December 14th, 2009 by Chester Bullock
12.14.09

The image above is of a braided hose line on the primary lift motor of a Titan II missile. In September of 2008 I had the opportunity to visit the Titan II Museum outside of Tucson, AZ. The museum is actually a decommissioned Titan II complex, a relic of the Cold War. This photo is available for purchase as a print or digital download in my Art Gallery.
I took several interesting pictures on that day. It was one of the more fruitful photography days I have had, most likely because that’s all it was supposed to be. No doubt more of those images will make their way here as photos of the week.
More information about the museum can be seen at their website.
December 29th, 2008 by Chester Bullock
12.29.08

Dan Achatz, a regular in the Flickr PFRE group, put together one of the best HDR tutorials I have seen yet. He goes through his process of compiling the images into a realistic representation of what he saw in person. It is well worth taking some time and watching the video.
After watching it, I followed his steps when making the HDR image shown above. It’s the used tire warehouse at Metal Movers, a Denver, Colorado based auto recycler. I am doing some website consulting for them and needed some photos of the different products and services they offer. A tire warehouse of this size is a lighting challenge due to all the dark colors and shadows, so I thought it would be best to do an HDR to represent it. This particular image is a combintation of 5 exposures, taken at the intervals that Photomatix recommends. I think it came out pretty well, the notable exception being the fluorescent overhead lights. I need to practice with HDR more, but I am really pleased with the results I am starting to get.