Favorites Part Fifteen

This is another picture from Atlantic City. Chad and I were at Trinity's Pub in some big mall on the boardwalk. I remember I was drinking Sam Adams summer Ale...ahhh summer memories. Anyways, these guys were playing and keeping everyone entertained. Their sound is a little something like that Dead Kennedy's track from "The Departed," kind of an Irish folk rock.

After we watched them for around 15 minutes, they took a break and sauntered up next to us at the bar and got some drinks. I asked them if they cared if I took their picture. They asked me if it was going to go up on some weird website. I told them "No, just flickr" so they agreed. I apparently look like a creep!

So around 10 minutes later I snapped a few pictures.

(http://www.flickr.com/photos/myotomy/2733967351/sizes/l/in/set-72157606668759786/)

Favorites Part Fourteen

There are all sorts of different subsects of photography. You have nature, sports, club, headshots, the list goes on and on really. Street photography is one that has never really appealed to my tastes. The basis of street photography is that you are capturing human emotions while people go about their everyday lives, and it is definitely apparent in lots of pictures.

While I can see how people validate it as art, walking around the street and shoving your camera in people's faces is something I could never do. Of course not all street photographers do this, but many that are widely hailed as being good do. When I was in Atlantic City in the late summer, I think I got one and only "street photography" shot taken care of.

Chad and I were walking down the boardwalk, and I see this trash can with a bunch of seagulls going to town on whatever was inside. I bring up my camera to take a picture, and notice this sad, lonely woman in the background. I recompose the picture and capture her staring longingly out to sea, saddened that she will never be a deckhand on a pirate ship.

Actually I just saw the seagulls, took a picture of them, and while processing this later I saw her sitting there and thought "Whoah where did she come from."

(http://www.flickr.com/photos/myotomy/2734799952/sizes/l/in/set-72157606668759786/)

Favorites Part Thirteen

This is from the same day when I went to the park with Charlie. This is a reflection of myself on his tailpipe. Not too much to explain, and I don't feel much like writing. This is an HDR, which explains the slightly-off look to it. I like how grizzled it makes my hands look, but they really look nothing like that.

(http://www.flickr.com/photos/myotomy/2750231661/sizes/l/in/set-72157606668759786/)

Favorites Part Twelve

I took this sometime over the summer. A friend of mine recently had his father's old Porsche restored, and was wanting to get some pictures of it to submit to a Porsche magazine. So one morning, we went out to the county park and drove around for about an hour, taking pictures of the car in a few different locations.

This picture was taken around 9:30 am. I converted to black & white and then played with the sliders a bit to achieve the effect on the sky. I really like the exposure on this, and I think it gives the photo great details. I think this just goes to show that you can get a good picture any time of the day, not just at the perfect hours- sunrise/sunset.

Favorites Part Eleven

I was out driving in the country one day a couple years ago, and stumbled upon this old looking six-sided church. It was just sitting out there in the middle of nowhere. I thought it was a pretty cool place, jotted it down to memory, and continued on.

Fast forward a year and a half later, I get my camera and instantly this church springs into mind as a good place to take pictures. So I go out driving one day, and fail completley at finding it. I check around, look up anything about it on the internet, and can't find anything! Though I do hear from some people who live near the area that the church is supposedly haunted due to some weird Satan-Worshipping some kids did in/around it.

Anyway so one day I finally find it, and low and behold, it is much less cool looking that I remembered. I had remembered old faded wood siding, and was greeted with really plain and boring vinyl siding. Plus there were power lines running all around it. It was a pretty disappointing trip, and I didn't like a single picture I took of the building. There was a cemetary next door to it, and it was kind of neat, but I was suffering from a buzz-kill due to the church sucking, and I wasn't feeling very inspired.

So I walk back to the church and across the street is a corn field that the sun is starting to set behind. I grab my tripod and go over there and shoot a picture. Once I got home, while I was editing the photos, this one was really the only keeper from the church area. There were some pretty bad lens flares in the photo that I used photoshop to edit out, and that was all the post I had to do on it.

With corn being so plentiful in the midwest, I would feel guilty if I didn't have at least one favorite featuring it.

