Boulderado Hotel Reading Area

I absolutely love Boulder, CO. It has great shops, fun places to explore, beautiful landscapes… everything wonderful. It also has this hotel, the Boulderado- one of the best in the city, if not in the whole state. I had never been inside before, and wandered in one evening that I was visiting. I found this reading area on the 2nd or 3rd floor, tucked into a corner. I thought it was beautiful and strove to make it warmer and bring out the interesting textures in the wood, fabrics and marble with HDR. I have sat down and worked on this multiple times since November of last year, and always had one problem or two that I couldn’t fix with my current knowledge level. So I would move on, sighing… eventually I would pick up the necessary knowledge or photoshop trick and I could come back and finish that issue. Now, I think, it is how I envisioned it in my head.

HDR from 3 exposures, processed in Photomatix Pro 4 and Photoshop CS4. I don’t think I used any other programs, but it’s been sooooo long… oh, of course, Lightroom. Right.

Posted to the places and landscapes gallery at www.kelleybard.com, as well as flickr and facebook.

Enjoy!

Kite Flying Free

Hi All,

Family left today and I’m still a bit overwhelmed so no fancy pic here, just one that I liked a lot when I shot it. The good news is that I got out for some driving and shooting today (shooting pics, obviously… if I was driving and SHOOTING I wouldn’t be telling you all about it, except for in my manifesto!). So I hope to get some fun new images out of that shoot.

Tomorrow I’m refreshing my displays at Antiques and Art on Main and at The Red Tent Healing Women’s Center… so if you are in Durango, check my work out this weekend!

I’ll be at The Red Tent Saturday evening, to see the art show put on for the other displayed artist there!

See more online at http://www.kelleybard.com, flickr or facebook.

 

Sound, Grass and Dock

I really like texturing images, but tend to keep them really light, almost undistinguishable (is that really a word? Really?) from the original image except for a tinge of texture, detail or color. I guess in most photography that is my aim, to make small changes that add up to much better images in the long run.

This image certainly doesn’t have the amt of texture that I’ve seen on some, but it’s heavier than most of my images. I keep the texture away from the grasses- and didn’t the HDR make that grass come out AMAZING??- and concentrated on the sky and water. I also used a texture I don’t usually use, one of the Stuck In Customs 25 texture pack… this one created the “scratchy” look on this print. Let me clarify, though… when I use textures, I almost always use some of the Stuck In Customs textures. They are great. But I often use the more mellow ones, the wall texture types. Not ones that are radically detailed and different… but it worked here, so I’m not complaining!

This was a shot that I took and wanted to finish months ago. I am glad that I finally got an HDR version that I liked (redid it several times with different settings) and textures and a look that I love.

Enjoy this and all my work at http://www.kelleybard.com, or on my flickr or facebook pages.

 

Half Dome from bridge (Second of 2 photos)- I’d LOVE comments here!

So here’s my second version of the same image, processed a bit more “HDR’y” although both came from the same HDR image.  I like the more extreme HDR look here, but don’t like the increased noise in the water and trees, and the smoothed out look that came from my Topaz Denoise noiseware also bugs me in some of the plants along the river.  The other is probably the best technically… But this one calls to me still…

So I’m torn.  Love some comments to see which YOU like better.

Posted to Facebook and flickr.

Enjoy!

Half Dome from Bridge, Calm (first of 2 versions of photo)

Classic photo of Half-Dome… I had to try my hand at it.  This is from a bridge across the Merced River, which gives you the perfect image of Half Dome.  That day, and every day I was in Yosemite Valley on this trip, there was this heavy ground fog as well.  I really like how it made the image come out.

Photo is an HDR from 3 different exposures, all taken with tripod and processed in Photomatix Pro 4.  I then did some shifting and cleaning up in Photoshop.  I tried a different approach today, usually I remove all the noise and significantly soften the image, but after a Nik Software landscape class this morning, I decided to leave the image with a bit more noise and do more sharpening as well.  I have stayed away from sharpening in many of my images and perhaps they have suffered a bit… any thoughts from out there on this conundrum?

I’ll review the Nik class in the near future, but in short, it was a good one!

Oh, black and white because of the Ansel Adams fan in me.  I literally can’t see a photo of Half Dome in color, it just doesn’t work for me.  I did apply a blue filter to this, to bring out the glow in the white snow.  It adds a nice mood, I think.

