Bond Falls

I ended up having some time away from work and decided to make a trip to a set of falls I’ve been wanting to visit for awhile. Now that I live an hour closer to them it makes the trip a little easier and I’m hoping to make another trip to them sometime during the summer. For all of these photos I had on my gear to go walking into the water to get different perspectives. For the colored photo with the reflection I ended up waist deep in the water. I was trying to get closer but it got too deep but I’m glad I was forced to get the photo I did as it allowed to capture the reflection in the foreground.

 

One Four Challenge – March Week 1

 

This is my first photo for this month’s One Four Challenge. For this photo I ended up taking a rose and spraying it with water to get the water droplets I then poured some water under the rose to get the reflection. In order to get the lighting correct I used my off camera flash with a white shoot through umbrella. In order to get the look I wanted I also made the background completely black in order to keep the focus on the rose and the reflection without any other distracting elements. I have also been  invited to do the Black-and-White 5 days photo challenge so this is the start of that as well. This week you will be treated with just B&W photos and possibly a couple color ones as Wednesday I’ll be posting photos of my new son in both B&W and color. Yes you have to wait until Wednesday, unless you take a look at my Flickr account!

For this first day I would like to invite Emilio Pasquale. Although I do like his color photos I do like to see his B&W and only getting to see them on Monochromia is just not enough. So it’s time Emilio to do 5 posts of B&W!

The rules for the Black-and-White 5 days photo challenge are:
(1) Publish a black and white photo every day for 5 days
(2) Invite someone to participate each day

Here is the RAW version of the above edit for comparison:

RAW

 

One Four Challenge – February Week 1

I know how much some of you like my ice photos so I decided to use one I took recently for this month’s One Four Challenge hosted by Robyn G. When comparing the RAW and the first week’s edit you will notice right away the color difference. I decided that I wanted the ice to have more of a bluish turquoise look to it rather than the white. The way I did this was by using a feature in LR5 I have never used before. What I used was Split Toning. What this allows you to do is to set the Hue and Saturation for just the highlights or the shadows separately. I ended up setting the hue the same for both but applied a different amount of saturation for the highlights than I did for the shadows. It is something that I may play around with in the future, especially with photos with Ice.

I’m going to try and change it up a bit for this month. I haven’t done any other edits yet and am going to try for more dramatic differences between the photos rather than just creating a photo after I get to a certain point. This time around I’ll start from scratch to come up with something different.

 

RAW

 

Flowing Under the Tracks

Click on the image to view a high res version.

Focal Length: 17mm
Aperture: f/13
Shutter Speed: 60 seconds
ISO: 100

Fallen

Click on the image to view a high res version.

Focal Length: 17mm
Aperture: f/16
Shutter Speed: 20 seconds
ISO: 100

I tried to get back to this place for some fall colors but the trees weren’t cooperating very well. Oh well. I’ll try to make it here for winter though. I think it’ll make some nice winter photos.

This past weekend I was able to make it out and do some star trail photos. I found another application that extends the trails so I don’t have to spend 5+ hours to get one photo and have to stack them all. I haven’t tested it out yet but once I do then I’ll let you know what it is and show the photos. If they turn out, I think they will be nice.

These next couple of weeks are going to be busy so I’ll try to keep up but not sure how much I’ll be posting.

Rough Waters

Click on the image to view a high res version.

Focal Length: 58mm
Aperture: f/4
Shutter Speed: 1/320
ISO: 100

I believe that I’ve said this before, but I seem to be drawn to water for a lot of my photos. I’m not talking just about running water like rivers and falls or large bodies of water like the Great Lakes. I’m also talking about water in different forms such as dew drops, rain, ice, snow, or frost. Water can be so powerful with transforming your surroundings. I’ve been really tempted for awhile to take a spray bottle with me outside to just start misting things and see how the suns reflection can help with transforming a subject into something that can be created into photographic art. I’ve recently just got some extension tubes for my b-day so I think it would be nice to incorporate this experimenting in with testing out those tubes. More ideas but now to find the time to work with them. Perhaps that spider in the backyard will need to spin a web to give me something to play with.