Favorites Part Ten

I needed to get back on this wagon, so I'm making two posts in one day!

This is another from my trip to Philadelphia back in August. This is Independence Hall, taken from the Liberty Bell Center. This is an HDR image taken through glass, which added some neat texture to it. It was taken around 11am local time.

Albuquerque

I was in Albuquerque last week for business but luckily I had an opportunity to go out and take some pictures. I went to the Old Town section, which is a historic native-american area filled with tourist trap shops, but was pretty interesting architecturally.

Unfortunately I went there at night, thinking I could wing it without a Tripod by using a high ISO. Sadly my camera isn't quite boss enough to handle that. All of those photos except one were pretty much a waste...

(http://www.flickr.com/photos/myotomy/3080667204/sizes/l/)

The next morning I had the opportunity to drive to the top of Sandia peak, the 10,600 ft. mountain overlooking the town of Albuquerque, not to mention a radius of about 300 miles. If you think Illinois is flat, wait til you see the Southwest:

(http://www.flickr.com/photos/myotomy/3079833823/sizes/l/)

You could see anywhere from 180-300 miles from the crest. It was pretty unreal. It would have been a little bit cooler if everything wasn't so...brown, but oh well. On top of the mountain was a large compound housing lots of antennas for TV, Radio, you name it. Pretty neat:

(http://www.flickr.com/photos/myotomy/3080672002/sizes/l/)

All in all it was a fun trip and I can't wait until I go to Seattle some time in the next 30 days.

New Stuff

Many people may not think it, but photography is a very expensive hobby.

You've got the camera, the lenses, the lens filters, the tripod, the bag to carry it all in, the computer software, all things I've already purchased. However, I'm about to take the plunge on another expensive subset of photography- off camera lighting.

So what, that's a flash right? Well yes, which flashes are more expensive then I initially figured them to be. I'm picking up a SB600, which is a 3rd gen Nikon flash, for about $200. But that's not all!

With a flash you need: light stand, light stand adapter, umbrella, flash gels, and a way to trigger the flashes remotely. You can buy cords and adapters to trigger the flash (for about $20), but then you are tethered by the thing and that's no fun. No, now we live in a wireless age, so I need wireless triggers! There's a company called AlienBees that sells pretty nice transmitters/receivers for about $60 a piece, meaning an initial cost of $120, then $60 every time you add another flash.

I'm going to start out with just one flash to keep things simple, but for the love of god I hope I never get more than 3. Hopefully I can get some revenue from senior portraits come summer that will help pay for all this stuff!

A brief pause...

I'm going to take a short break from going over favorites to show a picture I took while I was in DC last week/weekend.



Mandy and I were visiting Arlington Cemetary in VA and after watching the Changing of the Guard ceremony, we went on a short walk to see if there was anything cool to take pictures of. I hereby present to you, my temporarily most favoritist picture I've ever taken:

Click for big: http://www.flickr.com/photos/myotomy/2993210959/sizes/l/

There is just something extremely rewarding about being able to say I took a picture like that. I think everyone needs to find a hobby for themselves that they can be proud of.

Favorites Part Nine

I'm glad I finally get a small break from pictures I've taken in the Danville area. This next one was taken in Philadelphia while I was there on some business. My coworker and I had a little extra time, so we went downtown to check out the Liberty Bell and Independance Hall.

The bell had a swarm of people all around it, so after I took the picture, I increased the exposure in lightroom, followed by the clarity and contrast. I thought this offered a really unique picture of a commonly photographed item.

Favorites Part Eight

I took this at the Danville VA before the sun rose. It was kind of cold that morning (for being August 1st) so I stayed in the car and took it from there. I do like the composition of it better this way though as I think the street and sidewalk help to frame it a bit at the bottom.


The vignetting was natural, though exagerrated a bit in photomatix. You guessed it, it's another HDR.

Favorites Part Seven

Welcome to the next repetitive installment of my favorite pictures series. This photo was taken on an early Saturday morning that I first spent at the Danville Veteran's Hospital campus, then moved out into the countryside around Danville.





