old time gas station and a hand built motorcycle

originally uploaded by billaday.

I arrived early to a Pasadena appointment to give myself some time (ten minutes) to take some photos. After a brief photowalk, I was heading back to my car, and I passed a guy with a purple motorcycle. He got off the bike and took out a Nikon dSLR. He positioned his shiny motorcycle in front of an old-style gas station, and was planning to photograph his bike for a calendar. I asked if I could jump in, he obliged, and I snapped a few.

This was was taken with my Canon DS870is, which is a killer camera, but doesn't have a very wide aperture when you zoom. So, in Photoshop, I duplicated the layer, applied a gaussian blur (at 22 px), and masked out the bike and gas pump. I also applied a Color Stylizer filter using Nik Software's Color Efex Pro. Basically, it applies a sepia filter, and lets you fade in the color. You get way more control over colors and shadows with Nik, but that's the basic idea. Now (hopefully) it looks like it was shot with my f1.4 lens with a super old film.

Year 3, Day 129