The Distillery District

Toronto’s famous Distillery District, with its cobblestone streets, is a collection of buildings that date back to the 1860’s that once housed the Gooderham & Worts whiskey distillery. The distillery closed down in the 1990’s and was repurposed to become a very popular location for art lovers, restaurants, bars, and boutiques.

During a recent visit to Toronto I decided to make a quick stop and grab a few photos of elements that caught my eye. Here are a few of the scenes that I photographed. In order to capture images void of pedestrians I utilized a 10-stop ND filter for exposures of 30 seconds. By doing so, the people moving through the scene would not be registered by the camera sensor, thus the street would appear abandoned 🙂

 

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Rusty Old Wrecks – Teaching Moment Photographic Workshop

 

Join me on Saturday November 3, 2018 from 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. for a Rusty Old Wrecks Teaching Moment Photographic Workshop being held at McClean’s Auto Wreckers, near Milton, Ontario. Whether you are relatively new to photography or looking for instruction to fine tune your craft this 4 hour workshop provides excellent subject matter with acres of old dilapidated cars and trucks to chose from. You will learn everything from the basics of good composition, using filters, focusing on details, and the benefits of HDR photography. The cost of this workshop is $65 plus HST and must be paid in advance of the workshop date.

To reserve your spot and to arrange payment please contacting me by clicking here. Payment may be made by email transfer or by cheque made payable to Andrew McLachlan. The maximum number of participants for this event is 10. This workshop will run rain, shine, or snow.

Cancellation Policy:

There are no refunds for Teaching Moment Photographic Workshops. If you are unable to attend you will receive credit in the amount paid for a future Teaching Moment Photographic Workshop.

About Teaching Moment Photographic Workshops:

Teaching Moment Photographic Workshops are inexpensive, half day sessions that give back! Just how will they give back – for every 5 Teaching Moment Photographic Workshops that you attend you will receive a $50 (Canadian currency) voucher redeemable on any future workshop that you attend.

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Simplified Grunge Processing

Rusty Old Wreck Interior
Nikon D800, Laowa 12mm Zero D Lens

Without a doubt rusty old dilapidated automobiles look great with a touch of grunge processing added to them. On Thursday June 21st I visited a nearby auto wrecker to photograph several old abandoned cars and trucks. I was quite fascinated by the state of decay inside this particular old car.  Using my amazingly wide and razor sharp Laowa 12mm Zero D Lens on my Nikon D800 I set out to create this extreme wide angle, interior view. The above image was created from one RAW image file. In Adobe Camera Raw I made adjustments to the Clarity, Contrast, Shadow, and Highlights slider and also tweaked the Vibrance slider as well. I then opened the image into Photoshop CC and went straight for my Nik Color Efex Filters to apply my simplified grunge processing technique. First a treatment of Detail Extractor was applied, which in Photoshop I reduced the opacity of the layer to roughly 70%. Secondly I applied a touch of Nik Color Efex Pro Contrast filter. I then saved the image as an 8-bit TIFF and created my watermarked low-res JPEG for web use. I spent no more than 10 minutes on optimizing this image using the two NIK filters for a simplified, but incredibly effective grunge look.

 

WORKSHOP NOTES:

I was pleased to sign up 3 additional participants for the Lake Superior Wild & Scenic Photography Retreat in October over the last couple of weeks. There is now only 1 spot available.

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Rusty Old Wrecks-Teaching Moment Photographic Workshop

Yesterday I held the first Teaching Moment Photographic Workshop – Rusty Old Wrecks. We had beautiful over-cast conditions during the entire workshop and the forecasted rain held off for much of the day. There were six participants, eager to create images of these old dilapidated gems. I am looking forward to sharing the participant photos with you soon. I will be announcing a winter installment of this workshop as part of the Teaching Moment Photographic Workshop series, as well as a host of other awesome locations where folks can hone their photographic techniques and vision under the instruction of yours truly. Today’s post features some of the imagery that I created during the event as a way of showing the participant various compositional options for the enormous number of wrecks at the auto yard.

When I process my image files of the rusty old wrecks I often like to apply some Nik Detail Extractor, Nik Tonal Contrast, or Topaz Labs Clarity to enhance the grunginess of the rusted metal. Sometimes I add a touch of all three photoshop plug-ins to really grunge it up!

After applying a touch of grunge to the image files the only other step that I perform to optimize the photos is a simple “S” curve to pump up the level of contrast within the scene. The image directly above was a new find for me and I have created several Creative Edit options that I will share with you in a future blog post. Directly below is my favourite wreck at the auto yard. I just love the blues mixed in the the pinkish reds and the browns of the autumn grasses and weeds.

 

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Rusty Old Wrecks and Teaching Moment Photographic Workshops

Today I am announcing Teaching Moment Photographic Workshops with the first installment being Rusty Old Wrecks. These workshops will be a series of inexpensive, half day sessions that also give back! Just how will they give back – for every 5 Teaching Moment Photographic Workshops that you attend you will receive a $50 (Canadian currency) voucher redeemable on any future workshop that you attend.

Join me on Saturday November 4, 2017 from 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. for the Rusty Old Wrecks Photographic Workshop being held at McClean’s Auto Wreckers, near Milton, Ontario. Whether you are relatively new to photography or looking for instruction to fine tune your craft this 4 hour workshop provides excellent subject matter with acres of old dilapidated cars and trucks to chose from. You will learn everything from the basics of good composition, using filters to your advantage, and the benefits of HDR photography. The cost of this workshop is $65 plus HST and must be paid in advance of the workshop date. To reserve your spot and to arrange payment please contacting me by clicking here. The maximum number of participants for this event is 10.

