The Signature Frame Collection: Bridge & Tree

From Heritage Park in the Outer Banks, NC… An amazing scene, finished with Epson Exhibition Fiber paper, a 4″ Museum Rag Mat, and a distressed walnut/gold trim frame. This is a true “mantle” piece or living room focal point. Stop by the Gallery and check it out…

Shooting the Moon

Just a quick snap taken will I was in the Outer Banks… another photographer setting up to shoot the moon high in the sky over the dunes. Great colors… great memory, captured forever in this frame.

Have a great weekend!

Solo Flight

I’ve posted shots of this pier from Duck in the Outer Banks before… but this one had a twist… didn’t notice that little guy flying through my frame without my permission (I might add 🙂 but I loved him in there. Added a little sense of life to the otherwise quiet solitude. It’s a shame this images get “shrunky-dunked” to fit the blog space, it’s neat when you see it bigger.

Bodie Lighthouse

…Pronounced “BODY” Lighthouse, its located in the Outerbanks of North Carolina. A quick snap, low to the ground with my 12-24mm wide angle lens.  Added a little color contrast and tonal contrast in CS3.. and thats about it 🙂

Under The Pier

This is from Kitty Hawk in the Outer Banks… Loved watching the waves roll in and around the pier. There is a randomness to it, and also an order.. almost memorizes you to stand there and just watch it. Time seems to stand still and also fly by…

Hope everyone has enjoyed their Holidays… egg coloring and Bunnies this weekend 🙂

Enjoy!

Color & Texture

As a photographer (and most of the ones I know) my eye is drawn to color and texture. Can’t seem to help it.

This is a shot from the side of an old building in Wanchese Harbor in the Outerbanks.

I think there was more vine than building actually. It had fallen into grave disrepair and nature was in the process of reclaiming her territory, one leaf at a time. Loved the bright green leaves against the rusting cracked wood, and peeling paint. You can feel the texture, the age of the building, and the hopeful promise of these leaves.

Just a neat little detail shot, but it has a lot of character. Enjoy!

Break in the Dunes

Sometimes you have to work for an image. Hard.

Coquina Beach in the Outer Banks is beautiful, but I found myself falling short on composing interesting images when I was there. I struggled for a few hours, until finally, during the last 30 minutes as the sun set, a few shots seemed to come into focus… this was one of them.

Mother Nature contributes a lot here- sometimes she graces you with incredible clouds, and great light. On this occasion the sky was blowing out, grey clouds mixed with white, and light was fairly flat.

Needed some help to make the images pop- turned to Topaz Adjust and Nik’s Color Efex Pro to help the images spark.

Remember, when you are out shooting and nothings coming to you, it usualy means its time to step back and reassess the situation. If the wide shot won’t work, go for detail or vice versa. I find that challenging photographic situations tends to tap your creativity, either in camera or in post a bit more. In the end the image may not work, and well, thats the cost of admission, but when it does… its magic.

Sun Over the Whalehouse

From a little research (thanks Google!) this house in the Currituck Heritage Park in the Outer Banks is named the Whalehouse. It was built between 1922 and 1925 and is 21,000 square feet. The family that built it (the Knights) seemed to have lost interest in it and it remained unoccupied for many years. In 1969 it was sold for, get this, $25,000. The house suffered significant vandalism and deterioration as it remained vacant for years to come. Finally it was added to the National Register of Historic Places and restored in 1999 (at the cost of a few million bucks).

With all that history, there is something about this place. Maybe it recalls a distant time in our history, a time when grandeur and simplicity seemed to reign (or at least the romantic in me would like to believe that). I love its canary yellow exterior, and the roof tiles, and the lines of the exterior windows.

The day this was taken, the sky was really blown out. Sun was high and really bright, not ideal conditions at all for making a nice photograph. Swiched to HDR mode and did a 5 frame bracket, in retrospect I should have done 7 frames with an emphasis on the highlights as the sky to me was a bit difficult in post to pull back, but I think this image works… I debated removing the colorful sun-flare that my lens caused, but decided that it really added another dimension to this photo.

Enjoy!

Ocean View

Prior to heading out to the Outer Banks I wrote down a quick “shoot” list so I would be ready to grab an image I wanted if it presented itself. Shoot lists can be very specific, or broad in nature. I encourage you to make one before heading out to a location because the act of writing it down helps you pre-visualize a shot, especially when you are venturing to a place you’ve never been before…

For the OBX shoot I had jotted down things like:

1. Interior of lighthouse (didn’t get this one) ~ was thinking of those winding stair type shots with the windows allowing in a bit of light…

2. Sunset (got a few of those) – specifically an interesting foreground object, and great color

3. Beach scenes: waves, dunes… (lots of those)

4. Clouds over the beach…

So… when I was standing at the entrance to a public beach and saw this great sunset starting, I also noticed this long wooden staircase winding its way down to the beach. Something about those wood staircases and beaches- they go together like Peanut Butter & Jelly I think. They give you a feeling of wanting to run down, leap of the last step into the sand and run into the surf (seems to have happened here by the number of footsteps in the lower sand). Those wooden staircases also seem to me to be an “icon” of summer, when you see one, you think warm temps, sun and sand.

Couldn’t help but “snap” this shot… crossed off the beach scene and the clouds from the shoot list, this one nicely captured both 🙂

In post I wanted a warmer feel to the image, used Topaz Adjust to pop the detail, and Color Efex Pro’s tonal Contrast at about 10%bon the sky- draws out the vibrance and detail in the clouds.

Coquina Beach, Outer Banks

This shot is from Coquina Beach in the Outer Banks.  Always loved those ‘long-view’ beach shots where the beach sorta   s t r e t c h e s away from you and meets the ocean in the far off distance. The dunes in the middle really add to that distant perspective. I don’t know about you, but this image conveys that sort of quiet, walking alone on a beach…where you can feel your own heart beat and your thoughts quiet… and you wish the moment wouldn’t end.