Being Busy

I've been rather busy taking pictures lately. I have a lot of RAW files that still need to be processed. I'll be getting around to it very shortly.

Here is a sampling of what I've been shooting lately.

I took this at Beaver Lake last night while walking around, looking for photos to take to submit for the amateur photo competition. I won't submit this one, but I like it. Unfortunately, the blades of grass in the front seem to get in the way a bit.

I figured I was already going to be home late last night from my trip to Beaver Lake, I might as well make another stop on my way. There's a whole plot of land that's owned by the SUNY schools between Tully and Truxton. I'm not sure what exactly the land is, but they have what appears to be a campground here.

Using the satellite feature of Google Maps, I found a location down some railroad tracks that looked interesting. So, I stopped there after work on Monday to take some pictures. I have been wanting to shoot some railroad for a long time now. I have more photos from this trip that need to be processed, but here's one so far.

Here is where the above picture was taken.

Local Park

After our normal Church service yesterday, we went and joined the fellowship dinner at our old Church. It was my dad's last day as pastor there. That Church played a big part in our lives over the last several years, so we wanted to join them in their farewell. It was a great afternoon, but it happened to be during our kids' nap time.

During our short drive home, I discovered our 1 year old sound asleep in the back seat. Rather than wake her up and try desperately to get her to fall asleep again at home, I asked my wife if we should just drive around. We enjoy looking at the scenery, so that's what we did. Both kids fell asleep eventually. And so did my wife.

I was left to drive alone with three girls in the car, sound asleep. I figured the youngest was going to wake soon and started for home. As I was driving toward the house, I remembered the school in town and thought I might drive out that way. I made a short detour and discovered a surprisingly nice park. For a small town, this park is pretty nice. I didn't stop then, I just wanted to look. I went back last evening when I saw how beautiful the sky was. It needed to be photographed.

This is the river that runs along side the park. It's a combination of three exposures, all of them fairly long.

Keep an eye out for more. I'll be going back when there's a little more light to get some pictures of the rest of the park.

Here's another photo from last evening. This one is two exposures blended together using Gimp.

Contest Entries Pt. 1

I was told a couple of times that I should enter some photos in local photo contests. I thought I'd give it a try.

Here are two of my potential entries. I'll be going back for more photos in hopes to get some better shots.

Both of these files are HDR images. I took three exposures of each scene and combined them using Qtpfsgui.

I'd love to hear your comments and criticisms. Feel free to tell me what I could do to make these shots better, either by editing or by recomposing and shooting them again.

UPDATE: After uploading these, I noticed they were straight and both had unnecessary tree branches poking in on the left side. I cropped and straightened them. You can see the originals here and here.

The Joseph Cloud

Yesterday, as I was driving around with my family, I saw this cloud. I was rather amazed at the colors in it as I have never seen a cloud with a rainbow in it. I stopped the car and jumped out quick, fearing my opportunity wouldn't last, and snapped off a few shots. I had to do two exposures to get the colors in the clouds to come out without underexposing everything else.

As I was processing this photo and uploading it to Flickr, I remembered the story of Joseph and the Coat of Many Colors.

Happy 4th Of July!

I woke up this fine 4th of July morning not sure what I was going to do. I figured I would try and get in some shooting, but looking out the window, I didn't see a sky I cared to be in my pictures. It was mostly gray. I decided I'd go anyway as it was relatively bright. Thankfully, when I got in my truck, I saw that the piece of sky revealed to me through my bedroom window was just a small piece of sky. There was much more sky up there that proved to be very interesting.

I drove to the Tioughnioga River fishing area in Blodgett Mills and trudged through dense and wet brush to take photos. I wanted to make sure the sun was behind my back, otherwise, I would have had a terrible time getting good exposures.

To celebrate the holiday we in this great nation enjoy and take pride in, I give you my attempt at HDR. I didn't want an unrealistic looking image. I wanted something that represented what I saw even though my camera was unable to capture it as the color and luminosity range of imaging sensors is inferior to the human eye.

This photo is of a network of exposed roots covered in moss. They are a little dark as I haven't quite grasped the whole method of creating an HDR image.


I had my truck parked a few feet from here.

The rest are pictures I took throughout the day. I have more that need to be processed, but these are the best of what I have so far.

I love how this one turned out. I was driving back from Tioughnioga River and pulled over to take a picture. I saw the stop sign and thought it would be interesting. So, I walked over there, laid on the ground and snapped a few pictures. Got up, laid down on another spot, took a few more pictures. My neighbors must think I'm loony, laying in the middle of the road like that!

I hope your 4th of July was as great or better than mine. Enjoy!

Poor Lawn Care Habits

I have an excuse. My family was in California visiting my wife's parents. I didn't have enough time to take care of the yard before we left. So, when we came home, I had a field to take care of. The upside to all this is the Smurfs moved in.

I wasn't sure if I should go somewhere and take pictures this morning or if I should shoot in the back yard. I decided having only one good picture of my pond wasn't enough. So, after shooting the Smurfs homes, I shot these.

Enjoy!

Playing With My New Lens

If you've been reading my posts, you know I have been waiting for my Sigma 10-20mm lens to come. I wish I had this lens when my wife and I were visiting her parents in California.

I lost a lot of good photos today because I had my camera ISO set to 1600. I took some nice pictures of the kids too. I keep swearing that I'll check the ISO every time I turn on my camera, but I never do!

Here are a few pictures I took on Sessions Hill Road. I've posted these trees before and I'm sure I'll be back up there several times throughout the next year taking pictures.

I hope they're not oversaturated. I gave them a LAB color boost and sharpened them using a high-pass filter technique I found in the Digital Photography School forums.