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.