Paul's Photo Blog

Aaaah Internet. While I did have some limited connectivity this weekend, it was tough not being able to fully connect whenever I wanted, to upload pictures and order a few prints.

Nevertheless, we did take a trip up the Columbia River Gorge, and I was fortunate enough to have the batteries charged and the laptop along with back at the house. So here's some more work from this weekend.

We were driving up the Gorge on Highway 14, my dad was the chauffer, and we were already getting a later start than we'd hoped. Fortunately my dad pulled the car over long enough for me to scamper across the tracks and grab these shots with the fog on the water and the Hood River bridge in the background. I took enough time to grab some shots, and then I thought I'd heard a train coming. Sure enough, the train was coming down the track and I hadn't quite zipped up my camera bag. But, I crossed over the track just ahead of the train, since we needed to get back on the road. And it was a loooooong train...










In looking over my earlier work, I wanted to reshoot some pictures from the area of one of my favorite wine tasting spots. While these turned out a little better, there are still some unresolved issues. Oh well, have to go back -- to get the pictures right, of course. Okay, okay, I like the wine, too :-)







Our final destination was the picturesque heights near Goldendale. I was able to convince my dad to stop the car one final time along the way, though, so I could capture the lenticular cloud hovering above Mt. Adams. From this angle, too, it really shows off how similar Mt. Adams and Mt. Rainier really truly are. Continuing the volcano theme, too, the final shots are of the last moments of daylight around Mt. Hood.

An early predecessor to the blueprint and to color photography in general, the cyanotype process was invented by Sir John Herschel in 1842, and put into use in photography by Anna Atkins. In playing around with photography while re-studying the history of photography, I've grown a recent fondness towards the cyanotype, not unlike my fascination for sepia. Of course, it has already been brought into the digital realm, and 'an Italian geek' has created a free Photoshop action for converting images to cyanotypes.

Of course, I like exploring things myself, so I played with some settings in Capture NX to apply to my .NEF files and create my own version of a cyanotype. I've discovered that it works especially nice for the higher-noise IR shots I've played around with. It's not quite as 'cyan' as a true cyanotype, perhaps, but the effect is similar, and my own slightly different take on it. Here are a few samples of pictures that I find work well as a digital cyanotype:


(original tweaked -- had to get rid of that annoying billboard, and replace it with a better advertisement)






(IR image, with cyanotype conversion)