I find that I do miss talking about the photos when I post them but it’s been so hard trying to find the time to do so. I’ll try to do it when I can. I’m looking forward to when I get to work just 40 hours a week again, but yet I just want to get things paid off so I’m taking advantage to being able to work overtime so I can do so. I’m thinking that with getting things paid off faster it’ll allow me to be able to travel more as I’ll have more take home pay that I can actually use rather than paying towards loans. Plus all the money I’ll save on interest.

On a good note, I am down to about 20 or so photos from my winter shots and then some from the spring time. I do however have 100+ built up that I’ve taken throughout the summer. Since this is just a hobby, my photos don’t make it anywhere except to here and Flickr to show to others. I feel that they shouldn’t just hide on my hard drive but instead should be shared with the world. I never really anticipated having such a backlog of photos but have now came to the realization that if I do want to share all of my photos then I’m going to have to come up with a different approach of some sort. I don’t like having multiple photos in a single post for various reasons and I almost don’t like doing multiple posts in a day. I’m almost thinking that eventually the time will catch up with me where I don’t take enough photos to post every day, but not sure if or when that will happen. But I guess for now it’ll just be one photo a day as time permits until I decide on a different approach.

Cold

Click on the image to view a high res version.

Focal Length: 28mm
Aperture:  f/5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/640
ISO: 100

I’m starting to feel a bit more rundown as I pick up a few more things in my daily routine and continue work 50 hours a week. I am currently a contractor so as my contract runs up, possibly sometime early next year, there’s a possibility that I may end up working 60+ hours a week on future contracts giving me even less time for photography. There is a trade off though! In working extra hours it is enabling me to get things paid off. So what I’m hoping to accomplish with the extra hours and pay is to have more free time to enjoy photography and time with my family living in a house we enjoy more vs. living where we are with more debt that will take longer to pay off and not as much money for vacations.

So what does this mean for my blog? I may be less descriptive in my photos at times, in that I will only include a link to the high res photo plus the tech specs on the settings that the camera was on. I’ve been becoming less active in keeping up with other’s blogs and this may continue. But, I do plan on trying to keep up the best I can. Trying to keep a delicate balance between the blog, work, and family is becoming very difficult. Of course, family comes first for my free time, so the blog has to suffer if anything. I thank all of you who follow my blog and give me support and it’s because of you that I will continue to keep posting photos. I’m hoping this will only last for about a  year or two at the most.

Ice Layer

Click on the image to view a high res version.

Focal Length: 105mm
Aperture: f/4.5
Shutter Speed: 1/100
ISO: 100
Format: FX (Full Frame)

I couldn’t pass this one up as it was unique to see a piece of a branch sitting in the water with a layer of ice covering it.

The Ledge

Click on the image to view a high res version.

Focal Length: 120mm
Aperture: f/4
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 400
Format: FX (Full Frame)

Sometimes a nice simple B&W photo with very little to it is more appealing than a colorful photo with many interesting subjects. I’ve found that the more I do photography the more I enjoy the photos with simple subjects. I like not having to move my eye all around the photo trying to determine what subject I want to look at the most. Having just one subject that is the focus makes it so much easier to look at the photo.

Something that I want to try working on the next time I have a chance is doing some shallow DoF long exposure shots. I’ve done a little of that in the past with some falls but not to the extent that I want to. Like the photo above, I’d like to see what it’d look like if I were to have a more shallow DoF to see if the long exposure actually helps with the photo or if it’s not noticeable enough to make it worth it. I’d also like to do the same for a sunrise/sunset.

Down the Stream

Click on the image to view a high res version.

Focal Length: 105mm
Aperture: f/4.5
Shutter Speed: 1/320
ISO: 100
Format: FX (Full Frame)

Sometimes you encounter a stream or river and want to capture it but have a hard time doing so. I learned that in order to get good shots of nearly anything, you need to have an interesting focal point. Although a rock is basic and not always interesting, I think the movement of the water around the rock creates a nice scene for this shot. I also have found that DoF plays a big role in how a photo is portrayed.

