The HDR Collaboration is back in full force this round. It is such a pleasure to be part of this talented group, joining me this round are, well, the whole darn gang  Mark “Silent G” Gvazdinskas, Jim Denham, Mark Garbowski, Bob Lussier, Jacques Gude, Scott Frederick and Rob Hanson.

The Brackets themselves were not perfect, so there were challenges, I was on a tour, so luckily I had a great guide that “waited ” for me and my Promote Control to click away when I lagged behind, he was very cool and the tripod was not a problem. It was very dark that day so I was shooting long 9 exposure brackets, this one fell short on the high end, the window was a bit blown out,  I was in a hurry, it happens.

The were shot in the Moundsville State Penitentiary in Moundsville West Virginia. Parts of the building date back to the Civil War. Construction of the main building was started in 1867.  The conditions at the prison worsened over the years of operation, eventually the facility would be ranked on the US Department of Justice “Top 10 most violent correctional facilities” list. This set of brackets were shot in the administration area of the Penitentiary.

I processed this a few days back, and unfortunately lost my processing notes on this, been a hectic few days for me, so instead of trying to guess I am just going to go right into the shots from everyone, which are very good I might add, well done everyone, Sweet Work!

Theaterwiz

Mark “Silent G” Gvazdinskas

What a GREAT set of brackets, Mike!!! Being that I have almost no access to decent urbex environments I was especially excited to tackle this set. The subject was quite simple so the question was where to take it. Some of my favorite urbex shots are based around a pretty minimal subject where the viewer’s eyes are drawn to a light source. The light coming through this window fit that criteria.

I think I processed these brackets in over 10 different ways. I went for some focus blur, glows, black and white, film grain, etc., etc., etc. I finally settled on some serious vignetting to draw the eyes to the window and interesting back room. I always imagine urbex spots dark and terrifying so wanted to keep the rest of the image as dark as possible while still keeping some detail.

This version actually had the least bit of processing of all—threw out the 3 brightest brackets and put the rest through Photomatix 4.1, into Lightroom 3 for some lens correction (I liked the distorted wide angle but really wanted to utilize some of the subtle leading lines—by doing lens correction I was able to crop so lines ended in the bottom left and top right corner), Viveza 2 for a bit of structure, Color Efex 3 for Pro Contrast, Glamour Glow, Brilliance and Warmth and Tonal Contrast, Perfect Layers to work with the mess of filters and finally back to Lightroom 3 for some minor tweaks and harsh vignetting.

What a blast—thanks again, Fellas!!

Jim Denham-Office Space

I really loved the composition Mike turned lose on us this round – thanks for a great set Wiz! Anytime there’s a combination of light, shadows, and decay, I get excited! Even though the exposure out of the window was a bit lost, I still loved its light and how it worked in these rooms. Lately with these types of shots, I’ve really focused on darkening up some of the shadows rather than totally exposing the room, and that’s what I tried to do here. Thanks again for a great set Mike!

Mark Garbowski

Rooms inside of rooms. What could be more fun than this set of brackets. I’m not sure why but I wanted the other room to have more light, so I actually ran the brackets through Photomatix twice and generated two separate HDR images. Then I pulled them into Photoshop as layers (plus the darkest bracket for the stuff outside the main windows). Mixed them together, then brushed in more darkness and light in different areas, before playing with Nik filters: some Pro Contrast for a touch of detail, Cross Processing for some odd coloring, Sunshine to create the illusion that the light I brushed in came from outside, and a special mix I made of the Colorize filter that gives a bit of an old folk look.

Bob Lussier

Mike, I think you were channeling your inner Jacques Gudé with this set of brackets. The only think missing is a chair. I really was thrilled to work on it!

My entry is almost right out of Photomatix. I spent more time than I usually do lately trying to get a ‘final’ image out of my primary HDR tonemapping tool. I kept the Micro-smoothing closer to the left to pull out the gritty texture that I love so much. After that, I pulled it into Photoshop and adjusted the curve to enhance the contrast a bit. After that I straightened the perspective a bit with the Lens Correction filter.

Thanks again for providing a great image to work with!

Jacques Gudé-Office Space 

This was a fun one to play with, Mike. Thanks for letting us bend those pixels! I really liked that back room with the wood-stove looking object on the wall, so I wanted to get other to look at that as well. To do so, I “corrected” for lens distortion, then cropped the image to put that room where I wanted it in the composition. I used several of Nik Software’s filters, including ‘Tonal Contrast’ and and ‘Midnight’, brushing the effect in as I wanted using my Wacom tablet. I think I may also have used a bit of OnOne Software FocalPoint to add some selective blur, before darkening the edges with some levels adjustment, which I brushed in as needed with my tablet.

Scott Frederick-Office Space

Mike, I first want to thank you for hosting this round during this difficult time and I hope your family stays strong. Wishing for a speedy recovery for your Dad!

This set of brackets was really fun to work on. I guess what was really interesting about them was that they were shot at f/4. A rather shallow depth of field, but it brought attention to the room inside of the room composition. I know Mike was granted special permission to shoot these brackets with his tripod, so shooting at f/4 allowed the brackets to move quickly which I’m sure the guard was breathing down his neck!

I processed 8 of the brackets, leaving the longest exposure out. Mike had mentioned this bracket may have been blown out just a little due to his time restrictions with this scene. I took this as a cue to discard it while loading them up in Photomatix. As usual, I processed the Tone-mapped file knowing I would be adding contrast and detail later on with onOne’s PhotoTools 2.6 and some filters using Nik’s Color Efex Pro. I also ran some lens correction to help straighten out the lines and cropped the image just a bit.

I think you will notice that each of the photographers that worked on this set really brought some diverse versions to the table and at the end of the day photography is all about vision and just plain having fun! That’s the beauty of working with such a talented bunch of photographers on these collaborations. I’m honored to be a part of this group!

Till next time…

Rob Hanson – Office Space

One of the things that I always seem to like about Mike’s compositions is that they are big, wide, and full of detail. This allows us to traipse around the picture looking for the good bits to pull us in.

In this set of brackets, I wanted to create a dark and gloomy atmosphere, but not too much so, so finding the right balance was tricky. As I often do for this type of shot, I wanted to highlight the back office, leading the eye through the foreground room to the office, without sacrificing some of the more interesting details in the walls. Using various techniques to create light and dark space, I’ve hopefully created a path through the picture.

For some technical issues, I cleaned up the inevitable magenta fringe on the high contrast windows, and straightened the door frames to something acceptable. I also choose a fairly aggressive crop in order to eliminate some of the extra, somewhat redundant detail in the walls and ceiling.

The final results was a mix of HDR Express and 32 Float over a base tonemap from Photomatix Pro, using my Shadowmapping technique on the Photomatix side. Various filters from Nik included White Neutralizer, Tonal Contrast, Darken/Lighten Center, and Glamour Glow. I kicked up some details with a selective High Pass filter layer in Overlay mode.

Even though rushed to get this in on time — I was on a two-week road trip — I had great fun coming back to the keyboard to work on this image. Thanks, Mike!

Hope you enjoyed the talent from these guys, great fun, until next time, Thanks for stopping by!