The Downward Spiral...

Here is a picture of a popular destination to photograph, the stairs at Embarcadero Center in San Francisco, California.

Since this is such a common photo, we wanted to do something a little different with them. This is a three shot HDR, converted to black and white, some color was then added back in, and textures were applied. What do you think?

If you would like to see a full resolution version of this photo, or you would like to purchase it please visit our website at stoutandstout.com .

Under The Bridge...

Here is a one shot HDR image, converted to black and white, with textures added of the San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge. Over the last few days we have been revisting some of our old images that were not as good. Of course this happens to ever one as you are just starting and learning, you are going to have a lot of images you look back on and don't like.

This image started of as an HDR in color the way we had it before and it was over done in our opinion. So the original intent was to go back and reprocess again in color, it didn't look right still. That's when we got the idea to try black and white, which looked good but still seemed to be missing something. We then added pictures and here is the final product. Much better in our opinion then before.

If you would like to see a high resolution version of this image, or you would like to purchase a copy, please visit our website at stoutandstout.com

Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay Part 2

This image we were literally sitting on the dock. This is another shot from San Francisco's Pier 7. We had seen this perspective before and wanted to try the shot with our own processing. So this started out as a 3 shot HDR image, it still looked too much like the other shots we had seen. We then converted it to infrared. It looked nice but it still needed something more, and that's when we added some textures to it. So this is a 3 shot HDR image, converted to IR, and textures were applied, whew that is a mouth full!!! Enjoy.

If you would like to see a full resolution version of this image, or you would like to purchase a copy go to our website at stoutandstout.com .

San Francisco Cable Cars

This image is a 3 shot HDR, it was then converted to Black and White leaving the cable car in color. Finally we added some textures to the image. The textures are actually from the walls of Alcatraz so this image is completely San Francisco. The cable cars are pretty fun attraction if you are visiting the city so give them a shot if you are ever here.

If you would like to see the high resolution version of this image, or if you would like to purchase a copy visit our website at stoutandstout.com

Fun With Textures

Here is a photo of an area a little behind the Monterey Bay Aquariam. We took this before going on a photo walk with Trey Ratcliff of Stuck in Customs.

This is kind of a weird area because there is a nice hotel in the area, and the area overall is very nice. This is basically the only pocket there that is not as nice and has graffiti. We added some textures to this image to make it more interesting.

If you would like to see a high resolution version of this image or if you would like to purchase it go to our website at stoutandstout.com

House on Haunted Hill...

Well the big house that is. This is a 3 shot HDR image of Alcatraz in San Francisco CA. The HDR image was converted to Black and White, Lightning was added via Alien Skin Xenofex, and a texture of a wall actually from Alcatraz was overlayed.

All these together gives the image an old horror film look to the image, which we felt was appropriate for the prison. If you are ever in San Francisco consider taking the tour, interesting history and a great audio tour. Also if you happen to be lucky and be on the island on a clear day you get beautiful views of downtown San Francisco.

If you would like to see a full resolution version of this image, or would like to purchase it, please go to our website at stoutandstout.com

Textures

Textures, what are they? Well they are images such as brick walls, stucco walls, wood, trees, etc... pretty much any image that is a close up shot like the one below:

With these types of images you add them to your images via layers to create something interesting. You can go with on texture, or you can go with multiple textures in each image. Take a look at the image below, we took a picture of it in Las Vegas, in the Mirage outside of The Beatles Love show.

While the image is interesting with the colors and lines, we thought it could be better by adding some textures, below is a version of the same image with 2 different textures.

As you can see the image is a lot more interesting. So be sure to take close of pictures of any surface that may seem interesting to add to your photos.