I think a lot of the photos I have left to post are more B&W so I hope you continue to enjoy them. I tend to change between B&W and color based on the lighting when I go and photograph. When I am in the mood to go out and photograph things, the lighting never seems to be bad, but it determines how I’m going to process the photos. I like it that I am able to look at something and can see the processed version before I click the shutter button.

In the Mist

Click on the image to view a high res version.

Focal Length: 16mm
Aperture: f/14
Shutter Speed: 120 seconds
ISO: 100
Format: FX (Full Frame)

I have found that trying to get a shot close to falls is more difficult than it seems. Especially if you want to do a long exposure. The reason why? There’s a lost of mist that comes up. Hoya makes some HD2 filters that repel water though so I’m hoping to get them at some point. Although I did have some mist on my ND filter during this shot, I found that when converting to B&W it isn’t as distracting as it is in color. To me it almost gives the impression that I am there feeling the mist on my face as I’m next to the falls.

Waiting

Click on the image to view a high res version.

Focal Length: 28mm
Aperture: f/5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 100
Format: FX (Full Frame)

Always waiting for something. Waiting for the snow to melt so spring can come. Waiting for the weather to turn cooler so fall will come. If anything, photography teaches us to wait for the seasons to come and go. We all have our favorite seasons to shoot or our favorite times of the day. We always learn to wait to get the shots we want, or we go looking for them.

Tri-Falls

Click on the image to view a high res version.

Focal Length: 105mm
Aperture: f/32
Shutter Speed: 20 seconds
ISO: 100
Format: FX (Full Frame)

A nice things about these falls were that there were so many unique angles and vantage points that  I was able to create many different photos from them. I also had an advantage to be able to get farther away from the falls and use my macro lens to shoot them and see how it turned out. The wide angle lens was nice for getting up close, but the macro lens worked nice by allowing me to get some more unique shots where I could easily isolate a specific section of the falls. It’s amazing how you can make a place look by just shooting a small section of it. In some cases you can make a place look much better than it actually is. In this case the falls were just as a whole were just as nice as the photos I got.

Where the Stream Meets the River

Click on the image to view a high res version.

Focal Length: 21mm
Aperture: f/16
Shutter Speed: 20 seconds
ISO: 100
Format: FX (Full Frame)

It’s hard to believe that a place like this exists in the middle of St. Paul near the airport. It is nice that you can view many houses and the busy lives of people and then walk a short distance and nature is all around you. I think it’s important for places like this to exist within the larger cities to allow the locals to have the opportunity to get out and enjoy a place where they are surrounded by nature and can forget, for at least a moment, about their busy city lives. I don’t think I’d ever be able to live in a large city, but if I ever find myself living in one, I hope it has places like this to visit so I can enjoy what I like most.

Something that is kind of funny, every time I bring up the editor to create a new post I always say “Beep Beep Boop” when the thing pops up out loud and my 19 month old daughter starts walking around and saying it. “Beep Beep Boop. Beep Beep Boop.” I always switch over to the classic view to create my posts but at least WordPress’s new editor gives me a laugh every day. I think the “Beep Beep Boop” is a nice touch but in this case it’s more like icing on a very bad cake.

Changing Focus Changes Perspective

The next time you go out and shoot, try to find interesting subjects both in the foreground and the background and then take a photo with one in focus and then the other. In order to do this you may need to find a foreground subject you can get close to in order to create a more shallow DoF to isolate the subject. As you can see in the above photo I have focused on the rocks in the foreground leaving the waterfalls in the background out of focus enough to not be distracting, but yet allowing the viewer to still tell what they are.

In the photo below, I have put the focus on the waterfalls instead which gives a different look to the same scene. Although they are framed just slightly different, I was able to still use the same area to get two very unique photos that can hold their own. One may have a preference for one over the other, but when it comes down to it, if you were to just view one or the other, they are both able to make nice photos.

For me they both give a nice relaxing peaceful feel to them. If you shoot like this and try to choose one to keep over the other, try looking at them as different photos rather than which is better than the other. Even though both photos technically contain the same elements, the focus on them make them unique photos. I hope that if you keep this in mind it will help you capture a shot just by changing the subject you are focusing on to see how it turns out.