Yesterday the sky was clear in New York. I had been waiting for such a clear day to do some night shots of the Manhattan Bridge, Brooklyn Bridge, and lower Manhattan where the sky would be a deep, stark blue in contrast to the red lights..  Here are a few different perspectives taken with varying focal lengths, all on the Nikon D800 at ISO 200.  The exposure was set to f/8 and around 20 seconds.  Keeping the shutter open that long allowed the flowing water to create a smooth blur.

For the most normal all-inclusive perspective of the scene with the Manhattan Bridge in the foreground, the Brooklyn Bridge behind, and lower Manhattan off to the right I used a 15mm focal length on a Sigma 12-24mm zoom lens.

Choosing a 12mm focal length allowed me to come in closer to the foreground bridge for a more dramatic perspective on the same scene.

Last night the moon was almost full.  I was able to capture it with a deep silhouette of the Manhattan Bridge.  The moon was about 5 stops brighter than the rest of the scene so I needed to capture the scene in two exposures -- one for the moon, one for the dark silhouette -- and combine them later.  You cannot see it here because the image is presented so small, but there is full detail in the moon.

I happened upon this open safe door and grabbed a shot with my Leica M9 and 28mm lens, adding the bursting light later in Photoshop.

I captured this photo of the moon last night and superimposed it over the star shot taken on my recent trip to Bryce Canyon.  The moon was photographed using a 2000mm focal length lens and the stars with a 16mm lens.  Both images were taken with the Nikon D800 camera.

This photo goes with the still life from the last Friday blog post.  Taken with the Nikon D4 and 70-200mm zoom.

A nearby construction site offered the opportunity to grab these graphic images of steel girders.  Taken with the Nikon D800 and 300mm f/4 lens.

A camera photo taken with the Samsung Galaxy III and modified with the photo techniques I illustrated in my Learn Photography blog.  Read about it here: Learn Photography with Tom Grill: Instagram technique in Photoshop

Using this technique instead of Instagram preserves the original large size of the photograph.

Some antique tools from my collection.

The heirloom tomatoes were appearing at the farmers market just before I left on my trip out west, and I made a point of remembering to pick some up to photograph at the studio when I returned.  I wanted to capture their rough sculptural beauty up close.  Here are some samples from my first photo session.

 

All of the above photos were taken with a Nikon D4 and 85mm tilt-shift macro lens.

This image was captured with my new Samsung Galaxy III Android phone.  It is for a new series of stock cell phone images that will be sold by Tetra Images.  The new camera phones are 8MP and capable of producing a quality level suitable for smaller stock uses up to around 8"x10".

For my trip to Bryce Canyon my flight went in and out of Las Vegas.  This is a view of the famous Vegas strip at dusk.  It is a panoramic made up of two images taken with the Fuji X-Pro1 camera.

Thunderstorms were a daily occurrence in the Bryce Canyon area.  This often resulted in some very dramatic skies.

The setting sun lights up the thunderheads of a clearing storm as it passed through the canyon.

This rainbow was very faint.  Enhancing it in Photoshop brought out the colors.

For most of the photography in Bryce Canyon I covered primarily sunrise, sunset, and the night sky.  The two images below were taken of the same rock formation -- one as the sun was coming up, the other of stars in the night sky just after the sun went down.

This tight shot was taken with a 70mm focal length capturing the glow of the rising sun just on the edge of the inside of the hole in the rock formation.

This photo of the same rock formation silhouetted against the starry sky is made up of two images combined in Photoshop to form a panoramic landscape.

Everywhere in the park pine trees integrated with the harsh landscape, many of them clinging tenuously to life on the cliffs.

The roots of this lone pine made a stark silhouette at dawn as they clung precariously to the edge of the cliff.  To emphasize the shape of the roots I chose a ground-level angle and put them against the lighter part of the sky.

Pines crowded between the canyon walls along the Navaho Trail rise towards the light.

I liked the starkness of this scene of craggy trees and their shadows integrating with the equally rough textured background.

A 200mm focal length captured this distant landscape and compressed the scene into a tableau.

This pine  atop a high cliff over-looking the canyon, and the morning clouds echoed the shape of the rocky terrain. Shot with a Sigma 12-24mm zoom set to a 12mm focal length on a Nikon D800.

My primary reason for visiting the Bryce Canyon area was to photograph the stars. This photo was taken at the nearby Red Canyon National Forest.  My trip was planned so there would be no moon leaving the sky  completely dark.  I worked primarily with very wide angle lenses and wide open apertures.  For this image I chose a focal length of 14m with the Nikon 14-24mm lens.  The aperture was f/2.8, ISO of 2000, and exposure set to 30 seconds. To used a Nikon SB900 flash off to the side to add some illumination to the face of the cliffs..

For this photo of the Milky Way and pine trees I used the Nikon 16mm fisheye lens with an aperture of f/2.8, ISO of 3200 and exposure of 30 seconds.  30 seconds was the longest exposure time I used, since anything longer would result in motion blur in the star trails.

This sunrise photo of Thors Hammer hoodoo was taken from a vantage point part way down a trail to the bottom of the canyon.  This lower position allowed me to position the structure above the horizon so the sun would peek out from around its top

I am spending the week photographing Bryce Canyon, Utah, and will be using my favorite landscape camera, the Nikon D800.

Every time I pass through the farmer's market I find something new and colorful to photograph.  This photo of cherry tomatoes was taken by filtered window light with the Fuji X-Pro1 and 35mm lens at f/8.

I found this detail of a tug boat port hole while on my bike ride this morning.  Photographed with the Fuji X-Pro1.

While at the farmer's market I also picked up some broccoli to photograph in the studio.

I went to the farmer's market today in search of a perfect tomato to photograph. I found that and a few other items including the zucchini blossoms and radishes below.   All were photographed by soft window light with a Nikon D800 and 60mm macro lens.

Computing in the clouds.

The past weekend has resulted in a variety of interesting weather patterns due to the constant passing thunderstorms.  The light, pastel blue in this image is due to the haze of midday summer heat.  Skies are used primarily as backgrounds in stock photograph so it is important to allow them to do their work.  I kept this image light and low in contrast so it would be easy to print over.

Billowing thunderheads stand out against the deep overhead sky and create dramatic shapes that illustrate the power of nature.

Most nights the skies would clear, and the shape of the remaining clouds often serve as reflectors of the sunset light.

Threatening, stormy clouds also make good stock shots.  I liked this one with the tiny sun barely peaking out from  behind the passing storm.

This is a combined panorama of two photos and illustrates the threatening grayness of a low-hanging storm.

The photo of the girl on the tight rope was taken in the studio against a white background and then superimposed over an image of the sky in Photoshop.  The neutral areas left at the top and bottom of the sky allows designers to use the space for type placement.

It's getting to be that time of year!

I suppose you could say this is a little wishful thinking about your investments. The hands were photographed in the studio and combined with the background image of a computer stock trading graphic.

Today I played around with creating a variety of maps in Photoshop.  Here are a couple of them.

The background for this map is an actual bar code spelling out the word, "United States".