British Car Show

British Car Show

One part of the Greenville Scottish Games that I enjoy is the British Car Show. It is held on Furman University's shaded mall in front of the main gate to the games. There always seems to be a slightly different mix of cars in the show each year. Many of the cars are older restorations, but there are sometimes new British branded automobiles as well. The new Lotus sports cars are almost always a crowd pleaser.

The car show is now kind of a sentimental favorite of mine since it was some of my photographs of cars from a couple of years ago that got me invited to be a photographer for the games last year and now this year. I wasn't able to get many photographs from the car show last year due to the VIP's schedule. However, I did make it a point to get some shots from there this year.

This particular photograph shows that the cars are lined up for quite a long ways down the mall. In fact, they are lined up down both sides of the mall. Quite an impressive collection of classic British automobiles. The photograph is also a handheld, three-shot HDR composite so that the shadows are not blocked out to complete black. I tried to process the image so that it would look fairly natural without the over exaggerated colors that HDR can sometime cause. It's not perfect, but I think it gets close to it.

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2011 Greenville Scottish Games

2011 Greenville Scottish Games

The Greenville Scottish Games were held this year on Saturday, May 28 at Furman University. This was the second year in a row that I volunteered to photograph the games for them. Unlike last year where I was predominately charged with following Prince Edward, I was able to take in the games at my own pace. Both approaches were interesting and fun. However, this year I got to see and experience more of the games than I did last year. I also didn't have to run backwards near as much as I did last year while follow Prince Edward. ;-)

This photograph is the main field which is surrounded by the clans' tents and the review stand. Paris Mountain is visible in the background. I thought that the overall view was reminiscent of photographs that I've seen of the Scottish Highlands. Granted, the Highlands don't usually get temperatures around 95 degrees F with near 100% humidity. Still, it seemed an appropriate view of the games' character.

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The Carolina Gallery Photography Invitational

Poinsett Bridge in Autumn

The Carolina Gallery, a local art gallery here in Spartanburg, held a photography contest recently. Last night was the opening reception for the gallery's show of the contest participants' entries. The show is scheduled to run from last night through August 4th.

The contest had two categories: Color and Black & White. More than 150 photographs were on display last night. Styles ran the entire gauntlet of photography from landscapes to fashion, from realistic to ultra-stylized. I was really impressed with the variety of images selected for the show. There are a lot of really good photographers who entered the contest from the local area, North Carolina, and even Georgia.

More after the jump.

Furman Lake at Twilight

You may recognize the two photographs that I posted today. I've posted them here before and these photographs were my entries in the competition. It was the first photography contest that I have entered and I wasn't really sure what to expect. As I said, there were lots of great images in the contest and such things always come down to the opinion of someone that you don't know. So, I was pleasantly surprised when I saw that my Poinsett Bridge image was named the Third Place winner in the Color category.

I wasn't able to sleep very much last night for some reason. It wasn't as if I was jumping up and down all night. I was just too happy to be able to go to sleep. Maybe there is something in this photography stuff for me after all? My mind was spinning with the possibilities.

If you are in or passing through the Spartanburg area between now and August 4th, then stop by Carolina Gallery downtown. The photography show is on the third floor, but the other two floors are also filled with paintings, sculptures and local crafts you may also enjoy viewing.

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Something to go back to

Reflective Sculpture

As I have mentioned before, I really like to photograph reflective subjects. While waiting for the next leg of my assignment after lunch during the Greenville Scottish Games, I found this metallic sculpture near one of Furman University's athletic buildings. I don't think this is "the" image I wanted to get of it, but I do think there is something there I can work with in the future when I have more time. It is something for me to keep in mind to revisit next time I'm visiting Furman.

We don't always get the shots that we want the first time we see a subject. Sometimes you don't get it the second, third or forth times either. That's OK though. Photography is a growing experience and a way for us to see the world differently. There is no reason not to continue to revisit places, even after we get "the" shot we wanted. Who knows, we might get an even better image then we thought we could in the first place.

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A Work in Progress

Painting the Greenville Scottish Games

An addition to this year's opening ceremonies for the Greenville Scottish Games, was this painter. He was creating an interpretive piece to capture the spirit of the games which would later be presented to Prince Edward as a gift. I didn't get to watch him the entire time, but it was interesting to watch him work while the pipe bands were performing.

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Massed Pipe Bands

Massed Bands

During the opening ceremonies, all of the participating Pipe & Drum bands gathered together to perform for His Royal Highness, Prince Edward. It was quite impressive with between 400 to 500 musicians on the field together. They performed a new march which had been written to commemorate Prince Edward's visit to Greenville, South Carolina. An international competition was held for the composition of this particular march. Mr. Donald Patrick Sargent of Ashhurst, New Zealand composed "Greenville's Salute to the Earl of Wessex" which was the selected winner of the competition.

