018/365 Imminent Domain

Thanks to our 'Mayor for life' Jerry Abramson, an entire neighborhood now sits empty. The houses were declared imminent domain for Airport Expansion. Many families were forced out and a small few remain. The land now sits vacant mostly with signs that say "Keep out, Property of Louisville Airport Authority"

The project started in the early 1990's, and the land is still vacant.

016/365 Discharge

Click photo to see larger version

The hours are drawing near and I had yet to capture my image for the day. We have had an extraordinary day at the firehouse today. I would not say busy, but we have not had this many runs in quite some time (8 so far). I really don't believe that we will sleep through the night.

Thankfully I have my trusty Sigma 105mm macro lens and many subjects around the station. With 2 hours and 38 minutes left I submit #16 of project 365.

015/365

I visited the Falls of the Ohio this evening for the photo of the day. It was really cold with a windchill of -4. Enjoy the photos. The image above is my "official" entry for the photo of the day.

014/365 Louisville Water Company Reservoir

Click image to see larger. Blogger tends to clip this format.

A brisk and cold afternoon in the Frankfort Avenue and Clifton neighborhood. Static temperature was 34 degrees and the wind chill was in the low 20's. My wife and I braved the weather and journeyed up to the water company reservoir. The Crescent Hill Reservoir was finished in 1879. The purpose of this large holding facility was to let the mud and sediment naturally settle to the bottom, making the water that came from the Ohio River a little clearer. It was common prior to the reservoir's completion to let a glass of water sit so the sand and mud could settle to the bottom of the glass before drinking. I like modern technology.

Enjoy a few more images from the LWC reservoir:





Information about the Crescent Hill Reservoir taken from Louisville Water Company

010/365 Ready

Entry #10 of Project 365. My gear stands at the ready. I am riding as the officer of the engine company today and my major is driving for me. It's kind of a switch around, but the major is under the weather and his voice is less then desirable for talking and giving commands so he let me ride as officer.

I am still playing with the lighting techniques from strobist.com. I set the camera to shoot the ambient light -2 ev (2 stops below what it thinks would be a correct exposure). The flash, a Vivitar 850AF set at 1/8 power @85mm was held by a voice activated lighting stand (me).

This is not perfection. I have come to realize that in this project I will have to shoot down and dirty from time to time and expect less than perfection. Achieving perfection normally prevents me from "wasting my time" by taking photos that I see as not worth the effort if I cannot get them perfectly. So I quickly set this shot up, and in less than 10 minutes I had it posted online. Maybe I can learn that perfection is not always the goal, sometimes the journey is the experience not the outcome.

008/365 CPU Lizard

008/365 CPU Lizard, originally uploaded by Falls City Photography.

009/365 McDonald & Co Grain

I was getting tired of driving around Louisville, so I crossed the bridge and went seeking adventure in New Albany, IN. The McDonald Grain company was located off Eleventh Street near the flood wall. I do not have the history of the grain company, but one silo still stands. The image above is my "official" entry for Project 365. Below is another image that shows the surrounding.

003/365 Bowman Field (KLOU)

Bowman Field (KLOU)

Bowman Field is Kentucky's first commercial airport and one of the oldest continually operating airfields in North America. The airport has played a vital role in the growth and evolution of the country's aviation industry. It was founded by Abram H. Bowman, who was drawn to aviation by the interest generated during World War I.

Bowman found an outlet for his enthusiasm after meeting and forming a brief partnership with Louisvillian Robert H. Gast, a pilot and World War I veteran of the Royal Flying Corps. Bowman leased a parcel of land east of Louisville from the U.S. Government in 1919 to operate the airfield, which opened in 1921. Excerpt from Wikipedia.

