Minneapolis Photographer Mitch Rossow presents daily photos of Minneapolis. Cityscapes, People & Perspectives: Mitch explains composition and techniques.
The setting for yesterday’s photo, this is the Linden Yards Depot with Interstate 394 in the background. Rumor is that they are going to demolish this sad little shack and put in luxury condos here. Good luck getting all the hobo ghosts out.
Minneapolis Photographer Mitch Rossow presents daily photos of Minneapolis. Cityscapes, People & Perspectives: Mitch explains composition and techniques.
Behold, the majesty of the Grand Lighting Tower of the Linden Yard. Ok… so the yard is now a city dump and the lights haven’t been on since we stopped building nuclear reactors, but still, from the right angle, it’s pretty cool. There is a lot going on in this shot, and I had fun at every step:
This is a classic pyramid composition, offset to the left to follow the Rule of Thirds. Pyramids are very common compositions in design and painting. they draw the eye in and focus it to a central point, giving depth to the image. One of the great things about photography is that you don’t have to convince the viewer that it is real. This would make a lousy painting because it is abstract to the point of being incoherent — it would be dismissed as abstract. As a photo, you know it has to be something, so you figure it out. Abstract images loose their sense of space because the geometric shapes and strong lines destroy the organic real-world cues. By finding objects with simple lines and shapes, you can compose and image in which they dominate the space.
This was shot with my Nikon D200 and the Nikkor 70-300mm VR f/4.5-5.6. Settings: Focal length 70mm, ISO 100, Aperture F/16, Shutter 1/80 sec, no flash. I placed the camera against the tower and worked out the composition. I took several photos at different settings with different compositions.
One of the big mistakes many amateur photographers make is that they don’t look at the entire image. They center the subject and shoot. I really enjoyed how I was able to get the top left light to fill the corner. Digital photos are free: take as many as you can. Keep moving the camera around and see what you can make.
I love Adobe Lightroom. I can change an image in so many directions quickly without damaging the file or having oodles of layers to manage. I increased: exposure, recovery, blacks, vibrance, contrast, clarity and… Cranked the tonal curve and increased the luminosity and saturation of some colors. Add in a little Lens Vignetting and it’s done!
Minneapolis Photographer Mitch Rossow presents daily photos of Minneapolis. Cityscapes, People & Perspectives: Mitch explains composition and techniques.
I guess you have to be an expert at something.
Minneapolis Photographer Mitch Rossow presents daily photos of Minneapolis. Cityscapes, People & Perspectives: Mitch explains composition and techniques.
In like a lion, out like a lamb, March is skittering off the stage and April is rounding the bend. The CDPB Theme Day (first of the month) for March was Graffiti and in the spirit of March, I decided to offer you one more graffiti post for the month. I will postpone the April theme of “Water” until the second, so that I can make an announcement tomorrow; be sure to check back, it’s pretty cool!
The train is actually moving in this photo, I found the graffiti and was all set when I heard these Canadian Pacific GP40’s chugging on from stage-left. It was a grimy pre-spring day when I was out and the colors were rather bland, so I ran for my trusty over-saturated look to process this photo.
I process all my photos for mitchster.com in Adobe Lightroom only — there is no Photoshopping of any of my photos. I’m a bit of a National Geographic Photographer wanna-be. If you haven’t tried Lightroom, I strongly suggest it, the power and speed is incredible. I can organize and process hundreds of photos very quickly.
One of my favorite options is to copy-and-paste settings — adjust a photo, then copy the settings to another photo from the same shoot and you’re done. In this case I had several photos of the graffiti and after I created the effects you see, I pasted them to several photos and found the one it worked best on.
Minneapolis Photographer Mitch Rossow presents daily photos of Minneapolis. Cityscapes, People & Perspectives: Mitch explains composition and techniques.
24 paths diverged in the woods and I — I took the one less traveled by (it’s the one on the right that leads to the ammunition factory). The tracks are pretty close together in a railyard, you wouldn’t want to get caught between a parked train and a moving one. Trust me on this. If you haven’t read about my adventure to that end, Intermodal Shipping Containers and A Near Death Experience is one of my favorite stories.
Minneapolis Photographer Mitch Rossow presents daily photos of Minneapolis. Cityscapes, People & Perspectives: Mitch explains composition and techniques.
Trains, glorious trains. This beastie is sitting quietly in one of the many railyards in the Twin Cites; specifically one next to a round house just off I-94 in St. Paul. It always amazes me how many freaking railyards there are and how many there used to be. Like looking for ancient meteor craters, you can find them on google satellite maps and see the familiar shape (long wedge shapes near tracks) with new buildings, sometimes town-homes or a shopping center.
I love how the face of ol’ number 4711 iridesces in the morning light, must be something in the paint as it fades.
Have a great week, it’s warming up in Minneapolis and Mitchs are much more active when it’s warm. Watch for your daily photo here and please, look both ways before crossing the tracks.
Minneapolis Photographer Mitch Rossow presents daily photos of Minneapolis. Cityscapes, People & Perspectives: Mitch explains composition and techniques.
Leave something outside long enough, something is going to happen.
Today’s my eleventy-first post! How often does a LOTR fan get to use that term?
My friend Paul has some pretty good posts this week.
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