Austin

Happy Holidays!

December 24, 2012 by Justin Balog 9 Comments

I don’t normally post too many seasonal photos, but I figured that I have held on to this photo of the Texas State Capitol long enough! There was no better time to share it with the world…

I hope everyone has a safe holiday and you get to spend time with the ones you love. Because of the holidays, I will be taking a day off here at HOSSedia. I hope you understand.

Winter Book Club – Creativity & Awesome Prizes

It is sad to say, but this will be our last winter book club reading together. I hope you all have enjoyed it. Your comments shed new light on my own photography, I really appreciate them. Make sure to leave your comments because next week I will announce all the grand prize winner. If you don’t win one of the grand prizes, you will still win a few of the smaller prizes.

Also, I want to thank our sponsors this year. We couldn’t have done it without Nik Software, ThinkTank Photo, and Craft & Vision. If you could do something to show your appreciation, that would be great. Tweet them, post something on their FB page, or even better…recommend them to your friends. They are great companies that are always excited to help the photography community.

This week’s winners!

Robert – Won something from the Nik Collection
Pam – Won the card organizer from Think Tank
Scott – Won a free eBook from Craft & Vision
Ryan – Won a free eBook from Craft & Vision
Mel – Won a free eBook from Craft & Vision

This week’s book: Because this is our last week, I wanted to introduce to my personal favorite series from C&V…’The Print & The Process Books’. This one features Iceland. They are part creativity, inspiration and adventure. I hope you like Iceland, A Monograph (by David duChemin).

Click here to get it!

Weekly Prizes: Each Monday for the next 5 weeks I will choose a book for us to read. Sometime that week leave a comment on that post about your favorite part. I will then choose a 5 random winners each week.

1 person will win a Think Tank card organizer!
3 people will win a free eBook!
1 person will win software from Nik Software! (It could be Define 2.0, Color Efex 4, Silver Efex 2, Sharpener Pro, Viveza 2 or HDR Efex)!

Grand Prize!

This is the best part! At then end of the six weeks, I will choose 3 lucky winners that have participated regularly. Those winners will receive either a ThinkTank Retrospective 5 or Nik Software’s ‘Complete Collection‘ or every eBook Craft & Vision has ever published.

Filed Under: Austin, Gitzo Traveler, HDR, Nikon 24-70, Nikon D700, Texas, Travel

Inside The Texas Capitol

December 13, 2012 by Justin Balog 2 Comments

Today we are going inside the Capitol of Texas! I made this image while visiting some friends down there last year. While we were there, we had the opportunity to participate in a wine tasting on Twitter. Hundreds of wine lovers gathered on the internet, opened pre-delivered bottles of the same wine, the tweeted about them. I’m not a big wine person, but the folks we were with knew all about it. It was pretty fun.

Photographer’s Notes: This is a 7 image HDR photograph. If you know about HDR photography, you know that people running around while you take your photos is sometimes a problem. You get what we call ‘ghosts’…you can see plenty in this photo. Sometimes you work for hours taking them out. Or, in the case of this image, I thought they were kind of cool so I left them in. What do you think?

After I generated an HDR image, I finished the processing off with a couple simple adjustments in Lightroom 4. Which has quickly become my favorite tool in the Digital Darkroom. Oh yeah…if you didn’t know, I shot it with a fisheye lens. That’s what give it that crazy 180 distortion.

Filed Under: Austin, HDR, Lightroom 4, Nikon D700, Photomatix, Processing Notes, Really Right Stuff, RRS Versa 24, Sigma 15mm Fisheye, Texas, Travel

The Lone Star State

November 14, 2012 by Justin Balog 10 Comments

I’m not sure, but is this the reason they call Texas the ‘Lone Star State’? I shot this image on a photo-walk that was organized by some buddies (Dave Wilson & Jimmy Nix and Alex Suarez) when I visited Austin last fall. I spent a long time getting rid of my own shadow from the image. Can you tell?

Photographer’s Note: I was using a fisheye lens which allowed me to get close to the star and still fill the frame with it. In terms for processing it, it’s an HDR image created from 7 frames using Auto Exposure Fusion. After that, I applied some new filters from onOneSoftware’s Perfect Effects 7…which I must say is a very nice upgrade!

24 Hours Of Photoshp Contest

24 Hours of Photoshop starts tonight at 5pm CST. I’m going to be presenting something I like to call the ‘Snapseed Enabled Workflow’. The live event is totally free! However, if you would like all 24 Hours Of presentations, you can pick it up for $199.

Contest Details – The Quest For 10,000 Fans!

I’m on a quest for 10,000 Facebook fans. I figure if those crazy eCard Facebook pages have hundreds of thousands of fan, my page which is dedicated to sharing beauty and encouraging others to be creative should at least have 10,000 fans. Are you with me?

$199 Prize - To celebrate my quest and this event, I will be giving away a free ‘All Access Pass’ to one lucky winner. Yep, I’m giving away $199 worth of Photoshop/Lightroom training.

How To Win – All you need to do to enter is recommend my Facebook page (http://facebook.com/hossedia) to your friends. Tonight, when the event kicks off, I will randomly ask one of my new FB fans who recommended them. If you were the person that recommended them, I will give you the ‘All Access Pass’ and your friend will get a free print of their choice. Everybody wins! Heck, if you want to make it easy, just cut n’ paste this swipe copy right into your FB time line…
________________________________________________________________

I know the guy that runs this Facebook page and it is awesome!
‘Like’ the page and be entered to win a 11×14 signed print
of your choice! http://www.facebook.com/hossedia
_________________________________________________________________

The more people you recommend the page to, the more chances you have at winning. If you are one of those highly networked folks, and all 10,000 friends of yours like the page….you are pretty much guaranteed to win.

It’s that easy!

Even if you don’t want to win, I’d really appreciate the page recommendations. It would mean a lot to reach my goal.

Thanks,

Justin

Filed Under: Austin, HDR, Nikon D700, onOne Software, Processing Notes, Really Right Stuff, RRS Versa 24, Sigma 15mm Fisheye, Texas, Tips, Travel

Travel Sins

October 31, 2012 by Justin Balog 5 Comments

I’m sure I’ve committed other travel sins, but there are two I know of. One, I didn’t drink wine in Bordeaux, France. Two, I didn’t have a slice of pie here at Austin’s Home Slice Pizza. Have your ever committed a travel sin? If so, what was it?

Photographer’s Note This is a 9 image HDR generated via Exposure Fusion. Following the HDR creation I did a simple global curves adjustment and de saturation. I’ve found that Exposure Fusion works better for night scenes.

Filed Under: Austin, HDR, Nikon 20mm 2.8, Nikon D700, Photomatix, RRS Versa 24, Texas, Travel

Austin’s Capitol Is Cool

June 28, 2012 by Justin Balog 8 Comments

Austin’s Capitol is definitely cool, but what makes Austin really cool are its photographers. When I visited, guys like Dave, Will, Jim, and Alex welcomed me with open arms, organized a photo walk and let me borrow their SUP. Definitely a good group of folks!

Railings and tripods don’t normally play nicely together, here is how I encourage them to cooperate.

Think Tank Retrospective 10 & Tripod