2016 Photochallenge Week 1: Under The Bridge

The end of last year I discovered Photochallenge.org.  This is a small group of photographers who set forth a weekly challenge to other professional and amateur photographers.  What I was drawn to with this weekly assignment is that is pushes you to try new techniques and get out and take pictures on a weekly basis.  I plan on taking part again this year and will also do a quick blog post about each of them.  The rules of the challenge do require that these are new pictures, not from your back catalogue.  With my busy work schedule, I may not be able to get out each week and do this, so I will likely add a few of my older photos on the blog--taking the opportunity to look at the plethora of pictures I've taken and actually do some processing and weeding.

Week 1: Under The Bridge

This challenge is to take a picture under a bridge and to use HDR to expose the shadowed underside and the background well.  I live in Minnesota and all week it has been under 10 degrees with significant wind chill most days.  As I write this the high of today is -13 degrees F.  Excuses I know, but I haven't been able to get out there.  So this week I'm digging out a few older bridge pictures.  I do plan on trying this come nicer weather--might even return to one of these sites!

1) The first shot was actually from my iPhone and was when I was first starting to toss around the idea of getting a "real" camera. I took this under a high overpass in Portland and used Camera + app to give it an HDR look.  This is the closest to the challenge at hand.  Just past here was a homeless shanty-town and a few blocks past there was one of my favorite breweries--Hair of the Dog.  I plan on going back here later this year and hope to get a better shot of this area.

2) Black & White.  Not really along with the HDR challenge, but still a fun picture of under a bridge.  This was a small bridge around Knife River north of Duluth. The fish hatchery empties into this small river.  Not the most scenic bridge, but nice textures and hard edges fitting with black and white.  I'd do a better job with exposure if I took this now.

3) This one is taken from under that same bridge, but the rust stains were too cool not to do in color!  I accentuated these a bit with Photoshop Elements and put a vignette around it.  Not my best, but cool abstract.


So there is my cheaty post for the week!