I took a drive down to the new US Air Force Memorial in Arlington, Virginia last night. I'd seen it from afar and thought it would be cool to photograph. I got a few that I'm really pretty happy with. The first two are below. I still have some hopefuls in my "to be post-processed" folder. Click on the images below to see the slightly larger versions.
Honestly, I think my shots are better than 99% of the shots of the memorial out there right now. And I'm not really one to say that kinda stuff. Before going to the memorial, I did a bunch of Googling to see if I could find the best angles/shots and get general ideas for how to shoot that behemoth. The shots that are out there are pretty limited. (You listening, Air Force Memorial Association? I'm not above selling out my images. Just say the word. We'll talk).
Anyway, the third shot presented here is my first attempt at a High Dynamic Range composite shot. Basically, you take a number of shots of a scene altering the shutter speed each time (leaving the aperture constant), so you capture the full range of brightness of a scene, from almost featureless black shadows to almost featureless white highlights. You then use software to merge all of these images together into what you see here:
When you create the HDR image, there are a few adjustable settings. I decided to go for a more surreal look to the photo, than real. Not bad for a first try. It definitely seems like a cool technique to play with.
