OLD PUMP STATION

I took this shot this morning or an old pumping station on Sun Oil Rd. in Mont Belvieu, Tx.

High Paint 2

A close up of the paint guys.

High Paint

This shot is part of a paint crew working on painting the concrete highway structure at the intersection of 290 and Beltway 8 west. Judges at the Bay Area Photo Club of Clear Lake recognized this shot Tuesday night with a Bronze award.

FM1942 Rig

This rig is set up on FM1942 near Crosby.

Monster Crane

I've been checking out this crane for about a week now. It's located at a plant, I think Lyondell, off of Lawndale near the Richey exit I'm not sure my shot does justice to the extreme size of this thing, but it is a genuine monster.

Evergreen Oilfield_3

Another shot of an old pump jack at the Evergreen oilfield in Baytown.

Evergreen Oilfield_2

This old pump jack was another photograph taken on the Baytown Photo Club field trip this past Saturday.

Old Twin Stack Factory at Galveston

This photo is of an old abandoned factory currently owned by Galveston County located just to the left of I45 as you come on to the island. It's a great old block building with a lot of character - wish it wasn't posted!

Headache Ball and Block_2

I had a couple of comments about this shot being too dark so I'm posting this lighter version. I agree, definitely looks better.

Headache Ball and Block

Keeping with yesterday's industrial theme, I shot this headache ball and block on a mobile crane that was doing some work in Baytown a while back. I don't know why but I like the subject as a still life study.

Men at Work

Some number of months ago the Dairy Queen at the corner of Texas Avenue and Alexander Drive in Baytown was accidentally burned down while a new roof was being installed. I'm not sure how long the building had been there but I've lived in Baytown all my life and I remember it there at least as long as I've been driving. After sitting for a while reconstruction is now underway. It's always good to see businesses rebound after a setback like this, it makes you feel like it's springtime in the winter!

High Lineman

Here's a shot I took from my parked car at work on my lunch break the other day. [Whataburger, Rush on the radio, and a photo op! Life doesn't get any better, right?] I decided to take some inspiration from last nights Textures demo by BAPC "Photog of the Year" Steve Schuenke to kick it up a notch. Hope ya'll like it.

Industrial Rainbow

A temporary job assignment had me on the road for a few trips and I passed this scene on the way back from making sales calls in Northern Louisiana. This mill was located in the Northern part of the Texas Piney Woods, but I don’t remember exactly where. I spotted the arc of water in the air from a ways down the road but decided I had to stop when I spotted the rainbow.

Tech: Panosonic Lumix Super Zoom DMC-FZ50 @ 25mm, f5.0 for 1/640 at ISO100 & -1.33, Raw, AP Post Processing:Crop>Duplicate Background>Clone out Unwanted Elements>High Pass Sharpen>Curves/Brightness Adjustment Layer>Merge Visible>Lens Distortion Vignette>Topaz Adjust “Simplify”

Tinkering with CS3

Tech: Oly E-3, 12-60 Zuiko @ 60mm, f4.0, 1/800 & ISO 100, Aperture Priority Post Processing: Duplicate Background>Threshold Adjustment Layer in “Multiply”>Merge Visible>Levels>Merge Visible>Find Edges Darken Mode & 48% Opacity
I had this kind of flat image of a coal processing unit on the backside of the Champion Paper Plant at the Washburn Tunnel in Pasadena that I wanted to try and pep up. The subject was already mostly white vessels, and black structure and product so a B&W conversion seemed like the way to go. To boost the blacks I created a layer then selected the dark colors using a “Threshold” Adjustment Layer. I selected as much of the color range as I could, sacrificing some detail, to attain what I thought would add interest and boost contrast. I then change the mode of this layer to “Multiply” and merged the visible layer to a new layer. I also used “Find Edges” on a second layer in “Darken” layer mode at 48% to highlight detail having the effect of a quasi sharpening effect. The combination of these two techniques gave the image a moderate posterizing effect that I ended up like for the image. I’ve included the before and after shots here.

Tech: Oly E-3, 12-60 Zuiko @ 60mm, f4.0, 1/800 & ISO 100, Aperture Priority Post Processing: Duplicate Background>Threshold Adjustment Layer in “Multiply”>Merge Visible>Levels>Merge Visible>Find Edges Darken Mode & 48% Opacity

Two Approaches

Today’s posts are of two different approaches to similar subjects. At least they are similar in as much as they are both photos of two men working high off the ground in industrial situations. In both photos I let the original conditions for the image capture point me in a direction for the post processing and ultimately to the final image. In the case of the sign hangers the post processing was only a crop and some basic color correction and sharpening. In the photo of the steel erectors the final image here is the result of twelve separate layers and quite a bit of photo manipulation. In both cases the images presented are an accurate representation of what I saw in the scenes that prompted me to capture the moments.