"Rural Pullman" Fine Art Photography by David Patterson

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"Night Cactus" Fine Art Photography by David Patterson

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"The Oregon Coast" - Fine Art Photography by David Patterson

 "The Oregon Coast" - Taken at Cannon Beach, Oregon - 2010

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"Foothills Meadow" by David Patterson

"Foothills Meadow" 2"x2.5" - Miniature Soft Pastel Painting

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"Museum of Flight Bridge" Fine Art Photography by David Patterson

The bridge at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, Washington

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"Santa Fe Church" Fine Art Photography by David Patterson

I took this shot in Santa Fe, New Mexico in 2009.  The light was perfect for a black and white capture.  Make sure you click on the photo for a larger view!

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"Glass Macro V" - Fine Art Photography by David Patterson

 This is a macro photograph of one of my colorful glass sculptures. This would make a wonderful image on a large stretched canvas. All my glass sculptures were inspired by the work of Dale Chihuly

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"John Lennon" - My latest digital art

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"Magnolia Bloom" Fine Art Photography by David Patterson

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"The Navy's Blue Angel"

The nimble and speedy A-4 that wowed audiences with the Blue Angels for 13 seasons bucked the trend of "bigger is better." In 1952, Douglas designer Ed Heinemann, who had been the company's Chief Engineer since 1937, proposed that the Navy's newest attack plane be smaller, lighter, and faster than its contemporaries.

Starting in 1956, the little but powerful A-4 flew with Navy and Marine units, including flying combat missions during the Vietnam War. Heinemann's A-4 design surpassed all of the Navy's requirements for a light attack aircraft at about half the requested size and weight. A little package with a powerful punch created many advantages over larger Navy planes.
The A-4s were easy to manage on an aircraft carrier deck and their stubby modified delta wings didn't need to be folded for storage. Without the wing-folding mechanisms, the Skyhawk was even lighter and simpler to maintain -- aspects that allowed it to stay in operational service for over 35 years. The Skyhawk had one of the longest production runs of any American combat aircraft, with 2,960 built over 26 years.

The Museum's A-4 was built in 1966 and flew with the Navy in Southeast Asia. Active in Navy squadrons throughout the 1970s, the plane was transferred to the Blue Angels in 1980. This aircraft was often flown in the number 4 or "slot" position. When the Blues Angels fly in diamond formation, the slot flies directly behind the leader, surrounded on three sides by other aircraft. 

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North American P-51D Mustang

I captured some great shots at the Museum of Flight in Seattle yesterday.  This is one of my favorites.

For those that are aviation buffs, below is more information on this P-51D Mustang:
The prototype for the North American Mustang first flew in October 1940. It was designed and built in 120 days in response to an urgent request by the British for a low-altitude fighter/reconnaissance aircraft. It combined the proven Allison V-1710 engine with an innovative cooling system, based on earlier work by the Curtiss Aircraft Company, and laminar-flow wings to gain more stability and speed. Needing a fighter with better high-altitude performance, the U.S. mated the proven Mustang airframe with the British Rolls-Royce Merlin engine. The result was the P-51B Mustang — a long-range, high-performance fighter-bomber with the range to escort bombers from Britain to Berlin and back again. The famous D model had a bubbletop canopy and two more machine guns. In the Pacific, the P-51 escorted B-29s on very long range (VLR) bombing raids over Tokyo.
Although almost certainly one of the best P-51D restorations in existence, the Museum’s aircraft retains a certain mystery as to its origins. Last serving operationally with the Israeli Defense Force/Air Force, the aircraft was probably acquired by Israel from surplus Royal Swedish Air Force stocks in 1952. The Swedes acquired nearly all of their 100 P-51s from war-surplus U.S. Army Air Forces stockpiles in Germany at the end of World War II, making this airframe a probable wartime veteran. Unfortunately, when Israel acquired its P-51s, many of them had their original manufacturer’s data plates removed.

This restored aircraft displays the colors and markings of Lieutenant Colonel Glenn T. Eagleston while he was Commanding Officer of the 353rd Fighter Squadron, 354th Fighter Group flying from Rosières-en-Haye, France, in early 1945. This was the same unit of young Lieutenant Kenneth H. Dahlberg, and Eagleston was his commanding officer. Many years later, Ken Dahlberg, an ace in his own right, was the primary benefactor in the creation of the Kenneth H. Dahlberg Military Aviation Research Center here at the Museum.

This accurate restoration was completed by the Champion Air Group and the restoration team at Vintage Airframes in Caldwell, Idaho, especially for the Museum of Flight.

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"Petunia Bouquet" Fine Art Photography by David Patterson

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"Lavender Farm" - Soft Pastel Painting by David Patterson

 I thought I'd share a soft pastel painting I created in 2009.
This was painted from a photo I took at the 2008 Lavender Festival
in Sequim, Washington...can you smell the lavender?  :)

Below is the reference photo I used:

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"Countryside III" 3"x3" Miniature Soft Pastel

 "Countryside III" by David Patterson

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What the Heck is HDR Photography?

