Shooting Your Own “Backyard”

February 26, 2010 by Joseph 2 Comments

Living on Long Island, NY sorta forces me to “go away” for landscape shots- Yosemite, Crescent City, Outerbanks… And yet from time to time I am fortunate enough to jump in the truck with gear and tripod in hand and venture forth… around the corner. We got snow today. Quite a bit of it here in NY (although nothing compared to my compatriots in NJ, poor things 🙂 So I ran around Setauket and Stonybrook this morning, shooting some sites I’ve wanted to shoot for awhile. This is a turn of the century farm house thats down near the “Setauket Duckpond.” Been around since the 17 or 1800’s and I’ve always wanted a shot of it in extreme weather or… a terrific sunset, with a multi-hued sky above it.

Funny thing is, I really had a tough time composing for it. Across the street there are a ton of telephone lines, behind it a modern house… UGH! Thought it would be alot easier to put this image together, it was frustrating to come up with a composition that I felt would work. I hope you like this one… have a few more I have to finish but, this is the first out of the gate. The more i look at it the more and more I like the emphasis on the tree and the snow blowing across the house… gives it a very ‘raw’ feeling (for me anyway…).

Given the “blah” light and the snow falling, I decided to shoot a few frames, and then a few GDR’s as well.  This is a  5 frame HDR combined in Photomatix and finished in Lightroom and CS3. have a few NIK filters in there like tonal contrast, darken/lighten center, and I think a contrast color range to boot.

Enjoy!


Photography, Photoshop
, ,

2 Responses to “Shooting Your Own “Backyard””

  1. Don Romeo Reply February 27, 2010 at 3:30 pm

    Hi Joseph,
    Sure did bring me back a bit. Derek and I played hockey on that pond and the girls skated on it. Always loved the scenery, you certainly provided a beautiful perspective with that picture. Thanks for the birthday wishes and our love home to Kathy and the boys.
    Donald

  2. Elizabeth Isles Reply April 27, 2010 at 2:07 pm

    I grew up next to the pond and we had the “duck pond” to ourselves most of the time. It was a great place to play and use our imaginations.

    Now, my son is a budding photographer and he and I enjoyed looking at your work. He is learning a lot from you. Thank you for sharing.

Leave a comment