This is at some train tracks on east Winter, under an overpass. It was taken a little before 7AM and is another HDR shot. I knew it was only a matter of time before I took my cliche train-tracks picture and I wanted mine to have a little something special in it. I thought having the overpass mixed in, as well as the grafitti helped to make it stand out a bit.

Favorites Part Six

This was taken at the boardwalks in North Danville, on West Newell Rd. I got up early that morning and took this around 6:10 AM. It is an HDR shot that I thought turned out great due to the colors of the sky, the glassy water, and the rising steam.

I took this picture inbetween the hand rails, and I caught a piece of the rail in the top right corner, which I am going to eventually photoshop out, I am not sure why I have been so lazy as I took this picture over a month ago. Oh well, it happens.

Favorites Part Five

I took this one morning at around 6:15 AM. I had been driving around quite a bit that day, started out in North Danville, at the W. Newell boardwalks (which you will see in my next post) and finished up on the West side of Lake Vermillion.

I set up on a small bridge, with my camera mounted on my tripod, hanging over the guard rail in order to get close to the plants. It was taken about a foot off the ground.

This is an HDR shot, so it was taken with three exposures which I combined using Photomatix. I was really happy with how tropical all the colors seem. It is not what you'd expect to see in Central Illinois.

Favorites Part Four

This one is a little personal. Of course, it is only because it is a picture of myself. There is a bi-weekly photo contest on a web forum that I frequent, and the theme for the week was "Self-Portrait."

Up to this point I had pretty much zero experience taking pictures of people, and absolutely no experience with manipulating light. I think I was at work when I got the idea for the picture, I had the idea for a picture that says "This guy just got off a hard day of work. He is relaxing and getting drunk."

So I figure out which room of my house I wanted to use (the computer room) and started figuring out the shot. I tried a few test shots where the only light was coming from my computer monitor, and I tried it out using a few different colors, blue, red, and green. Of course the problem with that was I could not sit still long enough for the 5 second minimum exposure necessary to get enough light to see me. And even then it was a pretty boring photo.

So I improvised a bit, and found this lantern flashlight and put it off-camera right on the ground. I then took a regular flashlight and placed it on the computer desk and aimed it at my face. I had read an article on the strobist blog earlier that day about how shadows add interest to a photo so I put a crumpled-up duffle bag near the lantern on the floor.

I took the photo with a 1 second exposure at 1600 iso, so I didn't have to hold the pose too long. The photo was pretty noisy so I used this program called Noise Ninja to remove most of the noise, but doing so gave the photo a real soft, almost hdr look. Later in lightroom I slightly increased the contrast and clarity.

I still don't own any nice flashes, so whenever I need external lighting I once again use a ghetto setup of flashlights. I will probably be picking up some sort of flash system this December to hopefully increase my ability to take fun photos like these.

Favorites Part Three

This photo was taken several weeks ago, on the same visit as my last favorite. It was my first night there, and after suffering driving up during the most beautiful sunset ever (and not being able to stop) I had major photography blue balls and needed to take some pictures ASAP.

I set up out in their cow yard, which was empty at the time. Messed around and underexposed a few shots, and then when I finally got the exposure where I wanted it, I took this picture. "Holy Crap" were the words I uttered after viewing this on the LCD, so I named it after that. This is probably the best night sky I've ever captured.

I had to desaturate the greens in this photo, because the silo was incredible green due to a light overlooking the cow yard. I guess I could have asked them to turn it off but that would be rather selfish, plus it helped add some fill light for the barn, which I think the red turned out rather nice on.

Favorites Part Two

Several weeks ago I was at my Uncle's farm and had some spare time. During some of that time I took pictures of his farm and various other parts of the countryside.

They have a very nice, old barn that I had been in when I was a lot younger. I had gone up in the hay loft with my cousins where we jumped around on the bales of hay. I hadn't been up there in over ten years, so I figured it would be a good time to revisit it.

I was up there for around 30 minutes, despite it being around a hundred degrees. I wasn't jumping around, instead I was trying my hardest not to trip and fall, breaking my camera. None the less it was a really nice environment to photograph and it was nice to go somewhere I hadn't been since I was a small child.

