Mark Cassino Photography - Mark's Blog

Here are a few more photos from my visit to Washington DC a few weeks ago.

For starters - the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center:

Reminds me of Guild Heighliner…

All of these are taken with the infrared converted Pentax K10-d. I’ve found that the Photomatix software is great for processing digital IR shots, even when they are not HDR shots. The shot above was just a single exposure, taken with a custom white balance, run through Photomatix, and the processed in Photoshop (channel swapping and the usual dodging and burning / overall tone and contrast adjustments.) I like the effects that Photomatix adds…

Another shot - a statue outside of the National Archives - again, single exposure digital IR:

Under this statue is written “Eternal Vigilance is the Price of Liberty.” The dude in the statue looks formidable.

Lastly, here’s an actual HDR shot of the Lincoln Memorial. I took the exposure on a cloudy and overcast day, actually in a light rain, so the IR effect is very light and the contrast is extremely low. No way to tease any color out of this image - I resorted to the hand coloring technique earlier, here is a straight B&W:

As I mentioned ins post from a few days ago, I tried to take digital infrared images of the Capitol from the Washington Mall. It was mid morning, the building was back lit, and IR photography is unforgiving in some respects… So - I bracketed a few shots and walked over to the other side of the building. But I bracketed with the intent of trying to recoup some useful HRD images…

Pretty cool… Though a bit gaudy. This is an HDR compost of three bracketed digital infrared images (digitally converted Pentax K–10d) with channel mixing, layer blending, and a bunch of other digital manipulations. Super freak photography?

I liked that photo when I first made it, but putting it up on the wall after a while I realized it lacks - umm… subtlety. Here’s a photo of the Capitol that I like better - again HDR digital IR but rendered with a little less gaudiness:

ANd here’s a shot I like because it has trees in it (and as a rule, I like trees):

More HDR stuff - gaudy and not, IR and not, coming….

Another shot from Washington D.C. - here’s a digital infrared photo of the Capitol Building. The photo shows the east side of the building - not much luck getting a backlit shot from the Mall. I have no idea why the place was so empty.

Since it was the start of the Cherry Blossom Festival I took a couple of snapshots of the Capitol Building with pretty cherry blossoms in the foreground - which are these:

I spent a good part of last week and the week before on vacation in Washington, D.C.and Maryland.

It was cherry blossom time in the nation’s capitol. I took a few snapshots of the flowers, but on the one day I set aside for walking around and taking photos, I decided instead to work with the digital infrared converted Pentax K10. There were clouds with thin, diffused sunlight - not ideal for IR work but not bad either.

Here’s the Washington Monument - I processed the image with a little sloppy faux digital hand coloring to give it an old fashioned postcard look. I always see photos of the Washington monument and it is always alabaster white. It really isn’t like that.

And here is the Lincoln Memorial. Again, a digital infrared and a faux hand color look in the processing. A few more IR posts from this trip will be forthcoming.