Day tripping via my '78 airhead rendered in HDR Part 1

For the last month I have been developing a new graphic work flow since moving my home system over to Linux (Ubuntu 10.04) having finally given up on Winderz crashing and annoyances as it constantly updates, pesters you with dire warnings of impending OS doom and gloom from nasty INTERNET bot, viri or other such.. Enough is Enough! Being familiar with UNIX as a job it was just a matter of waiting till Linux developed into a robust enough OS with enough tools for photo work. well that time is NOW is bye bye winderz...

Hello Linux!

So now that I have my work-flow pretty much figured out on the new Linux system I went for a nice ride Friday, to gather some photos to run thru the new work-flow and see how it would function. (Rather sweetly I must say!)
I rode around in the area loosely formed by drawing a line south from Woodbridge down toward Orange, Rapidan, back up toward Culpepper and then east by north back to Woodbridge. With a stop right near me home to visit Rippon Lodge, which is covered in another report about it.

All in all, it was an ice 6 hour ride with stops for pics. All these were run thru the new work-flow, three exposures per shot, aligned and fused and then creating two tone mapped versions of the HDR which i layered onto the base image using various transparency settings and doing final touch-up with Gimp. All but the final touch-up was batch processed which allowed me to go do other stuff while it ran. A few photos did not align well so I created a set of three exposures from a single RAW image and processed the results as the others.

So on with the report....on the outbound south along 28 to 806...
some nice old barns.. Not sure what happened to the color in the first shot???







A narrow bridge along the ride and a nice old wooden fence right beyond it,..



and another old barn with some old things in front.. I like old things...guess you have noticed that?





An interesting blueish colored house, yes it really is this color its not a white-balance problem with the image!



Taken somewhere...

At one point on the right I found myself in Batna, you all have heard of Batna, right? NO? A town This big and you've never heard of it?



I like old wooden fences, a fact some are probably already familiar with.. they make great photographic subjects, especially old wooden ones....





end of part one..
RM

Part 2

later on I came upon this...fallen but still growing..


A while later I came to the merge of 615 and 522 near the town of Winston (another one of those towns I'm sure everyone is familiar with!) where I saw this old stone church, the marker just up the road said the church was located 2 miles south, but this could not have been more than 50-100 yards down, hmmmm

Michaels Presbyterian Church
From the Va historical marker
"Built in 1879, this Gothic Revival church stands two miles of this location. It contains an elaborate example of trompe-lÔÇÖoeil fresco painting done in 1888. Joseph Dominick Phillip Oddenino, an Italian immigrant artist, painted to deceive the eye into believing that his plaster murals of Gothic arches, Renaissance-styled cornices, and embellished Corinthian columns were three dimensional. The ceiling is decorated with geometric designs." 1879? Not All That old for these parts...
Located at the intersection of Zachary Taylor Highway (U.S. 522) and Winston Road (Virginia Route 617) on Zachary Taylor Highway."
I'm not 100% sure this is The church the plaque refers to, one because its to close if the marker is to be trusted and two, because the date stone in the tower says 1908, Hmmmmm ???
















I love old doors...


What I assume is the marker stone for one corner of the lot



Not sure of the route that got me into the area of Rapidan, but here a some pics from around that area
as rode toward Rapidan I passed thru some small town with a nice little park where this caboose was parked on a section of railway, usually this are metal and at least somewhat restored, but not this one, wooden and ready to fall apart...



a funny little house across the street, like the use of the corner for a small covered porch.


end of part 2

RM

Part 3

What I assume is the Rapidan River with an old church steeple in the background.




and an old mill, the Rapidan Mill, to be exact...





A bit further on I passed this rather odd attempt at building a small scale cathedral style church..



and some random pictures along the way home..

the next two are a set the first being the HDR made from three separate shots, notice the ghosting due to wind movement? The second one is from taking a single RAW image and saving two additional copies with over and under exposure setting, doing this means there will be no ghosting from wind movement but still gives a nice HDR tonal blending and range.




and an old wooden pier in a farm pond fallen into disrepair...with some very very fresh chickens in the background..



RM

Rocketman,

thanks for posting the pictures. I am not any sort of photography expert, but whatever it is you did, it seems to give the pictures a "dimensional" aspect.

I have been by the church on Rt. 522 a number of times, but have never stopped to check it out. It always seems that I am nearing the end of a long ride or drive and I get too intent on getting home. I will make an effort to check it out next time I am up that way. I also appreciate those Rapidan pictures. Thanks again.