Maui, Hawaii
This past summer my wife and I had the pleasure of visiting the Hawaiian island of Maui. So many beautiful sites to see and photography, but not enough time to see all that we wanted. This image is a 200 second exposure capturing the water flowing around the lava rock off the coast near Kaanapali. I used two ND filters reducing the exposure by 14 stops, as I was photographing during a sunny day.
A beautiful morning just after sunrise on the Gila River at the Baseline and Meridian Wildlife Area, Tolleson, Arizona. It might be hard to believe by looking at this image, but this place is in the heart of the Sonoran Desert right outside of the city of Phoenix. This place is an oasis in the desert where people come to fish, enjoy many species of birds, and photograph.
This photo was captured with a 30 second exposure to smooth out the water and give a burst of movement in the clouds.
A Monarch Butterfly trying to keep dry, well not really, just a little bit of Photoshop to make it look that way. This butterfly was actually in a tree which I photographed a few years ago. Recently, wanting to get creative with this old image, I used a Photoshop Plug-in called Flood 2 to introduce the water into the image. Back in Photoshop, with some cloning and masking, I covered the horizon of the water with the background, (which was a cloudy sky and part tree), to make the water look like as if it is fading away into the mist.
A sunset photo of the Mill Avenue Bridge over Tempe Town Lake in Tempe, Arizona. This is a man made lake created by damming the Salt River. To the left of the bridge is Tempe, Arizona. Then just to the right is the City of Phoenix.
I wanted to create a long exposure image to both smooth out the water on the lake and capture some movement of the clouds. Due to slow moving clouds, I had to use an 83 second exposure to capture the movement I wanted.
For me, I really liked all the contrasts this image displays. First, there is the contrast of the light and shadows. Then the clouds look like an explosion of energy to contrast with the smoothness of the water. The capture of motion also contrasts nicely with the solid standing bridge.
You may view a larges size version of this image on Flickr
Photographing the waves crashing into the rocks of the breakwater at the harbor in Vertura, California was quite fun for this Arizona photographer. This is something that one does not experience in the beautiful state of Arizona. I really wanted to capture the power of the movement of water. I held I finger ready to fire the shutter as the waves were crashing against the rocks. To get a bit of movement, I used a shutter speed of 0.4 seconds. Later in Lightroom, I dodged (lighten) the bright spots in the water just a little bit to draw attention to the movement of water. Then I also darkened the shadow in the rock to add a bit of mystery and enhance the mood of the close of the day after the sun just dropped below the horizon. I finished off my editing by dodging the tops of the rocks so you can see the shapes of the rocks and show a little bit of the details.
Sunset at Papago Park in Phoenix, Arizona. I was getting a little creative with the colors using cross processing in Lightroom on this one.
An old wooden pier in Ventura, California. From what I could gather, this pier was built in 1872 and renovated in 1993.
Verse of the day:
Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Ephesians 6:10
A sunrise along the Gila River just outside of Phoenix, Arizona.
The last few summers, we have visited the San Diego, California area for our summer vacations. One of the places we have always enjoyed is this harbor, which is north of San Diego in Oceanside. I just love viewing the harbor as the sun sets in the evening and walking around the village which is here. It is always a good place for a few good pictures too.
How wonderful it is to enjoy such color in the early morning. Photographed on the Gila River outside of Phoenix, Az.
In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. 1 John 4:9
Ken Mickel Photography 