This workshop will run rain, shine, or snow.

Stay tuned for more Teaching Moment Photographic Workshop announcements soon.

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Fire Engine Red

Old Fire Engine – Topaz Detail

 

This afternoon while on my way home from running a few errands in Barrie, Ontario I decided to take one of the backroads home, and am so glad I did as I came across a wonderful old fire engine parked beside a lovely grouping of blue spruce trees. We had a very light dusting of snow last night as well, which helped add another element of interest to the scene. After creating a few quick images I rushed home to play around with the images in some of the various Topaz Labs plug-ins that I have. Above is a quasi-grunge version using Topaz Detail. Below are two alternate renderings using Topaz Impressions and Topaz Black & White Effects 2.

Please remember to click on each of the images to see the larger, sharper versions. Which artistic rendering do you prefer most?

I have decided to change the way I post images to the blog for the coming year. I will go into more detail on what prompted the change soon.

Old Fire Engine – Topaz Impression

Old Fire Engine – Topaz Black & White Effects 2

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Artistic Renderings from Muskoka

Georgian Bay Rugged Hiking Trail, Parry Sound, Ontario

I have been busy preparing for an upcoming presentation for The Trillium Photographic Club, which will be held on Tuesday November 11th at 7:30 p.m. at the East Plains United Church, Peart Hall located at 375 Plains Road East in  Burlington, Ontario. The cost to non-members to attend the presentation is $5. Also note that my eBook ‘A Photographer’s Guide to the Ontario Landscape‘ which is the only extensive resource for landscape photography in Ontario, will be available for purchase at a reduced presentation special of $20.

Above is a B&W conversion of an earlier posted image that I created on the Georgian Bay Rugged Hiking Trail with a Sigma Fisheye lens. And below is a B&W conversion of a fisheye view of Hatchery Falls in Ontario’s Muskoka Region, which was also featured in day one of my entries to the Five Day Black and White Challenge on Facebook. To connect with me on Facebook please click here.

Hatchery Falls on the Skeleton River, Muskoka, Ontario

And for stunning autumn color I could not resist the temptation to create an artistic rendering using Topaz Labs Simplify plug-in for Adobe Photoshop for a woodland seen from Muskoka, Ontario which is famous for it’s impressive displays of fall color.

Muskoka Woodland in Autumn – Topaz Simplify

I have also been enjoying experimenting with the new Photoshop plug-in available from Topaz Labs – Impression. I just love the painterly effects that can be created and artistic renderings I am able to create with the software. Below are a few of my first creations.

Please do click on each image to view the larger, sharper version.

Hatchery Falls – Topaz Impression

Rusty Old Wreck – Topaz Impression

The Three Amigos – Topaz Impression

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An Ontario Summer Scene

Old GMC Truck in Field. Nikon D800, Nikon 18-35mm lens, ISO 400, f8 @ 1/40, polarizing filter

I have been rather busy over the course of the last week but thought I would share this typical summer scene that I created last weekend. It is now the season where folks can buy corn from local farmers as they set-up stands along the smaller two-lane highways. I have always loved this particular farmer’s ‘advertising billboard’; a rusty old wreck at the edge of the field with the Canadian flag flying proud.

To process this image I utilized Nik Software’s Detail Extractor filter, but only on the truck so that the rest of the scene would take on too much of a grungy-look. I made some final tweaks with Nik Software’s Viveza 2.

Please click on the image to see the larger, sharper version.

Don’t forget to check out the August issue of the Creative Photography eMini-Magazine, This magazine is published on a monthly basis by Denise Ippolito and subscriptions to the magazine are free.

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Happy New Year!

Abandoned Tractor in Winter

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

I thought I would ring-in the new year with grunged rendition of an old abandoned tractor that sits at the end of a laneway on a nearby farm. To grunge the tractor I made a selection of the tractor using the quick selection tool in Photoshop CS6 and then hit it with a double-shot of Nik Software’s Color Efex Pro Detail Extractor.

 

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Dilapidated Beauty

 

 

On Friday past my brother Gregg (founder of Work Cabin), and I decided to meet up at the Rockwood Auto Yard for a few hours to photograph old cars and trucks in the fields and forest. There is a certain beauty that can be found within the old relics as they sit in a constant state of decay, as forest and field take hold. Here are three of my favorite images processed with Topaz Labs Clarity and Nik Color Efex’s Detail Extractor, which were used to enhance the details in the rust, dents and peeling paint.

At first I had reservations about photographing the wrecks so late in the season, but now think that it was probably one of the best times as the fallen leaves on the colorful wrecks added an extra special element to some of the scenes. And I am a firm believer in getting out to create photographs regardless of the weather conditions, seasons, or time of day. The more this is done the easier it is to ‘see’ the images that are waiting to be photographed. As I compile my list of workshops that will commence in the Spring of 2014, I will most certainly be adding a few visits to this cool location, to capture the dilapidated wrecks throughout the seasons.

Please click on each of the images to see the larger, sharper versions of each. And stay tuned for more grungy images from the day and also some lovely waterfall images, as we saved just enough time to photograph the nearby Hilton Falls too 🙂

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