Weathered Tractor

One of the more interesting, to me, objects at the Octagon Barn was this weathered tractor.  To go with it was the sky was light, the grass was yellow and the trees were green.  Perfect.
I had to take a number of shots in this setting.  This was an excellent situation where the camera is totally confused by the environment.  I use spot metering.  The camera sees the center part of the subject and meters for it.  In hind sight, I should have changed to center weighted or matrix mode.  I've been bitten in the past a few times by not setting this correctly.  Thus, my amateur status is still comfortably in force.
But I did like this tractor.  The rusting is very interesting to me.  I could have done a bit better.  First, a tripod might have helped.  Or a prime lens.  This was at 18 mm.  I have a 35 that I could have worked with.  All notes for the next trip.  I bet it is beautiful there in the fall.  Road Trip.
The weathered tractor.

Weathered Tractor

NIKON D7200 Ver.1.04/18.0-200.0 mm f/3.5-5.6

18 mm, 1/250 sec, f/8, ISO 100

EV -1, APERTURE Priority, Size DX

And then I have the interesting thought, what about paint for this one?

Now that screams Green Acres!

Farm Yoke

During my excursion 'off the beaten path' at the Octagon Barn, I saw two items of interest.  One was the saddle on a stand and the other was this yoke.  Again, I'm not much of a farm hand and I'm guessing this is a ceremonial unit.  The bell is a nice touch though.
This area of the barn was quite dark and it took a few shots to get it right.  I was drawn to the bell, leather strap and the red and black.
The stall where the yoke was hung was not used for a current resident.  It looked like more of a work area.  Who knows, some work room for museum pieces,
Because this was a fairly dark shot, I used Photomatix to help me even the lights out a bit.  Lots of good wood stuff in this one.  A bit of a challenge to straighten it all out.

Yoke

NIKON D7200 Ver.1.04/18.0-200.0 mm f/3.5-5.6

20 mm, 1/60 sec, f/5.0, ISO 800 (Auto)

EV 0, Manual Mode, Size DX

Saddle Stand

Today's field trip took me to the Thumb of Michigan.  There is an agricultural museum that goes by the Thumb Octagon Barn.  The organization that runs the place had a open day for people to come out and see what they are doing.  And I did leave a donation.  In a few weeks they are having a huge party and I think this was a way to gin up some interest.
The building itself is huge.  As with any museum, there are a lot of artifacts on display.  In this case, this is farming in the early 1900s.  As a student of the world, a lot of the stuff was interesting.  As a photographer, I found a few items that caught my interest.
The first item that caught my interest was a saddle stand.  I'm not much of a farm person, so there may be a technical name for this thing, but I'm going with the simple.  This stand was not on the main 'path' through the barn.  It seems that this area was still in use by real farm critters.  Large critters.  And the odor confirmed it.  It was great.  Hay and cow/horse crap.  And next to the hay store, was this saddle stand.  With a bit of window light on it.  The scene was generally dark, except for the ray of light.  In spit of that, I got most of what I wanted.

Saddle Stand

NIKON D7200 Ver.1.04/18.0-200.0 mm f/3.5-5.6

24 mm, 1/60 sec, f/5.0, ISO 800 (Auto)

EV 0, MANUAL, Size DX

For fun, I thought this might be interesting monochrome.  And it turned out OK.

I don't usually do a lot of this effect, but in this case it works for me.  That looks 1800s to me.

Aired Out Barn

While driving the back roads....  I may not be able to find this barn again.   I will look for it, I like what time has done to this.  You get to see the interior and the weathering of the wood.  And the roof.  And the roof.

This is a RAW image with a few default touch ups from PS.  My additional changes would be:  First the flat sky has to go.  Also the sky descends too low on the left.  Sort of distracts when I'm looking at the exposed hay in the barn.  And the contrast has to be just right to bring out the wood grain and whatever is left of the roof.  I'll also want to show some detail of the hay, lighten up that whole interior area.
For the sky I don't want a true blue, I just need something with some lighter definition that what is shown here.  Usually I try to get a image of sky from the area (if I remember and I think I'll need it) but I do have some stock images for emergencies.  Fortunately I won't need much area.  I'll go with this one.

I added some exposure to try to match the barn.  I used On One to merge the two images.  The masking tools in On One made this easy and quick.  When I added the sky, the area on the left of the barn really didn't do me any favors.  I thought that filling the area with some green-age would do the trick.  But where to get it so it didn't look imported, or copied in.  So, I just flipped a copy of the image.  Filled in great.  Same size, same colors.  I just needed what is in the red.

First time I've ever done a three layer mask.  

Worked out great.  So my post merge looked like this.

Getting closer.  Now I need to get some accent on the hay.  For this I'll use Photomatix to process some HDR - but only for the hay.  I'm not going to use it for the wood - although you could.  I wound up using the  Interior 3 pre-set, with some additional micro-smoothing.  

I also added a bit of exposure because the next and final edit will dark the overall image a bit.  To get my final touch I use NIK's HDR Efex.  Over the lat few months I've learned to use just a touch of it - not the 100%.  So, here's the final image.

