March 29th, 2010

Cemeteries are a marvelous place to find striking images . . . so much so, that I am putting together a folio edition on cemeteries. They are full of history and emotion - things I look for in my image making! Stay tuned for more on that!

Captured with the Nikon 70-200mm at f2.8 with a shutter speed of 1/160th of a second. ISO is down to 100.

March 27th, 2010

A foreshadowing of things to come . . . my baby girl pulling out of the driveway on to make her own mark on the world . . . fortunately today, her little Jeep engine couldn't make it up the hill! It was a glorious day out today - a day off to boot. We enjoyed a movie, some shopping and the outdoors . . . these are days I cherish . . . and these are my favorite photos to take!

Captured with the Sigma 10-20 at a 30th of a second with an f-stop of f/5.6. ISO is down to 100 and I dropped out the color using Photoshop Lightroom 3 Beta 2.

March 26th, 2010

Totally amazing day out there today . . . a bit chilly, but then I prefer it chilled then too warm. No brainer as to what to shoot today. Slapped on the Sigma 10-20mm super-wide, laid out a blanket and snapped away from the front yard, shooting straight up. Sun flairs are always a great creative play thing. They sing when you stop down your lens to it's highest setting - in this case f/25. The trick to getting the amazing blue sky is to select a fast shutter speed. For this shoot, I went into Aperture Priority mode, took a shot and evaluated my setting, went over into full Manual mode and went for 640th of a second. Any faster and the corners of the image without the sun became too dark. ISO down to 100. Also when shooting sun flairs, if you have a lens hood on, take it off . . .

March 25th, 2010

Camera phone image of the day . . . Shot this last night before a camera club meeting. I am very impressed with some of the image processing software that comes in downloadable Apps. They make pretty great looking images . . . saw the moon up there . . . wanted to get it in the basket, but it was moving in the wrong direction . . . but I still ove this shot . . . =]

March 24th, 2010

If you've been to my office, or known me for any amount of time, you'll know that I love comic books and graphic novels. I have a number of great statues around my office and these things are just begging to be photographed. Pictured here is Matt Wagner's Grendel. It's a very dramatic pose and needed very dramatic lighting - stage lighting, if you will. I shot this with the camera on the tripod and lit it with a little pocket flashlight. This allowed me to move the lighting around during a long exposure . . . worked out rather well, I think . . .

Captured with the Nikon 50mm prime at f2.8 and a shutter speed of one full second. ISO is down to 100 for the least possible noise out of the image.

March 23rd, 2010

This is a fun technique to try if you have a zoom or telephoto lens. And this morning was the perfect condition to try this out on . . . overcast skies and a lot of fog. You go into full manual mode, select a high f-stop and a slow shutter speed. Zoom all the way in on your subject . . . as you begin zooming out, snap off a shot while continuing to zoom out. The long shutter speed will give you some very nice motion blurs in camera . . . a wonderful abstract technique that is a whole lot of fun to experiment with. Try it with a flash and a person as your subject . . . have fun with it!

Captured at a full second exposure at f/22. My ISO is down at 100. I set my White Balance to Tungsten to give the image a very cool hue.

March 22nd, 2010

I am very fortunate to have more than one creative outlet . . . when things get frustrating and confused and hectic, nothing sorts everything out like banging out a few songs on the piano. It's instant therapy . . .

Captured with the Nikon 50mm prime at f/1.8 for a 50th of a second. ISO is way up at 800 for this shot.

March 20th, 2010

Can't even express to you how much I am enjoying this weather outside . . . took a break from a very cool project I am working on to get some sun and snap a shot . . . most times, you want to try and avoid a sun flair . . . but I couldn't resist breaking the rules this morning!

Captured with the Sigma 70-300mm Macro at 2500th of a second at f/22. ISO is down at 100 for this shot!

March 19th, 2010

Haven't done a camera phone image of the day is quite some time, so today had to be the day . . . sometimes I am all about shapes and abstract . . . couldn't pass up this lawn decoration. I know there's some fancy name for what this is, but right now, it escapes me . . . just can't get over how these little camera phones can capture something so sharply! And the in-camera processors do an amazing job of going to black and white!

March 18th, 2010

Now I am having just too much fun with this . . . after doing some experimenting last night, I think if I shift my view a few degrees to camera left, and concentrate on the northern sky, I can get these stars to do a full circle around me! This time around, I popped off a flash in the foreground to see what would happen. I love experimenting and learning from my mistakes/findings . . . I think next, I wanna try taking the camera up to Heater's Pond and trying this with a body of water in the image . . . could I get this in reflection?? Oh, the possibilities are endless!

Captured with the Tamron 28-80mm. Shooting timed intervals at at 5 seconds long every 15 seconds for an hour and half. My aperture is set to f/5.6 and I bumped my ISO up to 200 for this shot.

March 17th, 2010

My first attempt at capturing star trails . . . this is an on-going experiment that you'll see more of in the coming days. I'd say it was a success, but I want to do some more testing and playing. The bright dots you see in sort of a pattern are jets and planes that few across the lens while it was recording. This is a fun project and am making many discoveries about this sort of work!

Captured with the Tamron 28-80mm. Shot at a shutter speed of 10 seconds ever 15 seconds for an hour and a half. 362 frames were then blended together in Photoshop for the final shot you see here. The benefit of doing it this way as opposed to a very long exposure is a lot less digital noise. ISO is down to 100.

March 16th, 2010

What a difference a day makes . . . the past few days have been filled with nothing but rain, but now blue skies are out and it's just stunning out there. Hope everyone affected by the flooding and water damage can begin drying out process! Me, I took a nice long walk at lunchtime to recharge and try and find something fun to shoot. This little fellow seemed to be hopping from tree to tree, keeping a wary eye on me, so I though I'd give him some attention.

Captured with the Nikon 70-200mm VR at 1/1000th of a second at f/2.8. ISO is down at 100.