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On the east side of Mt. Desert Island (Acadia National Park) are a number of spectacular hikes. We like them because the payoff in scenic views is great relative to the small amount of effort required to get there.

Across the open, rocky tops of the hills, a number trails feature the Bates Cairn, a rather unique feature designed by pathmaker Waldron Bates in the late 1800s – early 1900s. In addition to helping to guide hikers along the trail, they also make for some excellent photo opportunities.

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This image is decidedly not in the ‘rurex’ category. Interesting how we can go from “Elbow Grease” to this.

This was from a Real Estate shoot I did for an associate a while ago. It’s always nice to wander freely around a place like this… not nearly as many weeds and bugs as some locations I’ve been to. Actually, it was so nice that I decided to have a bit of lunch on the dock while the camera was firing off the brackets.

Life is good in a place like this.

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Pretty Maids All In A Row

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A string of dories lies in wait on the quiet side of Mount Desert Island, Maine.

In an attempt to avoid the crowds around Acadia National Park, we took a leisurely drive around the west side of Mt. Desert Island, looking for new opportunities. As we drove past one of the many bays shrouded in woods, we caught a glimpse of some potential well below the level of the roadway.

Sometimes it really pays to swing the truck around to investigate. After climbing downhill about fifty feet, I found a nice spot to catch these dories.

Handheld three exposure HDR, f/14, 24mm, ISO 100, Photomatix Pro and HDR Express

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And sometimes, “bad” is bad.

That must have been one serious downer for the owner of the truck. Being that it’s on a remote peninsula, I have to wonder how they got home.

This poor, unfortunate ride is now a permanent fixture at Cape Lookout, North Carolina. Fully covered at high tide (and hence the barnacles on the engine block), at low tide it bakes in the sun. We appreciate it being there, as it serves as a distant landmark for beaching our kayaks at this particular spot where there is a cut-through to the ocean side of the hook.

You can see this extra large in a new window on my Transportation Gallery

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This is an HDR image from three handheld exposures, processed in HDR Expose and 32 Float from Unified Color.  (Discount Available Here.) I had a circular polarizer installed that day, but it was a brilliantly clear day, i.e., no blue saturation was added. I used a little bit of Darken/Lighten Center, and Sharpener Pro, both from NIK Software.

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I have seen the following technique from a couple of sources. The first was in one of Rick Sammon’s books, and then I saw it in a very recent blog. I was reminded to cover this technique with my own image as I uploaded it for printing on aluminum at SizzlPix! It’s a fun post-processing technique that you can try on some of your own images.  It won’t be a hit on every one of them, but when it does work, the results are pretty wild.

First, look for an image with a strong graphic element.  Flowers and trees tend to work very well, and if you can avoid a cluttered background, so much the better.

Here is my original image. Notice the strong graphic element of the trees, and a minimally disrupted background.

On this image, after bringing it into Photoshop (CS4, in this case), I did a little modification by adding a NIK Color Efex Pro Polarization filter in order to even out the brilliant blue sky.  Then, using my LAHR/HALR sharpening technique, I brought things to the clarity that I wanted.

Make sure the image is flattened. Also ensure that it’s in 8-bit mode by using the Image -> Mode -> 8-bits/Channel command, as the upcoming Distort filter doesn’t work in 16-bit mode.

Go to Filter -> Distort -> Polar Coordinates.  In the preview window, select Polar To Rectangular and let it fly. Funky, eh? Maybe you’d like to stop there…

Go to Image -> Image Rotation -> Flip Canvas Vertical.  And then…

Go to Filter -> Distort -> Polar Coordinate, but select Rectangular to Polar.

For this image, the result is:

Well, there was just a bit of extra work. The immediate output from the final Distort command yielded, in this case, a tan or buff background. Using a simple Paint Bucket tool set to a very low Tolerance of only a few pixels, I dumped black into the outer areas to really set off the contrast to the image.

I’ve printed this out large on metallic paper.  Killer!

This is one of those techniques that can really yield some interesting surprises.  Feel free to play around with various combinations and different images. Since there’s so little effort involved, you really can’t go wrong.

Have fun!

Rob