It's not too overdone.  Interesting to see how my tastes have evolved over time.

State Road Barn (Not for much Longer!)

Not far from the house, there is a barn that is roughly two years into really falling apart.  I have been intrigued by the site, but being the procrastinator that I am, I've put off photographing it until now.  (See the previous line about two years.)
This was a great exercise for the day.  I originally wanted to go with Photomatix to do this one, pull out some of the insides.  I quickly found out that PMX did not like the power lines.  And if I really knew what I was doing I would have taken them out right away.  The lines had to go.  In the end, no matter what process, PSCC or On One, I used, followed by whatever HDR effect I added, the evidence of the power lines was always survived.
The answer was always there in front of me, that sky in the original shot needed to go.  Flat as can be.  That sky needed to be replaced.  And that was a good excuse to work with On One.
I find doing this type of work with On One so much easier than with Photoshop.  The masking tools and layer blending in On One are very easy and quick.  Once the blended image was created, I went back to my normal workflow to finish the image.
This is a JPG made from the RAW file that I believe Nikon would have created.

The particulars;
1/2000 sec, ISO 800, f/8, 123 MM

I like photographing barns.  The more unique character, either by design or time, the better.

Fortunately the area in the vicinity of the building is pretty clean.  I have a couple more ideas for this environment.  I've been practicing with higher ISO shots to get the speed I will need in a few weeks.  I'll lower the ISO, lower the speed,  There could be some better angles.  And there could be a much better sky.

Barn in Fall - What a difference eight years makes......

One of my favorite subjects to photograph is old or wood barns.  First, it seems that no two buildings are the same.  Next, you have the wood patterns and what digital processing can do.   Another aspect I like are the surroundings, whether it is nature or multiple legged.

One of my first subjects is a barn in Pennsylvania.  And by first, we're talking eight years ago.  We're talking D80.  I must have deleted the RAW files somewhere along the line, but I do have .HDR files that were created by Photomatix.  And at that point in time, the single image process wasn't that good, so I'm guessing there were three merged (RAW) images.  At that time, I was also using Elements.  Not Photoshop.

I thought it might be interesting to see how processing, software and my tastes have changed over the years.  These are two shots taken on the same day, minutes apart.

The first shot is one I last worked in 2009.  It is one of my favorites.  When I was part of the Art at the Market group, it was a seller.  Again, at that time I was using Elements and Photomatix only.  I also thought grunge was really cool.  Here are a few flavors:

Trying to recall, but I must have been real happy to figure out how to watermark the image and get the copyright right.  Pretty plain.  This is the image I sold at the Market.  This image came out best when printing to paper.  I remember the color of the barn doors is what caught my eye.

On the next/following image I remember trying to boost the colors with Photomatix.  I used this image for years as part of my personal screensaver slideshow.  As I look at it now, it is a bit over-saturated.  Or just colorful.

In the next image, I used the grunge setting in Photomatix.  At one time, I thought this was just plain cool.  And all I can say now is, sometimes you just have to step over the line to define where it is.  (Don't judge me.)

Now let's fast forward to today.  The images is from a RAW D80 file using current On One and Photoshop software.  And my personal take.

Initially I see more sharpening used.  Not as much fall colors in the trees.  I tried to pop the tree colors, but it didn't look right to me.  Made the image look too 'Photoshopped'.  So this shot for me is a lot cleaner, still has some colors and not overly painted.

Fun to see the differences.

The White Barn

This is a barn in the Saginaw area.  I was out driving around and the sunlight and sky seem to be calling me.  This barn is photographed often by our Club, so it is not entirely unknown to me.  I've seen many shots at different times of year.  I think this has many possibilities.
First, I've started taking both RAW and JPG files.  I quit taking JPGs a few years ago, but now I have plenty of disk in the camera.  More information, even if it is not used ain't all that bad.

The RAW image:

The white siding is very close to being blown out.  On the histogram, that is represented by indications on the right and the warning symbol.  There just isn't a whole lot to deal with and the side is white so I'm expecting just a bit.

The Original Nikon JPG

By the histogram, it looks like the RGBs were reduced pretty evenly and added some dark blue.
Its OK, but not to my tastes.  First the golden vegetation has real possibilities.  I like yellows.  But I need more definition and a touch of saturation.  I think the real center of the picture is the white siding of the barn.  Again, more definition of the weathering.  And to finish up, the green on the tree and silo ivy is just plain boring, just some saturation.  Also, if I can do something with the sky in terms of clearing up the dull blue, that will be a bonus.

Now that I'm getting very comfortable Photoshop, I'm getting a solid workflow to 'prep' the image.  I start with the RAW filter.  In the RAW filter, I use the Transform tool to set the overall picture horizontal and vertical elements and correct for camera distortion.  Sounds busy, but I pretty much let PS do all the work.

In this case, there was some adjustment.

My next set of adjustments came from On One.  I tried the NIK adjustments and nothing suited me. In On One, I used Dynamic Contrast and Grunge filters.

