We took the kids up to Lake George to give them a little fun before school starts. This is another place that I had been to as a kid over 30 years ago. Some things I remembered seeing back then are still there like the House of Frankenstein Wax Museum. Storytown USA is now a Six Flags park, but parts of the original park are still there… I took a picture of my kids in front of the Little Old Ladies Shoe where I had been posed by my parents. My only regret is that the foliage was still green… the views in the fall must be spectacular. The shot above was taken fairly early in the morning while everyone else was still sleeping. I took it with the D800 and 85mm 1.8G. I wish I had brought a tripod and an ND Filter… but I like the way this came out after some Lightroom Graduated filters and some B&W tweaking. I might have to go back by myself in October… with a tripod and ND filter!
I took a short trip to Aruba with my wife back in 2003. We spent most of the time relaxing on the beach, but we did take a little back road drive along the less populated side of the island. I caught this guy hanging out on his perch. It looked pretty uncomfortable, but I guess it was a good vantage point for hunting. I was using my Nikon D100 back then, and I’m still impressed by the quality of the images I made with it.
This photo has been sitting in my collection since 2003. I could never quite get the photo to look as I remembered the scene that morning. I was browsing through my collection with Lightroom today, and I decided to give it another shot. I was much happier with the results this time around. A key to making it work was using the Lightroom “clarity” slider… in the negative direction. Turning down the clarity brought out some of the calm and quiet that was missing from my previous attempts.
