Winter's End?

With the temperatures in SW Michigan breaking into the upper 40's for the first time, in which seems like months, staying out on the frozen tundra of Lake Michigan was enjoyable to say the least!  Gone were the bone-chilling northern winds and snow as were the insulated overalls, heavy gloves and ski mask.  Just me and my camera capturing which will be (hopefully) the beginning of the end of wintry images in Michigan this year.  Bring on Spring!!  But until then, let's enjoy the end of winter :D  

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Scenes of Winter 2015

Here is a collection of my images of South Haven, Mi since the first of the year. All of these images are available for purchase from my website www.alouisphotography.com   Feel free to leave comments on this post and be sure to sign up to receive email updates from my blog.  All you have to do is enter your email in the space above( and prove you are human!  ;) )

2.26.2015--"Fire over Ice"

1.2.2015--"Jaws of Ice"

1.20.2015-- "untitled"  

1.2.2015--"untitled"  

1.2.2015--"Icy Reflections"  I managed

 to capture the reflection

of the lighthouse in this pool of water

 before it froze.

1.2.2015-"Winter's Reflection"

1.10.2015--"IceHouse 2015-Night"  I just

 couldn't resist coming back at

 night to capture an image of  the

 lighthouse after dark!

 

1.2.2015--  Ice boulders piled high on South Haven's south pier made 

it treacherous walking to get to the end of the pier.  

But it was worth it.....

1.10.2015--  Ice boulders, some measuring over 3 feet in diameter, 

where effortlessly hurled onto the pier by the crashing

 waves of Lake Michigan.

1.10.2015--"The Night Watch"  This image was 

not posted on Facebook.

1.10.2015-- With aid from the giant size boulders, I was able to get a

 shot of the lighthouse from this vantage point.  I was standing on a

 large boulder that was sitting on about 2 feet 

of ice to capture this.

2.23.2015-- South Haven's pier rests quietly under 

a blanket of snow

1.10.2015--"IceHouse 2015"-  The South Haven 

lighthouse wearing its winter coat of ice.

 

 All images copyrighted, all rights reserved.  ©2015 A. Louis Photography-- www.alouisphotography.com

"Waves of Wrath"

Waves driven by gale-force winds relentlessly pummel the lighthouses in Saint Joseph, Michigan in late October.

Click on image for purchasing information

Practice Makes Perfect-- The Art of Post Processing

I call it the "art" of post processing, as it is definitely not a science.  

I have read several books, watched countless hours 

of tutorials of Youtube on how to process

my camera's RAW files to create the best images possible and just when I think I have it 

all figured out, I learn something new that changes everything.

For me, trial and error seems to be the best teacher.  I have learned many things in the last 

couple of years and believe me,

it's because I have made countless mistakes taking and processing my digital images.

Case in point:

I was quite happy with the end result of this panoramic image taken this past weekend. Happy enough to post it on my Facebook page.  I have been practicing and refining

 the proper techniques with  my camera and tripod to be able to capture the several properly 

exposed and aligned images needed to create a robust, stitched panoramic image.

My first attempt processing the 6 image stitched shot (click to enlarge)

I admit that I was not 100% happy with this image but I could not figure out

what bothered me about it.  It wasn't until I decided to walk through all the processing

steps that I stumbled upon the one little detail that I had overlooked.  

One small adjustment that I had not made.  

Finding this one overlooked detail was all the encouragement I needed to start processing the 

RAW file all over again.  (Just a tip.  If you take your photography seriously, you need to

be shooting in the RAW format---it allows so many freedoms in post processing 

to save an image)

Same 6 image stitch after making needed adjustments to the white balance
(click to enlarge)

This is the reprocessed image.  The only difference is the white balance between

the six original images.  In my haste to take the six images 

before the light started to dissipate,  I neglected to lock down the white balance setting in my 

camera, it was set to auto.  That little difference in the exposure of the images made a huge 

impact on the final result.  The colors are now clean and the details in the shadows now sharp.

Just another lesson learned :)