

Canon EOS 50D, Sigma 10-20mm f/3.5, 10mm, F 8.0, ISO 100

North American Harvard Mk. IV

Heath OFee — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 14:30:02 +0000

Today I thought I’d show another one of the handful of shots I was able to get at the Aero Space Museum of Calgary. This is a North American Harvard Mk. IV. It is considered one of the best pilot training aircraft ever built, and the original version first flew in 1935. I’m no expert on aircraft, nor am I a history buff…but I can definitely appreciate the craftsmanship and skill it must have taken to conceive and build these planes. I still consider it a miracle that we’re able to fly hundreds of miles across oceans in these giant metal contraptions…absolutely mind boggling.

Canon EOS 50D, Sigma 10-20mm f/3.5, 10mm, F 8.0, ISO 100

Primary Colours

Heath OFee — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 13:10:06 +0000

Okay, I know that red, yellow, and blue aren’t the traditional set of primary colours…but this is the title I first thought of when looking at this image. I like that among all the boring grey, white and black of the parkade, these vibrant colours exist as a nice contrast.

I’m not sure about anybody else, but I’ve been in a serious winter weather shooting funk. The boring overcast skies and constant snow has really put a damper on my motivation, and I’m finding it difficult to find any inspiration to go out when my city looks so disgusting. With any luck, April will bring some nicer weather and I’ll be out and about shortly, but in the meantime, you’ll have to put up with shots from my archive. Here’s hoping for spring!

Canon EOS 50D, Sigma 10-20mm f/3.5, 11mm, F 8.0, ISO 100

Hose, Anyone?

Heath OFee — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 13:15:56 +0000

I’ve been sitting on a few images of these fire hoses from the abandoned fire station south of Indio, CA for a couple of months now. When shooting, I was pretty happy with what I captured, but when I got back home and dumped the images onto my computer, I was less impressed. Last night I decided to take a crack at one of the bracket sets to see if I could come away with something I’m happy with…and what you see below is the result.

Sometimes persistence is your best friend

Canon EOS 50D, Sigma 10-20mm f/3.5, 10mm, F 16, ISO 100

I Want My MTV

Heath OFee — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 14:57:25 +0000

I don’t know about you guys, but for some reason I’ve always wanted to smash an old CRT television. I just looks like so much fun when they do it on TV! I didn’t get the chance to live that dream with this old RCA that I found in an abandoned diner, but someone did…and I bet they had a blast doing it.

As for the title of this post…I grew up listening to Dire Straits because my dad was a huge fan. I can remember many a road trip rocking out to those guys, and I specifically remember the long introduction to ‘Money For Nothing’ was one of my favourite parts of any of their songs. And what a riff once it got started!

Dialed In

Heath OFee — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 14:07:15 +0000

This is a detail shot from the large abandoned warehouse I found in Niland, California. I really would have liked to get a shot looking straight at the dial, but it was too high on the wall for it to be feasible. Sometimes you just have to work with what you’re given

Canon EOS 50D, Sigma 10-20mm f/3.5, 20mm, F 11, ISO 100

The Walking Dead

Heath OFee — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 13:15:53 +0000

My wife and I just finished watching the first season of ‘The Walking Dead’ a couple of days ago, and man, did we love it! Shame it was only a teaser at 6 episodes, but it was still pretty great nonetheless. Fantastic characters, a great post-apocalyptic style storyline, and some of the best looking zombies I’ve ever seen. If you haven’t seen it, make sure you check it out.

Inspired by the imagery in ‘The Walking Dead’, I decided to give today’s shot from Bombay Beach a bit of a post-apocalyptic/comic book/zombie feel. I definitely got a bit of a creepy vibe from the location when I was there, so I’m pretty excited with how this one turned out. As usual, all my stylization of this image was done in onOne PhotoTools. Honestly, since I picked up their full suite of plugins a few months ago, I don’t think I’ve published a single photo that hasn’t been touched in one way or another by an onOne plugin. It really is a great tool to have in the bag.

There’s some good news if you don’t have the suite yet: until March 24th you can purchase the entire Perfect Photo Suite 5.5 + HDR Express for $399. This is a seriously good deal, so make sure you check it out!

Canon EOS 50D, Sigma 10-20mm f/3.5, 10mm, F 11, ISO 100

We’re Watching

Heath OFee — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 12:37:23 +0000

Back to the abandoned warehouse in Niland, California for today’s image. When I walked into this urbex heaven, as soon as I turned and looked to my right, these are the creepy graffiti eyes I was greeted with. I felt safer for the rest of my time there knowing I had a pair of watchful eyes looking out for me

Canon EOS 50D, Sigma 10-20mm f/3.5, 20mm, F 11, ISO 100

Slow Burn

Heath OFee — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 16:33:52 +0000

The small abandoned fire station that I stumbled up on just south of Indio, California has yielded a few good images. Some of you may recognize the broken chair in the bottom of this frame from a previous shot I published of it.

What I’ve been realizing more often during my processing, is that the occasional bit of significant cropping can really go a long way to making an image a bit more interesting. This frame originally included an awful lot more of this room to the right, but I felt all the additional clutter just made for a far too busy frame. Isolating the chair and the row of lockers with this square crop resulted in a much more pleasing frame.

Canon EOS 50D, Sigma 10-20mm f/3.5, 10mm, F 11, ISO 100