Disney Music Center

Took a quick trip up to the Disney Music Center in downtown LA yesterday morning with my photo buddy, John.  As you can see in the above photo it was a beautiful morning with clear blue skies.  Best yet, as it was a Sunday and early in the morning, there was hardly any traffic at all!!!  This is one of the many interesting and unusual buildings designed by Frank Gehry.  It is an abstract photographers dream building.  Now I don't consider myself an abstract type of photographer so this type of photography always creates a big challenge for me to find pleasing and interesting compositions.  Above and below are a few of my attempts from yesterday.

This last photo isn't a photo of the Disney Center, but of a nearby building that had an interesting reflection of yet another building.  The reddish colored wall in the foreground was a bonus.

Fort Point

On our trip to San Francisco, we arrived at Fort Point 5 minutes before it was to close (great planning on our part).  Fort Point is the old fort located right underneath the south end of the Golden Gate bridge that guarded the entrance to the bay way back when.  So needless to say there wasn't much time to properly compose shots.  This is about the only one that I took that I thought had some interest.

Old Cabins

These old cabins are located just south of Mono Lake in the Eastern Sierra's.  I'm sure they were pretty comfortable back in the day, but today they look a little too well ventilated for comfort. 

Huntington Library Staircase

We visited the Huntington Library yesterday.  It was a fun day with great weather.  There are endless photo opportunities here.  In addition to all of the gardens they have, there is some great old architecture.  The above photos were taken in one of the art buildings.  These staircases really caught my attention.  The old style architecture really called for a black & white treatment. 

Juxtopositioned Rectangles

Here's another take on the Disney Concert Hall in LA.  The reflective colors, patterns and textures of this building make it a wonderful subject for photography.  There is no end to the possibilities when you walk around this building.

Austin Capitol

The Austin Capitol building has many interesting view points.  This was one of my favorites.  I liked the mixture of fall color, interesting sky and stately old building.

Old Town Orange

Old Town Orange is a nice old neighborhood in Orange County, California.  There are a lot of old Craftsman style houses in this very well kept neighborhood.  In my opinion, this is one of the nicest examples of what can be found there.  I took three separate images of this scene covering an exposure range of 5 stops and then combined them together using Photomatix Pro software.   I then cropped it to eliminate the power wire and car in the driveway.  Below is the middle exposure of the three images taken.

You can see that the final image at the top has detail in the shadows and sky that is missing in the middle exposure image.  That is the advantage of HDR processing as it pulls that missing detail out of the other two images in the three image series.

The Indoor Pool at Hearst Castle

There are endless photo opportunities at Hearst Castle.  This was one of my favorites because of the colors, patterns and reflections in the water.  I didn't have much time to make this shot because they were moving tours in and out of here like cattle.  This was about the only angle I could get without including any people in the shot. 

Disney Concert Hall

 
Today's blog photos are of the very distinctive Disney Concert Hall in L.A.  This building has an endless supply of interesting lines and curves to capture.  On these two photos I played with the color balance on the building to warm it up.  I used my polarizing filter to reduce the glare and reflections on the shiny building, as well as, to deepen the blue sky. 

The hardest part of photographing this place for me is the drive to get there.  On most days the traffic is horrible on the highways in and around Los Angeles.  I took these on a Sunday morning when the traffic was bearable.  I plan on returning there on a day when there is a more interesting sky (i.e. white puffy clouds) to include.