sweeney

Very nice capture. Good use of shutter speed and well balanced exposure with the difference in the colors of the dogs and the ground. Very nice work.

wow what a character. The shot is a bit unsharp but a great capture. Very interesting.

In my opinion I don't like it when I see an image that I immediately know that the HDR technique has been used. They look fake. I think it is an overused/improperly used tool. I think this has a fake look to it. It doesn't look natural and I think you intended it to. I think HDR should be used to make subtle enhancement to capture the full range of available light but not much more. This is only my opinion. I think it could be toned down and be a great picture. I do like the subject matter but I am distracted by the overdone HDR.

Drew, I am using PS7 actually which doesn't have really any tools to do splicing or HDR (unless i am just missing something). I use photomatix to blend and panorama maker to stitch. I find that it is better to blend first rather than try to blend 3 or 4 stitches because they don't always stitch the same and then you run into problems with alignment. Thanks for you comments. I did have trouble with the sky in this one and tried to blend it best I could after in PS. The stitch on the left 2/3 could certainly use some more work.

Raymond, Thanks for the comments. Yes Ord is not abandoned per se but the military left about fifteen years ago. The land has been mostly divided up between the cities of Marina and Seaside, as well as what is now the Cal State University at Monterey Bay, a small school that makes Berkely and UC Santa Cruz seem like a right wing training ground. Many of the original buildings still stand and just as many have already been demolished to make way for new developement. As they stand with no maintenance you can see what fifteen years has done. There is some great stuff out there, a lot of which I have shot and just not gotten around to processing yet.

Dennis, thanks for your comments. This was a time consuming process to say the least. Not to mention that I am pretty new to this process. This was a total of 12 exposures. Three each of four different frames. I processed each of the frames in HDR then stitched together the four resulting images. I then layered a stitch of the normal non-HDR exposure over the first and blended it in the needed areas. After that quite a bit of touching up in PS resulting in a >200mb file. A lot of work. Facinating that you used to live there. The whole base pretty much looks like this now and much of it has already been demolished to make way for housing. There is also a CSU campus there now as well and a recently finished Shopping center (box store type). Quite a lot has changed. I'm trying to capture as much of it as I can before it is gone forever. There are a few other pictures from the base in my folio and many more to come. Thanks for stopping by and sharing some history. Btw what years were you there?

This is a stitch of four shots. An abandoned street on the former Ft.

Ord Army base near Monterey,CA. Soon to be demolished to make way for

new housing developments.

This is the rear area of an abandoned Army base housing area on former

Ft. Ord Army base. 12 exposures blended then stitched. I greatly

appreciate your thoughts. I try not to overdo the HDR look too much.

Thanks

Sharon, That thought did cross my mind and I think it would look good. I did go for that slightly as you can see by the leaves on the tree to the right. Thanks for the comments.

This is blend of multiple exposures made from one RAW file. I try to

keep the HDR look to a minimum. Please share your thoughts. Thanks

A very nice portrait and fantastic lighting. Good post-processing as well.

Good lighting. Very pretty model. I like the colors in the hair.

Very nice lighting and a beautiful model.

I would like to see a little more detail in the roof area and I agree about the first lamps. If this is an HDR blend it is done very well and barely noticeable, the way I like them. Good use of available light if not HDR

I don't know if it was intentional or not but nothing is in focus. It doesn't look soft, just out of focus.

The lighting looks good. I'm not sure I like the pose. I think maybe its the crossed arms. I don't do studio work so my thoughts are not based on any experience.

This looks more fake than the beach shot. I looks like a poor job with the burning tool.

In my opinion the light rays appear very fake.

This shot caught my eye. The b/w was done well and the pose is great. You used a good lens with this that gave it that slight perspective distortion that I think makes this work even more. Looks like he's coming off the page.

The water looks way over sharpened to me. Could be my monitor but I don't think so.

the blues in the sky are very noisy. Other than that I love the colors.

Very nice. I like the eyes a lot. Of course we all know that cats only come out at night so I love the moon. Nice texture in the cat. Well composed.

I think this shot has great potential and the beginnings of good depth of field but there is nothing in the shot that is sharp and therefore there is no distinct subject although I know it is meant to be the game.

Fantastic! you caught the rays of light just right. A graduated filter would work well here too I think to bring out some of the details in the foreground but it is a great picture anyways.

Beautiful shot. Well composed. There is so much going on with the foreground that I think it was smart to crop down low as you have. Great colors.