Steven Bourelle Digital Arts

One of the things I most enjoyed at the Bristol Renaissance Faire was the beautiful clothing that some of the women wore. I have to admit, I have a thing for women in this type of clothing. I feel the renaissance gowns and hats really bring out a beauty in women that’s hard to find in modern times.

I don’t know who this lovely lady is, she was walking about all by herself when I asked if I could have a picture and she posed for me. If she happens to read this, thank you for the great picture.

Though the gown she is wearing was very colorful and the original photo is great, I knew right away that I wanted to work with this image in a brownish or sepia tone.

By tweaking one of the presets in Adobe Lightroom, I was able to begin the process of getting the color I wanted. I then exported the JPG and loaded it into Photoshop. Once in Photoshop I used Nik Software’s Color Efex Pro to soften the image and add some dramatic glow. It was when I added the glow that I knew I had what I was looking for. The only problem was that the filter softened her face a little more than I wanted, so I used a vector mask on that layer and painted back some of the sharpness from the layer underneath. I finish the image off by lightening her face a little.

One of the greatest things about modern digital photography is the ability to create images that look anything but modern. By using the different tools available, we’re able to create artistic images that are not only beautiful to look at, but also create a sense of an older time.

View More of My Photos From the Faire

2 Comments »

How often do you think about photography and the photos that you take? I do it all the time. Not a day goes by that some thought about photography doesn’t pop into my head. Many times these thoughts are ideas, or visualizations, about pictures that I want to take when the conditions are right for a certain subject

Take this picture of the Wind Point Lighthouse along Lake Michigan in Racine, WI for example. Not to long ago I read a blog post by Greg Russell on his website Alpenglow Images. The post is titled House on Fire ruin – A Vertical Panorama and it’s about how he shot a vertical panorama by stitching together three horizontal pictures. The minute I finished the post I knew the subject I wanted to try this technique on, Wind Point Lighthouse.

Having shot the lighthouse many times, under many different and conditions, I knew in my mind the composition I wanted and the conditions that I wanted to take it in. Let the waiting game begin….

About a week later the conditions I wanted came to be. We had been out shooting an old mill in Illinois when, on the way home, I realized the conditions were perfect for my lighthouse shot. So we drove out there and I took my three horizontal pictures of the lighthouse. When I got home and stitched the pictures together, I was blown away by the result. There in front of me was not only the image I had envisioned, but something much nicer. This was the best picture I had ever taken of the light.

Then another vision came into my head, I saw this picture in black and white. I immediately began to work on the black and white version that I saw in my mind. Everything fell together nicely and within an hour I had this image.

I find that as I get older and more experienced in photography, I’m pre-visualizing photos much more. I still love going out, being spontaneous and taking what Mother Nature gives me, but there is a certain, wonderful feeling when you see an image in your mind, wait for the right conditions, and then make it a reality.

No Comments »

This image was made when I still lived in California’s Eastern Sierra Nevada. I happened to see this sunset in the side mirror of my truck while I was driving. Luckily I had my camera with me, so I made a quick u-turn and sped to an area to photograph it. I had shot a lot of pictures of the sunset when I realized that this would make an awesome panoramic picture. I fired off the three shots that make up this image just before the colors began to fade. Two minutes later, the sunset was over.

I try to always keep the possibility of a pano in mind when I’m out shooting. Many times I’m so caught up in the moment that I forget about panos, that’s what almost happened in this image. Other times, I’ll see the scene and know right away that I’m shooting a pano, (The header image for this site is an example) .

When I shoot a pano, I like to keep the picture count down. I try to make the pano with less than 5 pictures. I feel 3 or 4 are the perfect number. The main reason for this, I don’t care for long, skinny panos. I like my images to have some width to them. 3-4 pictures creates a nice width to the pano.

It’s important to remember to overlap each picture and try to keep the horizon as level as possible. I actually find it easier to keep the horizon level if I hand hold the camera while shooting panos. Of course if your shooting at slow shutter speeds, this is impossible, so make sure your tripod is very level.

I use the free program AutoStitch to stitch together my panos. It does an amazing job of aligning the images and matching the colors and contrast. Of all the pano programs I’ve used, and there have been many, AutoStitch is the simplest and best. Unfortunately it’s only for Windows, sorry Mac folks. There is a program for Macs called AutoPano Pro, and it uses the AutoStich engine

So, the next time your out shooting, remember the panoramic image. Some amazing images can be made by combining a few pictures together.

1 Comment »

With winter’s cold having settled itself into the Midwest and no end to it in site, I thought I’d share with you how I keep my hands warm in the coldest of temperatures.

This is my third winter in Wisconsin and I now know how important good gloves are for winter photography. For my first winter here, I had a pair of Black Diamond fleece gloves that are wind proof and very warm, but working the camera with them was cumbersome so every time I touched the camera, I took them off. This led to some very cold hands. In fact, one time I was probably on the verge of frostbite since I couldn’t feel my fingers anymore.

Since I love those gloves and didn’t want to replace them, I decided last winter to see if I could adjust and shoot with them on. I found that I could do it, but I also found that my thumb would bump buttons on the back of the camera and change  settings without me knowing it. It became very distracting having to double check my camera settings all the time. I also discovered that if these gloves got wet, they were useless.

This year I decided it was time for a change. While we were on vacation in California I found a pair of gloves that I thought might work this winter.

The gloves I bought are made by Red Ledge. They are wind proof, water proof and very warm. They are actually fingerless mittens that have a fold back top. The top is secured in the open position by very strong Velcro. The thumb also folds back on these gloves.

The first test for these gloves was this fall. While shooting fall colors we had some temperatures at or near freezing. The gloves worked great, but I was concerned about my bare fingers sticking out. It wasn’t bad at 32 degrees, but once the temps dropped into the single digits and the windchill went below zero I wondered if these gloves would work.

I thought about this a lot during the fall and decided to look into some thin glove liners to wear under the mittens. While at the Bass Pro Shops store one day I found some liners made by GameGuard. They’re made for hunters, but they work great for photography too. They’re thin, cotton gloves with very small rubber beads on the palm. Because they’re thin and fit snugly, you can feel your camera controls perfectly, and the small rubber beads help you keep a hold of the camera.

Last Sunday this glove combination got put to it’s first real test. We were out photographing the ice shelf along Lake Michigan (See photo above or the rest here.). The temp was 18 degrees with a windchill of 3. How did the gloves do? Awesome! My hands never got cold. The couple of times my fingertips started to get cold I just flipped the mitten top down and they warmed right back up. I had no problem working the camera controls or changing lenses and because the thumb top flips up, I didn’t have to worry about accidentally changing settings.

I don’t know if this combination would work for everyone, but it seems to work well for me. So if you’re going to be shooting out in frigid temperatures this winter, you might want to consider a glove setup similar to this.

1 Comment »