On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Good Morning All,
Have a wonderful day, and enjoy the pictures!
Today, pictures from valued commenter ?BillinGlendaleCA.
Chinese Garden at The Huntington in IR
A commenter mentioned in my last OTR(or the one before) how much they liked my IR photos. This one it all IR. One of the reasons I got a membership at The Huntington is that it provides a nice setting to experiment with pictures and since I’ve paid up front there’s no cost for an individual visit(it’s $25 to get in on weekdays and $29 for weekends). I’ve changed the way I’m both taking my IR pictures(I’m using filters to further restrict visible light), I’m also taking a visible light photo of the scene and I’ve simplified my processing in Photoshop. I’m pretty happy with the results and hope that you folk feel the same.
Taken on 2019-03-09 00:00:00
The Huntington, San Marino, CA
This pavilion is at the northeast portion of the garden, right by the entrance next to the Rose Hills Conservatory. The trees are starting to bloom(the visual layer helps here) and the clouds are highlighted in the dark blue sky. I actually got a bit of rain on my drive to the gardens that morning.
Taken on 2019-03-09 00:00:00
The Huntington, San Marino, CA
While morning is not the best time to shot IR(noon is the best time), members can get early admission to the gardens on weekends; this allows for pictures with not too many people in them. Again the clouds had cleared enough for perfect skies.
Taken on 2019-04-05 00:00:00
The Huntington, San Marino, CA
This is the view north across the lake from the restaurant’s dinning terrace. There’s a Chinese Restaurant in the Chinese Garden, the food’s pretty good. You can see the boat pavilion to the left(it’s shaped like a boat) that we saw in the last photo. The willows(they’re planted too close to the lake) are sprouting their spring leaves and make for some nice IR reflection. It was pretty cloudy towards the mountains which doesn’t make quite as nice a sky as the last two photos.
Taken on 2019-04-05 00:00:00
The Huntington, San Marino, CA
This pavilion is just northeast of the restaurant’s terrace. It’s got some nice foliage that produces a lot of reflection for a IR shot. The color layer brings out some of the plants that are blooming as well as the colors in the pavilion.
Taken on 2019-04-05 00:00:00
The Huntington, San Marino, CA
I like IR and I like panoramas, why not mix the two? Here we see the dragon rock to the right, the terrace for the restaurant, the bridge as we move left, the north pavilion and the boat pavilion. We also see an annoying green fence. The Chinese garden is undergoing a significant expansion on the west and the north(you can see some orange bars to the right of the north pavilion.
Thank you so much ?BillinGlendaleCA, do send us more when you can.
Travel safely everybody, and do share some stories in the comments, even if you’re joining the conversation late. Many folks confide that they go back and read old threads, one reason these are available on the Quick Links menu.
One again, to submit pictures: Use the Form or Send an Email
Baud
The second picture is my favorite.
Steve in the ATL
Anyone else craving sesame chicken?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: It my favorite as well. Here’s the same view as the last pic that I took on Monday(better skies).
I showed Madame both versions of that Milky Way pic, she liked the one with the poles(seems the folk at Flickr did as well, it had 19k views).
OzarkHillbilly
#4.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Steve in the ATL: I think they have that at the restaurant in the Chinese Garden.
Mel
These are all remarkable images, but the first one took my breath away. The wild abandon of all that is abloom, the quiet solidity of the pagoda, the bookends of sky and water…
Thank you for sharing such beauty. It has made my morning better and more hopeful.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@OzarkHillbilly:
@Mel: Heh, I’m glad y’all like any of them?.
OzarkHillbilly
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Who said I liked it?
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OK ok, I do like it.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@OzarkHillbilly: I was using “like” as in “better than a blech”.
JPL
Number 1 is my favorite, although the 3rd one is a close second.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@JPL: #1 has better clouds and if you look carefully at the center right, you can see the frame of some of the new buildings(they’re bright orange).
arrieve
Wow wow wow. I think the first one is my favorite as well, but I love the dramatic sky in the second shot.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@arrieve: They were both shot the same day(and about 6 minutes apart), the difference is primarily the direction of the shot(the first is towards the north, the second is looking west). There are more clouds towards the mountains in the north.
satby
They’re all beautiful Bill!
hedgehog mobile
I love the first pic; they are all beautiful and (to me) otherworldly. Thank you for sharing.
David Evans
I love the second one. The colors are restful and I feel I could walk into it and sit down.
On second thoughts, maybe not. I might turn infrared.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@satby: Thanks.
@hedgehog mobile: The “otherworldy” part is what drew me to IR.
@David Evans: Thanks, glad you like the colors. Most folk just add the color in manually, so it can be anything. I try to give the color portion some realism by using a visual color photo for the color(I take out the yellows and greens from the visual color photo so the trees will stay white).
stinger
Living in FF (Frigid Flyoverland) as I do, I GREATLY prefer green trees and grass to snow and ice-covered trees and grass, so at first I found IR off-putting. However, your composition and processing skills have really brought me around. Especially with the style of architecture in these shots, I feel quite transported!
ETA: Guess I’m the contrarian here, but my favorites of these are numbers 3 and 4. You’ve pleased everyone!
LivinginExile
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I know nothing about photography. What is IR? Always enjoy your photos.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@stinger: @stinger: Glad I’ve won you over?, the Chinese Garden never fails as a great location.
@LivinginExile: IR is near infrared, it’s light at a longer wavelength than we can see. It’s reflected off of plant material and clouds, but not reflected off of the sky, or water(they end up dark). Digital camera sensors can capture light in the near IR spectrum, so camera manufactures place a filter on camera that filters IR and UV(ultraviolet) sometimes called a “hot mirror” so the colors don’t get weird. On one of my cameras, I’ve had that filter removed and I use IR filters(their red of varying density) that block light below a certain wavelength, so I just end up with the IR.
Dan B
Great to see the Chinese Garden coming together and expanding. I was there years ago when it there was a lot of bare dirt but few people – pre restaurant. After the restaurant it had a Disneyland crowd feel, people seemed to be looking to be entertained. My favorite part of the Huntington is the desert garden. I’ve got hundreds of great photos (somewhere..) of the amazing cactus and assorted desert species. Would love to see your photos. The shapes of the plants would seem to lend themselves to IR and/or some colorization.