On One Adjustments:

Now we're starting to get somewhere.  Starting at the top, the sky/clouds are starting to get some edge to them.  The tress and ivy have a lighter color and you can see much more definition.The flat white on the barn side is disappearing.  Not yet where I want it, but it is a start.  And as a bonus, I'm seeing some definition in the roof and silo.  The histogram is showing the image darkened a bit so I'll want to recover some overall light.  I used the RAW filter again to bump up the yellows and greens just a bit.

The Final Image:

I think I got what I wanted.  The sky has some definition, without looking too altered.  The tree and ivy have more color and definition.  The white barn siding isn't so bright, looks more weathered and detailed.  And the gold sea looks a lot more detailed.

Michigan Barn in Fall - 2015

With the 2015 fall viewing season just about over, I had to get out this past weekend and see the sights.  Without a doubt, fall is my favorite few weeks of the year. Michigan, like southwestern Pennsylvania is abundant with color.  I took a ride, with no particular destination in mind.  As the weather in Michigan goes, I hit most everything including sun, wind, rain and snow.  Aside from leaves and the colors, I was also looking at farm barns.  My photograph of a barn in Pennsylvania on a recent road trip (here) has shown me the fun of this subject.  One of my early favorites is that of a barn in Pennsylvania close to Ligonier.  I'll have to resurrect that image.
I found this barn structure close to the road and spent some time there.  As I am respectful of the property, I couldn't get real close.  There is a little evergreen tree in the front area that really keeps this from being a special image.  But other than that - has good stuff.
As I progress through my workflow, I apply a number of 'changes' to see what strikes me as something I want to work with.  In this case, I really liked what over sharpening would do.  So here is the direction I went with.

Here is the original RAW image:

1/125   f/25
EV -3.0
Aperture Priority
ISO 200
Focal Length 31mm
Focal Length (35 mm) 46 mm

The EV of -3 really gives a dark image - but there is no light lost.  I can work with this.  Since I don't use Nikon's JPG algorithms, the closest I can get is something along these lines as to what a photograph shot with the AUTO setting would be.

In order to put this together, I will have to make a few 'improvements.

1.  I know from experience that there will be a halo effect between the barn and sky.  I will need to find a sky that is similar and adjust it with the same settings that I have done with the barn, trees and grass.  But knowing that from the beginning will save me some time.  I won't need to remove the power lines and associated equipment on the right.
2.  Bringing in a new sky also presents a few issues with merging and the tree tops.  I will even the leave canopy so the leaves will look fuller.
3.  There is a white horizontal 'something' that I'm sure is functional for the farm - but not so much for me.  That has to go.
4.  There is a white window between the green tree and the black (Open) door.  Sure it belongs there, but in the end it will be distraction.  That has to go as well.  I will make the small tree a bit fuller as well to remove that distraction.

With the above edits done, this is what I get.

I now have something that I can put through the HDR program.  My original thought was to go for a sharp grunge image, really pull out the definition of the barn - and slightly over-saturate the colors.  Sounded good, but in practice didn't turn out so well.  Probably photo creep - just kept adding until it wasn't what I wanted.  So I dialed it back a little.  Got the colors and light right in the HDR program and will do the rest later.  This is what I have after tone mapping.

There is going to be some halo effect around the barn.  Not much I can do with it.  What I did do (correctly) is took a photo if the sky while I was there, just in case a sky substitution was gong to be required.  And it will be.  This is the sky I will use.  I ran it through the HDR using the same setting as I did with the barn.  This is what I will use.

With the two combined, this is what I have coming out of tone mapping - and ready for the final edits.  The final edits included some fall coloring for the trees and a bit of green coloring for the grass.  And a lot of sharpening.  (Finally got the overall look!)

There it is.  In the final cropping, I will cut out most of the right side and some of the grass.

The final image:

Barn Art on Rt 30

I had the chance to drive Rt 30 from Breezewood to Ligonier in Pennsylvania.  Along the way, I passed this barn with some fantastic art painted on the sides.  Just another reason to not take the turnpike.
The day was really crappy.  Low Clouds.  Flat Light.  Photographer's dream.
First I really liked the scene, not your normal Mail Pouch Tobacco barn art.  
So here is the original image:

1/640   f/5.6
EV -1.0
Aperture Priority
ISO 200
Focal Length 18mm
Focal Length (35 mm) 27 mm

First, I wanted to get ride of the eye distractions, most notably the power line, the light on the side of the barn and the lightning rod on the top of the structure.  Usually small objects cause problems with tone compression which is amplified by a halo.  I used simple erasers to remove the objects.  
Image with the objects removed:

I put this image through Photomatix to work on the tone mapping.  Added my favorite touches, and this was the image:

OK - so now I have the base of what I see in this.  At this point, I could be finished but I like a little more detail and sharpness in my photos.  The barn wood and stone really have some potential to be unique.  And the sky really needs some help.   I will use On One's products to really pull out those details.  
This is starting to come around and I like what I see.

Before I'm done, I'm not real happy with some of the angles.  I used Elements to correct level the barn beam between the stone and wood.  I also corrected a bit for camera distortion but straightening the left and right edges of the barn.  It won't be perfect, but it will be better.

And put my backing and signature block on it - and final product.