Kenneth Reynolds

I was blessed with a gorgeous day outside as my first off this week. Of course, the only thing I could conceivably comprehend doing was photography. So, I packed the camera bag and zipped off in my beat-up old pickup truck to destinations unknown for photographic adventures as of yet undiscovered. After driving around for a while and getting a feel for the day I decided that, according to the cloud formations in the sky, I wanted to revisit my favorite old train bridge located on the western fringes of Arlington to explore new and different photo opportunities in that location. Upon arriving and parking my truck off the beaten path I was pleased to discover an amazing scene awaiting my craft with the camera. The first image below is straight from the camera with the slight exception of a minor curves adjustment performed in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. Just as a note, I perform curves adjustments on all of my photos. That’s just my style and workflow. The sky and clouds pop with the aid of my trusty Hoya Circular Polarizing filter mounted to the front of my essential landscape tool, the Canon 17-40 mm f/4L.

Below can be witnessed a major deviation for me. Not in subject matter, of course, but in post production and processing. Yes, to the most observant among you, this is an HDR image. This one is different, however, in that it is a fake HDR being that it was created entirely from one single image completely within Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. Again, here, I used the Canon 17-40 mm f/4L with a Hoya Circular Polarizing filter. I discovered this HDR effect completely by accident – or, to be more exact, by an accidental slip of the hand while adjusting one of the many sliders in Lightroom – and immediately saw the potential. I will be experimenting with this newly discovered processing technique over time, as I definitely have a few ideas for subjects that would directly benefit from this particular HDR effect.

As mentioned in my previous post on this site, we experienced an historic snow storm in Dallas, TX during the February 11 – 12, 2010 time period. What’s even more monumental than the storm itself is the fact that I was off for the two best days of the entire event. Of course, I went positively nuts photographing every scene I could possibly come across or dream up, and even then I missed many opportunities due to sheer lack of time. Regardless, I shot 8 GBs worth of photographs – roughly 800 photographs in RAW format – and just recently finished distilling everything and scraping the best of the bunch off my hard drive for digital darkroom finishing and magic. Below are my two favorites. Sometime over the next week I will update the gallery on this site with a few more images from the event, as time allows. Enjoy!

It is not very often that I get to take advantage of historic weather events. I am usually working or in class, or somehow otherwise occupied. Not today! Today I was blessed with being scheduled off and, it just so happened that a historic snow storm blew into North Texas, dumping a whopping 7 inches of snow so far, and it hasn’t stopped yet! Of course, I had no choice but to take advantage of this rare opportunity, and boy did I ever! My first stop was a visit to the awesome, amazing, wonderful folks over at Arlington Camera to rent the Canon 50mm f/1.2L lens to shoot with for the day. It was a good rental decision, as the lens never left my camera body. It is quite a breathtaking lens. I enjoyed it so much, in fact, that I am planning on purchasing the lens later this year so I can shoot with it all the time. As a matter of fact, I intend to only shoot with it once I purchase it, since the focal length is just perfect for all the things that I shoot. It will definitely be a worthwhile investment.

Back to today, I captured a ton of photos, and below is one of my favorites. I experimented a lot with trying to capture falling snow flakes against a completely blurred background; hence the reason for renting the 50mm f/1.2L in the first place. After a lot of trial and error, I finally found the sweet spot concerning focus and depth of field. Of course, at an aperture of 1.2, there really is no depth of field anyway! The below photo is, again, processed in black and white. I have some color captures from today, but there is something about black and white that just keeps screaming out to me lately. Besides, snowy scenes tend to look much better in black and white anyway, in my opinion. Enjoy!