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Getting Up Early

Sunrise at Furman

All of the landscape photography books say that you should plan to get up early so you can catch the sunrise and the morning's "magic hour". When I was covering the Greenville Scottish Games, I was told to be there around 6 am. The sun had already risen, but wasn't yet visible due to nearby Paris Mountain. It didn't take long for it to climb above Paris Mountain though, and give a nice silhouette effect to some of the trees on the Furman University campus. The colors in this image are due to using a Shady White Balance setting when processing the image. There was a bit more blue in the sky at the time. However, I thought the extra warmth (i.e. orange and yellow tones) that the Shady White Balance setting adds to an image provided a better overall color palette.

When I process my images, I usually try a variety of White Balance settings to determine which might be the better match for how I want the image to appear. Sometimes it helps to get the White Balance perfect. Other times, the White Balance can add a creative choice of color tonalities to an image. It depends on what you want or need the image to do.

Of course, I wasn't really needed to photograph anything so early in the morning. I am glad that I did arrive that early though. I was able to get this photograph and a couple of behind-the-scenes photographs of people finishing preparations for the games that I would not have been able to get otherwise.

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Jaguar

Jaguar

My favorite shot from the Greenville Scottish Games is this one of the head-ornament of a classic Jaguar roadster. I love how the light plays on the curves of the hood and how it reflects off of the ornament and grill. Like the MG Dreams photograph, I used the Sigma 10-20mm ultrawide lens. I did crop it down slightly to minimize the sun's reflection in the lower left corner. I also desaturated all of the colors except for red, orange and yellow. This removed the green and blue reflections from the hood, but kept the colors from the badge on the grill. I also like how there is just a slight bit of color from the badge reflected in the ornament.

Sometimes the best way to present the essence of something it to isolate at distinctive portion of it. My wider shots of this car did not have anywhere near the same impact as this photograph does.

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Belated Blog Birthday

MG Dreams

I thought we were getting close the the first anniversary of my starting this blog. So, I went back through the old posts and noticed that I started May 20, 2008. In other words, I missed the birthday. Guess I might need to do something special for it next year if I remember to put it on my calendar.

More after the jump.

Today's image is again from the Greenville Scottish Games. In particular, it is from the British Auto Show which was part of it this year. The cars were lined up along the tree-lined drive that leads to the Furman Athletic areas including the football stadium. There were a lot of beautiful cars there. This MG roadster was one of those that caught my eye. I took it using my ultrawide angle lens. Since I knew I was going to be shooting automobiles in tight situations, I thought that using the ultrawide lens would help to get more of the cars. It did, but it also got a lot of bystanders which turned most of my photographs into snapshots. However, a couple of them did work out. I like how the lens exaggerated the perspective in this image. For reference I was only about 2 to 3 feet away from the bumper. I held the camera down low and pointed it upward slightly. The focal length was 10mm (15mm in full 35mm frame equivalent). This caused the perspective to distort a bit, exaggerating some of the car's curves.

When I was first processing it, I didn't like the final result. However, just as I was getting into bed that night, I had the idea of inverting the vignette to white instead of the usual black. The next morning I tried that out and liked how it added a dreamy kind of feel to the image ... kind of like a guy daydreaming during his mid-life crisis. ;-)

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Finally got him!

The Paladin

I've been out to the Furman University Stadium area a few times now for various events. This statue of the university's mascot, shown above, is located in the main entrance to the stadium. I had tried to get a photograph of it, but never got one that I liked. The skies were frequently gray, or blown-out to pure white. There are lots of trees, lights and other distractions around it. Plus, it is a common meeting area thus there are usually lots of people around it.

This year the sky was just right with enough sunlight to illuminate the statue's details, yet enough clouds to give some interest in the sky. I was finally able to frame it without most of the junk around it. Although, I did have to clone out a couple of small items on the edges. Still, I'm glad that I finally got a shot of it that I like.

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More twilight blues

Tower in Twilight

A different view of the Furman University clock tower in the pre-dawn twilight. This one was actually taken before the photograph I posted yesterday. I think the tower looks like it is leaning backwards due to the perspective distortion of the wide-angle lens. Although, maybe I am being a bit too critical.

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A good weekend

Twilight on the Lake

A former co-worker of mine organizes a charity 5k race for her church's youth ministry. I went this year to take some photographs for them. Got some good ones, I think. Shot about 800 total, and processed just over 200 of them into final JPEGs. You'll probably seen a couple of them later this week.

Anyway, the race is held out at Furman University. It gave me the opportunity to photograph the University's lake and signature clock tower in the pre-dawn twilight. This is something that I've wanted to do for awhile. I didn't get the shot I wanted, but I'm quite happy with what I did get. The only reason I didn't get what I wanted is that I did not have the time to get into the position I had pre-visualized with the sunrise colors behind the clock tower. I only had about 20 minutes and didn't know my way around the Furman lake. I will head back and do some scouting though, so I can get what I wanted. That's the fun of photography. Heck, even Ansel Adams kept returning to the same places in Yellowstone until he found the best light he had pre-visualized.

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