Louisville Regional Airport Authority

I really like Bowman field, but that's just because I am an aviation nut. The terminal is a nice old place, but today it is used as leased office space. The is an expensive french restaurant called La Relais but I can't afford to eat there so I cannot provide a detailed dissertation on the quality of their food. The exterior of this building will most likely appear within my Project 365 but today I was looking for interior shots. I made it an HDR image to get the trees outside and a great tonal range. The Black and white desaturation done in Photoshop CS3 gives it an alomost timeless look. I was going to add film grain and make the image look old, but I am feeling lazy today.

Tilt-Shift effect #2

I was already downtown having lunch with my wife so I thought I would try to shoot specifically for post processing the tilt-shift effect. I have two choices. Both were taken from the top of the Actor's Theater parking garage. Here is photo #1:

And here is a close up version with the 2nd street bridge as a top border:

Which one do you think is better? Leave a comment below.

Tilt-Shift miniature faking is a creative technique whereby a photograph of a life-size location or object is manipulated to give an optical illusion of a photograph of a miniature scale model.
Altering the focus of the photography in Photoshop (or similar program) simulates the shallow depth of field normally encountered with macro lenses making the scene seem much smaller than it actually is.
In addition to focus manipulation, the tilt-shift photography effect is improved by increasing color saturation and contrast, to simulate the bright paint often found on scale models.
Most faked tilt-shift photographs are taken from a high angle to further simulate the effect of looking down on a miniature. The technique is particularly effective on buildings, cars, trains and people. Taken from Louisville Photography Collective

002/365 Memorial Auditorium

Day 2 of Project 365. I originally planned on shooting at the Little Loom House, I decided to look around the Old Louisville area for more photo opportunities. My initial intention was LFD Engine 7 house, but I wasn't feeling a good pic there today. I drove past this building with columns several times and finally decided to stop and see what I could come up with. After returning home I was downloading the images, with the full intent of going back out to shoot this afternoon, and I saw a version of this pass by. I initially worked on the Loom house image below making and HDR, and I thought that it didn't look all that bad. I went back and browsed the remainder of the images and thought, oh yeah I need to make an HDR of this. After processing the image, I knew this had to be my shot of the day.

History of Memorial Auditorium:
The creation of Louisville Memorial Auditorium was the outgrowth of two movements: one for a public auditorium, the other for a memorial to commemorate the deeds of the sons and daughters of Louisville and Jefferson County who served their country in World War I. The Louisville Memorial Commission was created by the Kentucky Legislature under Chapter 23 of the Acts of 1922 (KRS 97.630 through 97.780) for the purpose of administering the construction, maintenance, preservation and day to day operation of Louisville Memorial Auditorium. The first Louisville Memorial Commission was appointed by Louisville Mayor George Weissinger Smith. The Commission has been directing the operation of Louisville Memorial Auditorium for the benefit of Louisville Metro Government and serving the Louisville community faithfully and continuously since 1922.
Taken from their web site


Little Loom House. The original target for the day, but even after processing the images I wasn't excited about the results. Interesting piece of history here though.

In 1893 the Hill sisters had written a book called, “Song Stories for the Kindergarten”, which was published by Clayton F. Summy Co. of Chicago. The first song in the book was entitled “Good Morning to All”. During a birthday celebration in Etta’s summer cabin, for her sister Lysette, Patty Hill suggested the words to this song be changed to “Happy Birthday to You”. Although the original song had been copyrighted the new lyrics were not until 1935. Under federal law at the time, the copyright would not expire until 75 years later- the year 2010.

Excerpt taken from their web site.

Project 365 (The beginning) 001/365

Click the photo for a larger image

01 January 2009. I have started the Project 365. My original idea for a photo like this was from on top of the 100 foot ladder truck, but since it is a brisk seventeen degrees (F) outside I decided against climbing the ladder.

I hope everyone had a safe and happy new year celebration. My day today will be spent driving this engine. My neighbors (in the 4 block radius) decided it would be fun to pop off a few rounds of their semi-automatic guns around midnight (11:54 is when it began). That was a pleasent way to be woken up from a peaceful sleep. Gun control begins with the morons who own them. Thats why it never works!