…just another photo blog
I’d always wanted to do long-exposure shots of a big city skyline, complete with headlight & tail light streaks. I got my chance, thanks to my friends, Ryan & Casey, who knew exactly where to go. This picture, here, represents the end of a full day of photography that started out with some foggy-morning lake photos, then some shots of the Cathedral of St. Paul, and finally concluded with our skyline shots.
One of the few HDR images that I’ve kept over the years. For those unaware, HDR is a technique that combines several shots of the same image, each taken with a different exposure. The purpose of the technique is to try and produce an image that captures the full range of light that your eyes can see that camera cannot produce in a single shot. It’s a great technique when applied properly. I, like so many others “back in the day”, ended up producing some very fake-looking, cartoon-like images. Overall, the HDR thing was a fad. The shots that I’ve kept over the years that I still enjoy would be the churches I’ve shot, and few of the landscape shots …
In 2014, we took the kids and my sister, Jerrielynn, to see my wife’s family. Unlike the previous two vacations we took out there, I had actually gone out with a photography game plan and I had my D7000 with me. All of my photography, save for one excursion, was confined to the locations that we had planned on visiting while we were out there. Cannon Beach was my photography bucket list item. I know that countless photographers have taken pictures here but it was still someplace I wanted to visit. I wasn’t really concerned with capturing anything that others haven’t already had the chance to do before and I’m sure that I could find much better quality images on …
Taken in June, 2011, on our family vacation to Oregon. This would be one of the few HDR pictures that I kept, mainly because when I tonemapped it I made a concerted effort to make it more natural-looking. We had a lot of fun taking pictures there. It’s really cool, and the driftwood on the beach is amazing. I do remember when I had the original HDR image processed the driftwood was really hard to look at. The HDR made the wood pop and it captured all the detail. It gave me a headache.
Another photograph of the beach near Bandon, Oregon. It was taken a few minutes before the lone figure silhouette shot I posted earlier.
One of the benefits of my job as a FedEx courier is driving around and seeing photo opportunities every day, even as an in-town driver. I have, many times, taken my camera to work with me and have been able to get some really nice shots, especially during the late fall as the sun goes down earlier in the day and during the summer when storms roll in. A benefit of my particular route would be the fact that it covers an area of town that is ever-expanding, which means that I find myself in areas that were once open farmland and I now have the benefit of seeing new areas that were previously inaccessible without trespassing on private land. …
This picture, and others I’ll post, illustrates a good example of the frustrations of rebuilding a blog. Thankfully, because of EXIF data, I know that the picture was taken in June, 2011, while we visited my wife’s family in Oregon and gave the kids an opportunity to see, and in the case of my son – meet, Grandpa Ladd. It was a fun week. The kids got to see the Pacific Ocean for the first time. They got to see sea lions for the first time. We got to see Springfield and Autzen Stadium for the first time. The Pacific Northwest really is a beautiful place and although my heart is in the Midwest, especially the U.P., I could see …
I was insanely glad that I kept the original RAW file for this. The picture was taken in October, 2011 at Sibley State Park. My wife, Becky, and I had managed to get a camping weekend by ourselves and we couldn’t have had a better time than we did. It was beyond gorgeous that weekend and it was really nice to have a weekend alone to reconnect. At the time, my friend, Jacob, was getting in HDR photography, as were a lot of people at the time and I got caught up in it as well. I look back on the photos I took and what I originally posted on this blog the first time, before I goofed when setting …