jim schwaiger

Comments welcome

They were using a tremendous amount of water for sure, Too bad the only hose that was really doing any good was the one on the ladder shown here.

 

The firefighters in the previous image were spaying water on the right side of the building. The outside was vinyl siding which they were knocking off rather easily. Under that was press-board which they were soaking with water. There were two other walls right behind that: a rock wall (which used to be the external wall) and an internal block wall. Virtually no water was reaching the two inner walls.

 

Officially, it was a kitchen fire, but some were speculating that a new mexican restaurant in the area was taking their business, so it may have been an intentional fire to collect insurance.

 

This was one case where it was nice to be a "local". I knew 2 policemen, the owners, and a couple of the firefighters, so I had nearly free reign as I walked around with my camera. At the same time they were constantly running other people away.

Arrggh, errr, uh, hmmm, hrrr, acckk, fwoop fwoop.

Here's the restaurant all ablaze, or at least all asmoke. The original

composition was vertical, and there was nothing in the sky or grass

that added to the image, so I cropped to the square format.

Textbook lighting and focus. It has a very familiar feel, but it's still a great shot.

And take along a giant sunshade to put the hillside behind the trees in shadow while you're at it.

 

Red, Yellow, Green, Blue... some of my favorite colors! Were you actually on a bank here? Kinda looks like you're in the creek.

Now I see why so many people get hurt and killed skiing into trees out there...

 

I thought the shed was a wide door standing out in the middle of nowhere at first. It certainly needed the emplanation you gave. The subtle transition from mountain to sky is barely detectable, but it seems to work well with the great colors and "C" word you found here. You would make Rowell proud, knowing you worked so hard for this one.

You make it way to hard to find something to critique. Seems like all we can ever say is that we want a poster size print to look at. Very nice.

A restaurant near my folks house was ablaze. The restaurant used to be the

Schwaiger Nut Factory where my grandfather and uncles manufactured one

of the first lock nuts. A picture of the restaurant will follow soon.

Tne print is even a little bluer than this, so Fred is absolutely right, the polarizer should have been on for this one. It was in my bag about 12 feet away - Doh!

This was near the waterfall I posted earlier.

All good!

This may sound a little obvious (don't take this the wrong way), but when you compose an image, point the camera towards the interesting looking things, and away from distracting things.

 

Power lines are generally distracting while rock structures are generally interesting, hint hint.

The lighting and the ripple pattern at the bottom are essential to the image in my opinion. Very very nice.

It may not look like it, but the background was carefully considered

in this one, as was the lighting. I know the second bloom doesn't add

to the image, but this was the best angle I could get using the

tripod. The bug was a total surprise when I got the pictures back.

Luca, Luca,

 

Why Why would would you you do do that that? ?

Did you see any short-legged cows grazing around here? And does the road name imply that the other local roads don't get any sunshine?

 

Anyway, the colors are remarkable. If I had to find 2 nits, they would be the small patch of sky and the black vertical thing at the left of the silo.I don't think either are essential to the image, but positioning to remove the post may not have been possible here.

One of those tiems a spot meter would have been useful. I figured the

backlighting would confuse the meter so I "underexposed" based on it's

reading, but the result was still a little on the high side. I was

pleased with the result, detail in the center and still a little bit

of color in the sky. Sometimes you just guess right...

 

I see many cropping possibilities here, but this is as close as I

could get (the flower was about 12 feet off the ground). I left the

bottom edge because I do like the diffraction around the hairs on the

stem.

I don't know what the flower is here, but I can't remember seeing an orange & pink flower before. I also like the contrast between the bluish left wing and the natural looking underside of the right wing. Obviously a polarizer would have helped with that, but I don't think it detracts from the image in this case.

 

Thanks again guys.

Michael, I did try using black and even a darker brown during the duo-tone process. Without a serious curves adjustment, they just made the image too dark.In the end, the medium-dark brown gave a more realistic look that seemed to agree with the intentional overexposure better.

 

Fred, exactly right, this is two books in one. No really, my "m" and "n" occasionally switch places on this dang keyboard. I know this is true because my typing is flawless (I have perfected my own "seek and jab" typing method).

 

Thanks for the comments!

Hey, stay in your own state, heh heh.

 

Looks like a good place to visit during the daytime. Not only will your pictures be better, but it's much easier to explore diferent compositions.

There is a lot of imperfection here, but I really like this one for

some reason. The full frame version is in the same folder in my portfolio.

The web image does look a little too ordinary. The white streak and power lines are mildly distracting as well. I've learned from experience how difficult it is to capture the real beauty of a sky like this.

Fred, if memory serves, gravity may have been a little strong this day which would explain why it looks like a longer exposure.;-)

I did try chopping out the triangle after scanning, but I decided to leave it in so it would be less abstract.It would probably be better if the corner was all black.

 

The leaf was backlit which must be why it appears so soft. The only other possibility is that the leaf was moving, but this is doubtful as I took 3 shots at different apertures and they all have this look to them.

 

The toughest part here was selecting the point of focus; the top right edge was just an inch or two from the lens.