Oldies but Goodies

I was looking back through some of my old pictures from Mexico when I came across these again. I really liked them a lot when I first shot them and, for whatever reason, never got around to printing them off.

So, I thougth I'd open them up, put photoshop mat around them and sign them!

These were both taken with just a regular, point and shoot camera.

No photoshop processing was done and nothing was changed in regards to the color...these are exactly as I shot them. These two shots came right after rain storms as the clouds were opening up and the last bit of sunlight came through.

It's pretty amazing how you can get such great color within minutes of it storming.

High Key

Well, I tried to take a different type of picture today.

When Paige was out running some errands, I decided to experiment on our new puppy. I've seen these pictures around and always thought they looked pretty neat, so I thought I'd try out a couple.

I snapped a few pictures of the dog, picked the one that I thought would work best and went to work on it. I really liked the way it turned out, so when Paige got home, I decided to try one of her too!

I'll have to play with it a little more, changing the saturation, level of exposure and things like that, but I thought that these were good ones to start off with!

Let me know what you guys think!

T

Blue Ridge Parkway

This weekend, Paige, Jim (a guy I work with) and I all took a trip over to Boone, NC. I have really wanted to get out and drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway, which is one of the top road trips in the US. It is a beautiful, scenic road that winds through the mountains all the way from eastern Tennessee all the way into Virginia. With the leaves changing colors, I figured this would be an ideal weekend to get out and drive, check out the trees and just get some great scenery. I underestimated how pretty this drive was going to be! It was absolutely beautiful. It is a winding road that weaves through the mountains with look-outs every couple of miles. It was the perfect weekend to check it out and we were not alone! There were literally hundreds of cars out on the parkway with us and each lookout was packed with people taking pictures and enjoying the views. So, I joined everyone and took a bunch of pictures.

We also went on a 5 mile hike right off of the parkway, which was a lot of fun.

Paige has a friend that goes to Appalachian State University for grad school and is the cheerleading coach there. So we decided to go to their football game Saturday, stay the night and go out that evening. Apparently, App. State is really good. They've won the National Championship (D-1 AA) 3 of the last 5 years and win their conference about 80% of the time. So, it was a fun game to watch, a really nice stadium (carved into the side of a mountain) and they won!

Overall, it was a great weekend and a lot of fun. I drove probably 50 miles or so on the parkway, hiked 5 miles and had a blast partying at App State!

- This is the "Viaduct" on the Parkway. The color is a little off, so when I get a better version of it, I'll update it. I just wanted to get this loaded on here becuase I thought it was pretty cool.

- Just another bridge along the Parkway.

- I finally got this pano put together and finished. This is the same spot as the "Viaduct" above, but just an extended view of it. I was up on a rock, across the parkway with about 5 other people and quickly snapped 9-10 pictures making this pano. Since it's taken in mid-day sun, the sky is pretty blown out, but I didn't have much of a choice, so it's as best as I could get, given the circumstances. Luckily, I was able to catch a break in the traffic and there was no one on this section of the road for about 10 seconds. It doesn't quite compare to actually being there, but it's an impressive view nonetheless.

- Finished with the fake matting and some words. I got it framed out so that it would fit inside a 12"x36" picture frame.

- Just a wooden fence and a barn along the parkway.

- I caught a break in traffic long enough to get out in the middle of this tree-lined street and snap this photo!

- A picture I took while we were on our hike.

Let me know what you think!

T

Panos

Well, I was looking through some of my old pictures and found several panoramic shots that I've put together over the last few years and thought I'd put them on here. Some are pretty cool and some are pretty boring, but I hope you like them regardless.

- Downtown Chicago from the Willis (Sears) Tower Skydeck

- Lago Atitlan in Guatemala. This place was beautiful!

- Downtown Chicago from the north.

- Chicago Skyline from the Planetarium.

- Sunrise over Phoenix, AZ taken from Camelback Mountain

- A Canyon in Sedona, AZ that I took on a hike.

Hanging Rock

OK, since I haven't updated in a LONG time, I figured I would put a few pictures up.

With the move down to NC, I haven't had quite as much time to get out and shoot.