The other version is a bit more noisy and a bit more contrasty… more of your classic HDR I think… I’ll post it tomorrow, so come back!

This will go to flickr and facebook and my website:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kelleybardphotography

facebook has a link off this page

website: http://www.kelleybard.com.

Love your comments, especially after tomorrows version is posted!

Enjoy.

Inside Virginia Aquarium, and checking again on photo size

This was just a neat room inside the aquarium in Virginia Beach, VA (I think it was the Virginia Aquarium, but honestly the only gift I got from there is in my toddlers room and I’m not going in there until she is asleep… so sorry about the uncertainty).  I really didn’t do much post processing here, but I wanted to sharpen it enough to be able to read the quote at the end wall, so that was part of the process.  I may have brightened it up a bit and increased the saturation in Photoshop as well.

It’s a daily photo.  Just a moment from my life that I found beautiful and mystifying, and I happened to have my camera to record it.

I’d love to hear from people on whether or not this photo size is too large.  Any comments?

Enjoy.

Yosemite Falls in Early Winter

Yosemite Falls.  So, what do you think?  I like how the photo came out, and I like how the noise removal made the rocks look, but the trees are made pretty spacey…. oh, HDR.  How I love your look but not some of the side issues.

Anyways, I would love to hear comments.

Posted here, flickr (kelleybardphotography) and http://www.kelleybard.com/places.

Enjoy!

Count the Gravestones… “Arlington Endless Graves”

This was taken on a sunny, warm day in fall, at Arlington National Cemetery.  I just find that place amazing… scary and overwhelmingly solemn, but amazing.

I used 3 photographs and created an HDR from them, to get the nice glow in the final photo.

While I liked the image, I wanted to further warm up the colors and to add some textures that might create additional depth.  I used textures with various designs, all with warm colors.  I especially like the vine texture which adds some interesting lines across the gravestones and the lawn.  Some other wall textures gave a deep, old look to the image.

Feel free to look at this and other photos at my website, http://www.kelleybard.com.

Eternal Flame

This photo was taken at the gravesite of John F. Kennedy, in Arlington Cemetery, Washington, D.C.  I first went to Arlington when I was 13 and was really struck by it.  Recently, a favorite photographer of mine posted some photos from Arlington and my desire to go again was rekindled.  On a convenient trip to visit family in N. Virginia, I took an afternoon and wandered with my camera and tripod.  The amount of graves there is really astounding, and the solemnity is impressive.  I will probably have more photos from this day to publish as the time goes on.  I happened to be there on the eve of some book being published about JFK’s death, so this area was more busy than usual, with CNN reporters and the like.  That was exciting, but I wanted to contemplate it quietly, so I waited until the area had thinned of people before shooting my image.  I could, also, have moved a bit to the side so the lines wouldn’t be diagonal, but I liked this view too.  I desaturated most everything except the flame, and increased the contrast a bunch on the background.

One thing- I rarely if ever add deliberate blur to photos.  To me, it just doesn’t look good in most situations.  For this, though, I thought and thought and finally added it… and liked it.  What do you think?  I tried my hardest to both keep the flame and base in focus, and to make it a smooth transition from blur to focus.  How did I do?  Love to get responses on that, or on your general take of blurred images.

I will also post this to flickr and facebook… depending on the responses there, I may post it to my website.

Enjoy!

Broken Down Virginia Pier, and what do you think of the new photo sizes?

First of all, this is an unusual take on a photo for me.  I usually don’t like graininess in my images, and use noiseware often to remove it.  I like the images to look as good in large sizes as small, and I tend to think that grain makes the larger images not as “clean”.  But this photo really seemed to need it, and looks better for a little added grain and noise.

I saw this pier in a small lake off a stream in Southern Virginia, when I was on my way to Virginia Beach.  I was taking my time driving some country roads, and I was finding out that this section of Virginia is riddled with waterways.  I had just been stopped at a cute little drawbridge when I saw this off to the side… as soon as the boat moved through and the cars started moving again, I pulled over to look at this.  The colors and contrast in camera didn’t do the scene justice, and I had actually sat with the image in my computer for a few months while I tried to figure out where I wanted to go with it.  Finally the grainy/black and white/contrasty look seemed to be the best idea.  I played with the image in photoshop and with Topaz Adjust until I got the right look.

Enjoy this, I’ve also posted this in my daily photos on facebook and on my website at www.kelleybard.com.  Feel free to explore my art more in either of those venues!