Tag Archives: desert botanical garden

luminaria

A nice surprise at a Luminaria celebration last night. A small skating rink with professionals giving quite a show.
Another surprise was looking at my photos last night and finding a photographer friend of mine in most of them.
I was so entranced by the skaters that I didn’t notice him standing directly opposite me on the other side of the rink 🙂

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Shooting handheld at ISO 6400, the images are noisy but Topaz’ noise software did a great job of minimizing it.

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Hope they have the rink again next year. I’ll be ready with a faster lens!

Senita and Vines in HDR

senita cactus in hdr
After my class at the DBG yesterday, I took some time to photograph with HDR in mind.
In the photo above of a Senita cactus, the HDR process intensified the red and orange
coloration which happens when cactus are stressed. We’ve had cold weather and they
don’t like it. (Canon S5)

Below is another HDR image showing vine orbs that were created by a vine sculptor on-sight
at the DBG. He made several out of local material. I’ve photographed it before but have never
been happy with the outcome. With the HDR process, I could stand inside one, photography
out and still have everything show up. As you may have noticed in both images, I like pushing
the process to give more of an artsy look. I’m having lots of fun with HDR at the risk of boring
everyone else 🙂 (Canon S5)