Hopefully, over the next few weeks, I'll get some good pictures and be able to get them posted. With the changing leaves, it should be a good time to go shoot.

Here are a few photos from our hikes through Hanging Rock State Park.

- Paige and I standing out on the "Hanging Rock".

- A little Pano I put together of Paige sitting with her legs dangling over a 150 foot drop off!

- It was really foggy one day we went hiking. This is on a fire lookout platform, and is actually the highest point in the Park. Unfortunately, the view was less than spectacular that day, but I got a great picture out of it...I really like the lines.

Let me know what you guys think.

T

Model

Well, tonight I decided to take pictures of a real life model! (I've got the best looking model living with me, so trying to find one wasn't too hard).
I had an idea of a picture that I wanted to take but wasn't sure exactly how to do it. I knew I needed the room dark and just needed one single light off to the side to luminate the subject.
So, I got a lamp set up, but the light was way too bright. I tried a few things to diffuse the light (without a proper light box and stand, a desk lamp and a few t-shirts works out pretty well) and got that right, but the pictures weren't coming out the way I had hoped. I was trying to pose Paige the way I wanted, but it just didn't come out looking natural and that's when her inner model took over.
She started moving her head around, shifting positions and looking in different directions and leaning into or away from the light. It looked like it was coming very natural for her (must be from watching so many episodes of "Next Top Model")
So, after a few minutes of shooting, we had several pictures that ended up coming out great.
Thanks again to Paige for being patient and for helping me out!

Let me know what you think.

T

Smoke

Well, I got bored today and decided to try another picture.

This time I wanted to try to get a smoke stream coming off of a candle. I've seen these before and thought they looked kind of cool.

I had a hard time getting the smoke the way I wanted it to be. Either it would be too thin, too spread out or it would be streaming out of the picture. I couldn't ever get it to float straight up like I wanted and I don't really know how other people do it. So, I experimented with blowing it out from different angles, different size breaths and puffs of air until I got a couple I liked. I ended up sucking in some smoke and my eyes are red from the heat and smoke flying up in my face, but I think it was a successful shoot...meaning I got at least one picture I liked. I'm only posting this one, since all of the others look pretty much the same.

Let me know what you think.

T

Water

Just one picture on this update.

I saw a picture of an apple falling into water that I wanted to try to replicate, so I thought I'd give it a try. I need a bigger glass container, probably a fish tank, but this picture still came out all right.

If I ever get a bigger container, I'll probably try it again later, but for now, this will work.

Let me know what you think.

T

Chicago

OK, Here was my first real trip out with my new camera. I went downtown at the end of the fall (mid-November actually) and spent several hours just walking around taking pictures. While I took about 350 pictures, I really only came out with a handfull of useful images. I guess I probably should have read my books and user manual before going down, but oh well, I still got some decent shots (at least I think so).
I also played a little with the camera tilt, as you can see...so yes, I did realize that my camera was tilted slightly to the left when I took all of these pictures...I thought it would give it a little bit of a contemporary look or something.
Let me know what you think.
T


- Same picture as above but you can see more detail in this one. It's more of an HDR image, using 3 exposures, rather than just one.

- This image was way overexposed when I took it, so I decided to just mess with the exposure/color/saturation levels even more and I thought it ended up looking pretty cool.

Flowers

I've tried taking pictures of flowers a couple of times and really liked the way that they turned out. I've messed with desaturating some of the images and playing with the colors in Photoshop. Between all of those things, I've come up with a few pretty good images.

(these are all the smaller versions of the images to save some space on the website)

Let me know what you think.

T

First Day

Well, I thought I'd set up a blog so that everyone can keep up with the different pictures that I've been taking lately. I've just gotten my first "real" camera (thanks to Paige) and have been snapping away. Until now, I've been emailing my pictures to everyone, but I figured this would just be easier.
I don't really know what I'm doing as far as photography goes, but I thought I'd give it a try anyway...I was kind of hoping that it would just run in the blood.
I'll try to keep this updated as I keep taking new pictures or as I try out new subjects, so bear with me.
Let me kwow what you think of any of the pictures.