Mackerel Sky Morning

It was a good day for altocumulus.  I saw a quintessential mackerel sky.  It was a good day for trotting and brisk walking, too, and I hadn't planned to stop and do any photography.  I'm glad I had my iPhone in my pocket, though, because a few brief pauses netted me some interesting shots.

Here's the obligatory photo of my dog Ziva admiring the view.  Well, actually she's looking off into the weeds, probably having smelled something of interest.  I'm just glad that she was amenable to some quick stops for pics on the way home, because her influence was mostly along the lines of "come on, move your butt faster, I want to catch up to that jogger/bicyclist/squirrel!"

This was a scene where I knew the little phone camera couldn't possibly record the dynamic range of the scene (dark to light).  Biasing the exposure toward the sky and letting the trees become silhouetted gave me what I hoped for.  The area around the sun is still "blown out" to white without gradations of tone, but...so what!  I rather like the appearance of an explosive fireball within the cloud puffs.

The next two images are both processed from one shot.  The first version is cropped and adjusted to feature what caught my eye in the first place: a colorful cluster with another stalk curving around it like a frame.  I had to use a lot of shadow recovery to delineate this area clearly and retrieve the colors of the leaves.

The second version is closer to what appeared "straight out of the camera", with the bottom cropped away to turn a horizontal image into a vertical, and with contrast and color saturation strengthened.  The drama of this approach satisfies me more than the one above.

My final shot took advantage of a slightly less intense sun behind the clouds, and a more complete block from a tree.  This let me get the tones and colors in the sky.  The position of the blue sky patches low in the scene worked nicely, for my taste.

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Bi-chromatic sky

Usually, when the sky is the main focus of a photograph, or just an important element of a landscape or cityscape, one would use a wide angle lens to include much of it.  A couple of days ago, I was using telephoto lenses to capture soccer action.  I noticed unusual clouds and colors shortly before sunset.  The game wasn't going to pause for me, and I didn't have a "short" lens anyway, so I grabbed this shot of one small area (an angle of view of 6.9º horizontally...no, I don't have such statistics all memorized, but it was easy to look up given the focal length of the lens, which was 300 mm).  The color contrast was striking, along with the sharp demarcation between the small quasi-cumulus globs and the wispy stratus area.

With enough of a time out, I could grab a zoom that let me pull back to 100 mm and do this shot of a broader but still concentrated area (20.4º horizontally, in case you were dying to know).

Permalink: http://jilcp.blogspot.com/2014/09/bi-chromatic-sky.html

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iPhone sky panorama

Let's admit right off the bat that this is not strictly a panorama. Most photos given that label are simply wider than average views. "Panorama" literally means a view of everything around you; I was not that ambitious, but maybe more selective. I simply stepped out of a restaurant into a parking lot and thought "ooh, look at the sky!"

To repeat the cliche, the best camera is the one you have, so out came the cell phone. I made a quick series of overlapping shots of the area the interested me, and combined them in Photoshop. Notice how I used a tree and a building to occult the disk of the sun, which otherwise would have overwhelmed the clouds and the orange and blue sky.

This worked well enough that I may try even wider shots with the phone when the scene calls for it. Maybe even a true 360º panorama.

Permalink: http://jilcp.blogspot.com/2014/09/iphone-sky-panorama.html

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Symphony Lake, Independence Day

A quiet moment at the lake by Koka Booth Amphitheater, before the North Carolina Symphony performance and the fireworks.

Permalink: http://jilcp.blogspot.com/2014/07/symphony-lake-independence-day.html

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One day, two photo walks

A stroll through just one corner of the Raulston Arboretum can take you from a taste of Southwestern Desert to Southeastern Tropics.

The Arboretum is not all that far from downtown Raleigh. The grounds of the Dorothea Dix Hospital Campus are even closer to the heart of the city. From high ground, the gaps in the trees allow this view to the Wells Fargo and PNC towers.

Otherwise, the surroundings are peaceful and beautiful. I hope that most of the remaining land will be set aside for use as a public park. What a prize that would be for the city's residents, and what a good influence on the continued cultural development of Raleigh!

I became intrigued by one tree, and played with it photographically.

Which way is up?!

The sky was conducive to framing some of the empty buildings as an architectural landscape.

Permalink: http://jilcp.blogspot.com/2014/06/one-day-two-photo-walks.html

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Between bouts of rain, some moments of interesting light

With rainy weather predominating this week, I tried to catch some interesting clouds this afternoon, between the periods of heavy rain and featureless gray sky. Lately, the lakes and rivers are muddy every time I get a look, but the grass and flowers are happy and reflect bright colors. This shot was made with a tilt-shift lens, and I made use of both features: downward shift to include the base of the spray of wildflowers while keeping a level perspective, and downward tilt to extend the plane of sharp focus at an almost horizontal angle so that it encompassed the foreground foliage and the distant trees.

The rain returned in earnest a minute or so after I caught this moment. Lens: Canon 17/4.0 TS-E.

At Shelley Lake in Raleigh, rain began to fall as I set up a panoramic photo. I completed the three overlapping shots that I blended into the final image, then packed and left as a real downpour commenced. I wasn't in the mood to be a lightning rod. Lens: Canon 16-35/2.8 @ 16 mm.

Both of these were situations where a tripod was almost a necessity, in the first case to allow full control over the results of lens movements (tilt and shift), and in the second case to ensure good alignment of multiple images so that I could know what my upper and lower edges would look like when the whole composition was stitched together.

Permalink: http://jilcp.blogspot.com/2013/07/between-bouts-of-rain-some-moments-of.html

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Horses in a mostly sunny landscape

A few days ago I found the "local" (NC State Veterinary School) horses grazing in a pasture accessible from public walkways. It was a mostly sunny day, but with upper and lower layers of clouds moving around. I decided to try to portray the three dimensional shapes and overlap of the cloud layers. 

I'm always drawn to patterns in landscapes, so I composed a shot of two horses mirroring each other, framed by lines in the grass and fences.

In a wider view, the blue sky and green grass are "completed" by the red barn - the three primary colors. Actually, the grass is yellow-green, and the sky is, well, sky blue, not pure blue, but it's still a strong combination.

One friendly stallion came closer to look me over, so we exchanged greetings, then each moved on.

Permalink: http://jilcp.blogspot.com/2013/03/horses-in-mostly-sunny-landscape.html

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Chasing the sky

A week ago, I was out running errands when the clouds began to develop such a fascinating mix of different types that I felt compelled to get to a spot where I had a clear view of the sky. I was determined to make a photo of some subject - any subject - that would be complemented by what was above and around. Failing that, I figured I should at least document the crazy shapes in the sky.

I got to an area on the outskirts of town, where there is a view down close to the level of the horizon in most directions, albeit with power lines and other things not usually thought to be photogenic. I found a bike path that looks much like a country lane. I set up a composition with the electrical lines on the left kind of mirroring the wire fence on the right. I also liked the way the clouds fit in with the receding perspective of the road and the trees on the right. It really was amazing watching all the layers of different cloud types sliding over and under each other. I was enjoying everything, but also trying to keep my mind on getting the shot before it disappeared.

I grabbed one of the sky alone, figuring that I could possibly add it to a new landscape some future day (Photoshop is easier than darkroom multi-printing!), but I rather like it by itself.

Nearby, this little urban pastoral scene intrigued me even though some of the incredible sky was hidden by the tree.

Permalink: http://jilcp.blogspot.com/2012/09/chasing-sky.html

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