indiana

ALL ABOARD

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I recently visited the Jingle Rails Exhibit at the Eiteljorg Museum in downtown Indianapolis featuring numerous train layouts of famous landmarks made from materials such as moss, twigs, nuts, etc. Jingle Rails is a representation of the Real Great American West as well as an imaginary version. For those who grew up tinkering with model trains, you will greatly appreciate the attention to detail placed throughout this exhibit.

The exhibit features local Indianapolis treasures such as the Eiteljorg Museum and Lucas Oil Stadium.

Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art

Lucas Oil field served as host to the Superbowl back in 2012 and continues as home of the NFL's Indianapolis Colts. Notice the great attention to detail with regards to the field surface inside.

Monument Circle celebrates the Holidays every year with a lighting ceremony that draws large volumes of people from miles and miles away.

The Indiana State Fair remains a staple in the fabric of Indiana Summers while entertaining large crowds every year.


Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota has been an iconic landmark since 1925 featuring the faces of former Presidents Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, and George Washington.

Old Faithful Geyser, the world's most famous Geyser located in Yellowstone National Park was named due to it's reliable ability to erupt every 65-92 minutes which still holds true today.

While in Yellowstone, why not stay at the Legendary Ahwahnee Hotel, which has seen countless celebrities throughout its long existence.

One last stop on this tour is the one and only Hoover Dam which sits on the Arizona-Nevada Border and takes in approximately 1 million visitors per year.

This is an exhibit that has been airing for the past six years around the Holidays and is definitely an attraction worth adding to your itinerary when visiting Indianapolis.

 

THE POWERS OF POST-PROCESSING

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As photographers, we are always told to capture the best images in camera followed by modest enhancements made in software to create the final masterpiece. As much as I subscribe to this theory, there are times when the conditions are simply not conductive to creating great content. This is when understanding how to unleash the creative powers of your post-processing software can salvage an image that might never see the light of day.

SOOC - Before    F14   40 sec   ISO 400  14mm

Case in point - I recently spent the Thanksgiving Holiday in Indianapolis with my wife at the JW Marriott Hotel which was constructed at the request of the NFL prior to hosting the 2012 Superbowl. Unfortunately, mother nature was unaware of my arrival and did not choose to cooperate but I managed to make a few images while dodging the raindrops. The extremely overcast conditions provided very poor light leaving nothing worthwhile to be immediately captured. Observing the abundance of cloud cover, I decided to apply a 10 stop ND filter to capture a long exposure. The lack of any gaps in the clouds provided very little contrast thereby failing to reveal any streaking during the 40 second exposure. Not to mention the movement of the clouds was very slow.  Now time to make a decent photograph from this mediocrity. 

The image was imported into lightroom CC and converted to black and white. Mild sharpening and noise removal were done and then imported into photoshop. After duplicating the layer, a selection was made around the clouds using the quick selection tool. The clouds were then placed on their own layer. Using the path blur tool, the cloud streaks were made more distinctive and angled for better orientation with the building. The exposure was lowered to bring out more details in the clouds. After saving the image back into lightroom, some dodging and burning was done to create more contrast while completing the image with a heavy vignette.