Baron Rudolf von Reindeer

In keeping with the Christmas and Holiday Season, you’re likely to see a lot of photographs from me, throughout the month of December, with a Holiday theme, though with my special fotofreqy twist.Â And so, today, I give you Baron Rudolf von Reindeer, ’cause if Old St. Nick needs to get around town quickly, and he needs a guide who knows Berlin so he can find my house and those of the many Americans living around here, he can’t do much better than this stalwart ride.Â If it’s good enough for German Search and Rescue, it’s darn well good enough for Kris Kringle!!

Airfix

A long, long time ago… in a room filled with Airfix model boxes, glue and paint, I, too, was a kid!Â Yes; it’s true! I swear! And, like many kids, I used to LOVE building model airplanes… and then BLOWING them up!!!Â Yeah, I was one of THOSE kids.Â Running around the Luftwaffe Museum in Gatow yesterday brought back so many of those great memories.Â Happily, shooting aircraft with my tilt-shift lens (in this case the fantastic Nikkor 24mm f/3.5 PC-E) helps me relive the exhilaration I felt after completing one of those models and leaning my head in close, at table-top level, to admire my work.Â A last look, before… GO TIME, BABY!!Â C’mon guys (and gals), I know I’m not the only kid who used to call that fun.Â Am I?

Pull Up! Pull Up!!

I guess I really have nothing to say today, other than to note that I went out to shoot some brackets and video (with the built in HD Video facility of the Leica D-Lux 5) for a few upcoming tutorials on shooting with specialty lenses, including the Lensbaby Composer (which I used for today’s post), the Nikkor 24mm f/3.5 PC-E (a Tilt-Shift lens) and the Nikkor 16mm f2.8 fisheye.Â I’ll most likely post those videos in three separate releases, and will include some info on color correction using both the X-Rite Color Checker Passport and the Expodisk from ExpoImaging, since I own both and had them both with me for the tutorial shoot.Â I hope to get the first video tutorial, on shooting tilt-shift,posted within the week, real life permitting!

Broken Wing

Another long day at the office today, I almost decided to skip another day of posting, but as you can see, I did not.Â Today’s work is inspired by by another of my favorite bands, Alter Bridge and is merely an excuse to get you all to listen to one of my favorite songs of theirs, Broken Wings.Â Amazing band, amazing song!Â I could listen to this one over and over… wait minute… I AM listening to it over and over!Â Yes, it’s that good.

As for the image, I shot this with my NikonD700 and Nikkor 14-24 f/2.8.Â I used 9 brackets for this one, each 1ev apart, all merged and tone-mapped with Photomaix Pro 4.Â I finished processingÂ in Photoshop CS5, using Nik Software’s Dfine, Sharpener Pro, Color Efex 3 (specifically the Pro Contrast, Tonal Contrast, Brilliance/Warmth and Midnight filters), selectively painting the effect in and out using my Wacom Intuos 4 tablet.

All guns blazing…

When I saw this display the other day at the German Luftwaffe Museum in Gatow (which is a must visit if you come to Berlin), I thought immediately of one of my favorite rock songs from back in the day: ‘All Guns Blazing’, by hard rockin’ Judas Priest!Â Somehow the lyrics to that song just fit the scene.Â By the way, I’ve seen some of the old footage of these Stuka dive bombers at work over the years, and I can’t imagine the true horror of being at the business end of one of it’s attacks.Â Devastating, to say the least.

For those interested, I shot this scene with my Nikon D700 coupled to the amazing Nikkor 14-24 f/2.8 lens.Â I used 8 exposures (-4 to +3EV) processed through Photomatix Pro, and finished off the editing process in Photoshop CS5 using the Nik Color Efex 3.0, for the most part.