Southwestern Portland Cement in HDR
Some more experimentation with HDR processing in Photoshop, with some tweaking in Lightroom.
For more: SPC in HDR on Flickr
Bonus shot of the day, HDR Panorama of the Franklin Mountains:
Click for a larger version
Smelter Cemetery in HDR
I thought I would try my hand at capturing some HDR shots of the Smelter Cemetery on El Paso’s westside. This was a little different for me because I had to setup shots using a tripod. Normally I just shoot hand held. To create a shot in HDR, the software requires at least 3 shots to sandwich into 1 picture the total high dynamic range. These were the best ones:
Usually clouds vex me and are either blown out white or grey and nondescript. There are 16 shots in total and they really capture the range of whites to dark greys in the clouds quite nicely. The full set can be viewed here:
Sunset Grocery Painting (update 4)
I finished the brickwork and have started blocking in the base colors for the wood work. Once the building colors are all blocked in I’ll start the detail and shadow work. The last step will be the repeating pattern on the color band and this one will be wrapped up.
Mesa Hills Wash Canyon
Sitting behind the Westside Recreation Center/Galatzen Park, on Wallenberg drive, is a large drainage basin formed by the earthen dam between Sunland Park Mall and I-10:
View Mesa Hills Wash in a larger map
I visited the area two times last year; once in harrowing adventure to get to the “Bridge to Nowhere” and the other in a vain attempt to find some interesting graffiti.
I went back to walk around the wash basin and kill some time at lunch. The area is quite green despite the lack of rainfall.
Click image for a larger view
Parallel to a walking path that rings the area is an arroyo fed by the termination of a large drainage ditch that snakes through the westside. Its all downhill and by the time water reaches this area it can very forceful as evidenced in the great flood of 06, washing out part of Mesa Hills.
I didn’t notice it before but there is a mini canyon in the arroyo that looks like it holds water year round:
I saw quite a few birds around as well as a fox, who darted into his den on the side wall of the canyon. It might be a good area to do some bird or animal watching if you had the time.
The walls are very steep with lots of loose rocks so you have to be careful if you approach it from the side. The pond can be reached by walking down the rocky arroyo from one end or by walking down to the wash basin.
The shopping cart helps give you a sense of the scale. The pond had lots of tadpoles in it so the foxes may be here to feed on frogs or birds. Its an interesting, self contained ecosystem carved by what little rain we get throughout the year. A few more pics can be found below:
Mesa Hills Arroyo on Flickr