Favorites

This is part one of over 30 where I am going to go through my most favoritest pictures I have taken and talk about them or something...

Unfortunately the list keeps expanding as I always take more and more, so this could go on for a while.

Let's start in reverse, from now:

This is a picture of the same bridge from the last blog, just obviously from a different angle. This picture is one of my favorites because it reminds me of the movie the Jungle Book. No not the animated cartoon, I mean the one that starred Bruce Lee's son that came out in the mid 90s. That movie was badass, and seeing the ruins of this bridge standing out through the trees really reminds me of some ruined temple peeking through a jungle.

It was originally taken in color, but the green in the photo made the brush more distracting, and took even more attention away from the bridge in the back. I desaturated the photo and then increased the contrast levels to help create a big difference between the lights and the dark.

Hope you like.

Getting Out

Yesterday afternoon I was incredibly tired.

Faced with the decision of taking a nap or leaving the house, I chose the latter. I originally planned on walking along some train tracks on the west end of Danville, but after walking for 20 minutes, I was quite bored of the landscape and took no pictures.

I had been searching for this old bridge that runs through/next to Elsworth park in west Danville. I figured some old train tracks ran atop of it, though it turns out I was wrong.

I started walking this different path, down a road towards Danville Metal Stamping, and I finally find the bridge! For being next to a factory, I was impressed with the view:

Large Version- http://www.flickr.com/photos/myotomy/2916200833/sizes/l/

I spent the next twenty minutes walking next to a chain-link fence lining the Metal Stamping property. The sides of the body of the water in the picture are very steep hills, probably around 50-60 feet high. I just walked along the top of the hill until I finally reached the bridge itself.

There are numerous signs around it warning of falling debris, but I am willing to sacrifice safety for a cool subject. I was able to snap a few cool pictures, but I am going to head back there with a tripod later this week and hopefully get something real good.

Large Version- http://www.flickr.com/photos/myotomy/2916195407/sizes/l/

A bored night at home

Leads to some weird stuff.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/myotomy/2905682833/sizes/l/

I had just recently received the viewed mask in the mail for Halloween. At the time there was also a contest going on with a theme of "Lapse of Time." Mandy was in the living room watching the Cubs/Dodgers game and I didn't have much else to do.

My camera was set up on a tripod on my front porch, and for lighting I just used two flashlights. I wasn't feeling very patient, so I just threw the camera on landscape setting. Subsequently the pictures were taken at a 1.5 second exposure at f3,5 Sharpness is still pretty good on them, though we aren't viewing particularly large versions.

I did get a good laugh out of them.

Learning more

For someone wanting to get serious about photography, I would reccomend checking out the 10 lessons on this website: http://www.morguefile.com/archive/classroom.php

It will help get you familiar with some of the terminology associated with the hobby, as well as help you understand why people like certain pictures.

...is what I got

This post is for all the people who want to know what kind of camera I use.


I use a Nikon D80, which is a Mid-Range Digital SLR. For a lens, I use a cheap lens that came with the camera. It is a Nikon brand 18-55mm 3.5-5.6.











All in all, you can get a nice camera and a good lens for under $1,000. Most people stick with Canon or Nikon, though I hear Panasonic and Sony both offer pretty nice cameras/lenses now.


For gear shopping, I usually use one of two places,
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/ and http://www.adorama.com/

Adorama also does a pretty good job at printing photos at decent prices.

Starting Now

Starting now this will just be a place for me to discuss photography. Here's the quick and dirty background:

December 2002: I get a 3.2 megapixel point and shoot.
January 2003 - April 2008: I take crappy photos.
May 2008: I start taking decent photos with the same point and shoot.
May 29th, 2008: I get my D80.
May 30th, 2008 - Today: I am trying to take good pictures.

I am pretty compulsive about not using crappy stuff so I dropped a pretty good chunk of change on a nice camera. You can take good pictures with crappy cameras, but having a nice camera sure makes it a lot easier. What's even better is that when it is easier to take good pictures, it motivates me more to just go places and snap away.

I'll keep this first one short and just post a link to my flickr where all of my photos are available for viewing. www.flickr.com/myotomy

Thanks for stopping in!