Nelson's Ledges gets the LensBaby treatment

Copyright © 2008 James D. Fisher
All rights reserved

Nautica Queen on the Cuyahoga River

It was a great night for cruising up the Cuyahoga and here is the Nautica Queen with a full load of Friday evening partiers.

Soft evening light. Quiet waters. Skyline off to the side.

Canon 5D
24-105mm L @ 45mm
Exposure: 1/400 @ f/11
ISO 400



This second version was enhanced by adding a red filter in Adobe Lightroom to give it more nostalgic look. Which do you prefer?

Copyright © 2008 James D. Fisher
All rights reserved

Playing with Rocks

I took a quick visit to nearby Nelson Ledges Park to try HDR shooting. With HDR you use a tripod and shoot multiple exposures of the same image using bracketing. I went for two stops under and two stops over. The three exposures are blended together via Adobe PhotoShop. This technique helps you recover from very dark or very bright areas in your image.






The Ledges are beautiful. While shooting I met another photographer who found the Ledges on the Internet. He loves shooting rock formations and had recently shot in Sedona, Arizonia. Those rocks are a beautiful red color. I showed him the little falls and the Devil's Icebox. He was thrilled.

Canon 5D
Lens 16-35mm L
Tripod Manfrotto 190 Carbon Fiber

Copyright © 2008 James D. Fisher
All rights reserved

State Road Covered Bridge

Another one of the great Covered Bridges in Ashtabula Country.


Canon 5D
24-105mm L
Exposure: ISO 100, 1/10, f16

Copyright © 2008 James D. Fisher
All rights reserved

American Star

I found this star-flag decoration on the door of the township hall in Chagrin Falls.


This is the original with all the colors pretty much as they are in real life.


This version emulates a strong Velvia-film enhancement. Very bold, more saturation and nice vignette along the edges to make it pop.


This version bleaches out the colors to give it an antique look.

Camera: Canon 5D

Copyright 2008 James D. Fisher
All rights reserved.

It's Fall Color Time. Yeah!!!

Finally, the leaves are turning color and it looks like it will be a spectacular fall in Northeast Ohio. I've been in a photo drought lately and this is a good time to get the shutters clicking again.

These images were taken at beautiful Holden Arboretum in Lake County. Enjoy!



Ahhh, wet weather, colorful leaves and the LensBaby. The trick with the LensBaby is not to get so focused about the focus (pretty puny aren't I?). It's very tricky to focus anyway. You have only a single plan of focus and if you hit it then you're pretty lucky. If I want sharpness I can use the 50mm but I wouldn't get the unique LensBaby "bokeh" in the background.

The trick is the creation of the overall effect. I love the colors of the main subject but what is even better is the background which wants to jump out and be part of the main subject! Note the light bubbles in the center right of the image. Where did they come from except from a LensBaby?

More LensBaby images below:

Copyright 2007 James D. Fisher
All Rights Reserved.

Boats of the Cuyahoga River

*** CLICK ON ANY IMAGE TO ENLARGE ***

I took a ride up the Cuyahoga River this summer on my friend's speedboat. It was near dusk and the light was failing fast. So these aren't the greatest pictures (you try shooting on a moving boat with a telephoto lens at dusk!). Consider this more of a documentation of the types of boats you'll find.


Let's start with the Wm. Mather, a massive ore boat that was converted to a maritime museum. It's a pretty cool museum if you're into marine and local history. The rest of the boats support water/harbor tasks and maintenance. The last one is a City of Cleveland fire boat (in case the river catches on fire again. Ohmygod, I just told a Cleveland joke. Yikes!). Enjoy.

Copyright 2007 James D. Fisher
All Rights Reserved.

West Side Market Redux

The Flats, the river, and the West Side Market are the perfect solution to a lazy Saturday.


A gull watches the boat traffic along the Cuyahoga River.


A beautiful clock tower at the West Side Market.


Street-level view of the historic West Side Market.


A view from the balcony inside the West Side Market.


Three little piggies!


Gimme that melon! The shopkeepers kids get into the fun at the West Side Market.