The following information is from USACanon.com:

What is this talk about HDR all about?

High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography is something you hear digital photography enthusiasts speaking about a lot these days.  Basically, it means combining two or more images — of the exact same scene — taken at different exposure levels into one finished image.  One dark exposure can capture detail in bright areas of the scene, while a second, lighter exposure can give details in mid-tones and shadows.  Combined, the two can give a finished image with far more overall tonal detail than is sometimes possible to capture with even the finest digital SLRs on the market today.  This is especially true in very high-contrast scenes, such as scenics in bright sunlight, and indoor shots taken in the daytime with bright windows in the scene.

As old as photography is the search for the ideal light. Part of this search for light is related to the fact that some scenes just look better in certain (often warmer) light. But even more it is related to the fact that film and now modern digital DSLRs can only capture a certain dynamic range.

The Dynamic Range (DR) of a DSLR or film is measured by the ratio of the brightest detail in the highlights and the darkest detail in the shadows. The detail in the highlights is limited by pure highlight clipping and the detail in the shadows is limited in modern DSLRs by the noise level (or film grain).

It is common to measure the DR of cameras in the range of Exposure Values (E.V.) spanned, E.V. being often expressed as f-stops (even though photographers usually vary the exposure time rather than the aperture. Some data can illustrate this:

Black & White Negative Film

10-11 f-stops,  or a DR ratio of about 1,000:1 – 2,000:1

Slide Film

6-7 f-stops, or a ratio of about 100:1

DSLRs (in 2008)

8-10 f-stops, or a ratio of about 250:1  to 1000:1

Daylight Scene (with full sun)

12-15 f-stops, or a ratio of 5,000:1 to 50,000:1 (depending on preferred amount of shadow detail)  

Room Interior, with outside view from window into full daylight

At least 17 f-stops, or a ratio greater than 100,000:1

We have the following options:

• Control the light (only practical in the studio via flash or lights)
• Shoot only in low-contrast situations
• Overcome the limitation of a single exposure

Exposure Merge

Of course all three options are valid. This article concentrates on the last option. How can we overcome the limitations of our cameras. Because the problem is as old as photography we also had solutions for as long. We capture two or more separate photographs (from underexposed to overexposed) of the same scene and combine the images into a new photo. The classic solution is called Exposure Blending. Master photographers did this manually in the darkroom with enlargers, and today the same is done in the digital world in Photoshop™. Seamless manual blending is hard work because of the issue of:

• Aligning the source images
• Masking the images to get seamless blended results

Most digital photography enthusiasts’ first efforts at combining separate images into one finished HDR image is done in an image-editing software program such as Adobe Photoshop™.  Using features such as layers and various masking techniques, it’s possible to get excellent results, if the user’s technique from the camera to the computer has been sound.

However, today there are quite a few specialized software applications (one that I’ve had excellent results with is Photomatix Pro) that can are designed primarily for the single task of merging two or more exposures into a single image, which is LDR (Low Dynamic Range), but containing the details in highlights and shadows of the exposures from the sources images. There are different merging algorithms with different strengths and weaknesses.

Capturing multiple images with your camera and combining them into finished tonemapped HDR images is quite simple today. Getting the right artistic results will as always take some time practice and experimentation.

Notes of caution:

Movement is the enemy of HDR. This means that you have to watch for everything that moves. Here is a list of common ghosting* candidates:

• People
• Cars, bicycles, and other vehicles
• Larger animals (dogs, cats,...)
• Small animals (birds, butterflies,..)
• Clouds
• Water
• Flags
• Trees and plants in wind

 An HDR photo - "The Junk Castle"
Fine Art Photography by David Patterson

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Seattle Captured #11 - "Beached Tree Stump"

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Seattle Captured #10 - "Harley's all in a Row"

"Harley's all in a Row"

Captured at Pike Place Market in Seattle, Washington

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Seattle Captured #9- Pioneer Square Alleyway

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Seattle Captured #8 - "Hidden Stairs"

Found this at the Washington Botanical Gardens in Seattle, Washington.

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Seattle Captured #7 - Cafe Bengodi

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Seattle Captured #6 "Experience Music Project"

Experience Music Project/Science Fiction Museum & Hall of Fame is one of the must interesting stops in Seattle, Washington The Experience Music Project is a 140,000 square foot music museum at the Seattle Center.

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Seattle Captured #5 - Pioneer Square Pergola

Wonderful structure called the Pergola - located in Pioneer Square - Seattle, Washington

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Seattle Captured #4 - Seattle Coffee Works

"Seattle Coffee Works" Near Pike Place Market

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Seattle Captured #2 - "The Alibi Room"

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Seattle Captured #1 - The Pergola in Pioneer Square

"Pergola Shadow Play"

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