Shutter Mike Photography

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These photos were taken at the Casa Grande Ruins National Monument near Coolidge, AZ.   The ruins date back to the 1100’s and were abandoned by the Hohokam in the 1400’s.  It was declared the nations first archeological preserve in 1892 and the structure to protect it from the harsh Arizona desert was finished in 1935.

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These photos are the result of playing around with some Photoshop filters on the same fire hydrant photograph taken at Chandler Gilbert Community College.

Original Version

Glowing Edges

Cut Out

Neon Glow - Blue

Neon Glow - Pink

Neon Glow - Green

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The Rio Salado Habitat Restoration Area sits on what was until recently a dump.  It is a five mile stretch of the Salt River south of downtown Phoenix.  The plan was to get there before sunrise in order to photograph the sun coming up.  Unfortunately the park does not open until sunrise and it required a little bit of hiking to get to a good vantage point.  But this is a really nice park in the middle of very urban Phoenix, so well worth it.

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After I went to the Chihuly Exhibit I wanted to go back at night and see what I could shoot.  Night photography is very different than during that day.  But I did get a few photographs that I liked.  The night photography is going to take some practice.

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This was my second photo trip to the San Xavier Del Bac Misison in Tucson, AZ.  The last time was in 2004 with the first digital camera I bought, a Canon Power Shot.  This time I had my Sony Alpha 100 SLR.  I also did a little experimenting with the camera settings and a polarizer filter.

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The next two pictures are part of my filter experiment.  The one on the left was taken without the polarizing filter.  The one on the right had a the filter used.  In color photography a polarizing filter darkens blue areas.  In the case of the mission photographs the contrast between the white of the mission and the darker blue sky is accentuated with the filter.

No filter used Polarizing filter used

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This last picture was taken using the black and white setting on the camera versus altering it after the fact in Photoshop.