Copyright 2007 James D. Fisher
All Rights Reserved.
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Attention Photographers: Spend less time in front of the computer and more time behind the lens, with the new Adobe Photoshop Lightroom.

Sea Gull in Flight

I took this from the rear of the Goodtime I on our way to Kelley's Island.

Canon 5D
70-300mm IS DO
ISO 250
1/250 @ f7.1
Converted to B&W via Lightroom 1.1

Copyright 2007 James D. Fisher
All Rights Reserved.

Perry's Monument

Perry's Monument on Put-in-Bay, Lake Erie, Ohio.

Canon 5D
70-300mm IS DO
ISO 100
1/200 @ f8.0
Converted to B&W via Lightroom 1.1

As requested, a rule of thirds version.

As suggested, a 16:9 version isn't possible because of the height of the tower.

Copyright 2007 James D. Fisher
All Rights Reserved.

Give me a green star!

A green star. You see these on many old homes, barns and buildings in the Midwest. I'm not sure why but someone thought it might indicate the owner is a Western Star "Mason".


This image was taken on Kelley's Island, Ohio.

Copyright 2007 James D. Fisher
All Rights Reserved.

Three shuttered windows and wall

I'm still working with bleaching and de-saturation effects. I took two fairly drab images with interesting compositions, pushed the contrast and leeched out the colors (sometimes color distracts). It's not quite black & white but this treatment brings out the detail.


Three shuttered windows. Nothing special about the exposure. Just good, sharp Canon glass.


Same thing with this image. It went from low contrast to high contrast in Lightroom 1.1 in order to separate the ivy from the wall.

Copyright 2007 James D. Fisher
All Rights Reserved.

Sunset on Lake LaDue

I just love playing with the colors on sunset images.

Copyright 2007 James D. Fisher
All Rights Reserved.

Squaw Rock

No, it's not Jabba the Hutt. This is a hundred+ year old rock carving found in South Chagrin Reservation in Cleveland.

Copyright 2007 James D. Fisher
All Rights Reserved.

Camera Tossing (gulp!) sort of

How did this get started? I read an online article about "camera tossing". It had to do with the package art for Adobe Acrobat. The boxes had these cool, twirly Spiroscope-like images. The story said they were created using a technique called camera tossing.

Flickr has several groups discussing this technique and some of my favorite desktop wallpapers have come from this site.

Take some time and review these sites and check out the images to learn more. I did and after sitting with my Canon 5D and 24-105mm L lens on my lap I said no way is this thing going out of my hands. No camera tossing for me.

But, while taking a hike through South Chagrin Reservation, I had an epiphany (it took awhile) about how to simulate a camera toss while still hanging onto my camera. I use a handstrap instead of a neckstrap on my camera. I could fling the camera loosely in my hand without worrying about letting it loose. My fling pattern could be better controlled and perhaps my results could be more predictable. Here are some results. Enjoy!

Copyright 2007 James D. Fisher
All Rights Reserved.

Working on the B&W

*** CLICK ON ANY IMAGE TO ENLARGE ***

I'm still working on this black & white thing. It's tough in digital especially printing. What looks like a marvelous image on the screen prints out in shades of green. Maybe it's just my perception. If you go to www.purveslab.net you can take some tests to see how much your eyes will fool ya. Here are some b&w's I'm working on plus check on some of my earlier posts. Enjoy!



This is from a very colorful sunset image. By converting to grayscale it now takes on a dark and threatening look.


I hit this with a Red filter which helped bring contrast to the wheels in particular. It made the rim darker and the hubs and spokes lighter.


These are window doors on an old barn. Not much else to say. It was converted to grayscale from its original soft red color.



Here's a closeup of the brackets attached to the barn window doors. I used a bleaching effect to add more texture and contrast on the wood.


This was a tough one in color because of the stark white sky. I just hate that sky color! Yuck! By converting to grayscale it helped me forget that sky.



The two planks of wood are a contrast to one another. Again, a grayscale conversion helps eliminates problems like this in color. I added an "old" effect to make it look "antiquity".

Copyright 2007 James D. Fisher
All Rights Reserved.