Seasons - Summer will come

Chillin

Upon a recent visit to the mountain state I saw my little nephew Issac Samulski relaxing under the tree and grabbed this little snap while he wasn't lookin. Capture taken with a Panasonic GF1 and a 20mm lens, auto everything, no post editing.

The Age of Winter

Shadow Wolf

Snapped with Lumix GF1 body and 20mm pancake lens back in February. 

In Your Dreams

Not intending to stay away for so long, I slept...and while sleeping I dreamed...sometimes it's better to stay awake!

Photographed with Canon T2I/50mm on extension tubes, ISO400 F1.8 1/1000s. Processed in PE6 & OnOnePerfect Photo.







http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumping_spider

Shoot Your Family

I came across this post from another PhotoBlog I watch and it made me think of all the pictures I wish I'd taken. MO and I have been scanning some old family negatives and finding some real gems, but the more I see the more I know is missing.

Lest We Forget

Written by Kenneth Tanaka

This week I lost a member of my family, someone who was part of my daily world for nearly half of my life. It can be all too easy to take someone so close for granted and let them become invisible. To my great dismay, despite owning a small fortune worth of camera equipment, that's what I had done. I could find no photos of him amidst the tens of thousands of images in my library.

Fortunately my wife, the sharper member of our partnership, had not suffered such a lapse and had an excellent series of snapshots from earlier this year. It was wonderful to see them. They'll certainly be treasures for the rest of our lives.
Which leads me to the point of this piece. Lest we forget, the primary reason most of us originally bought cameras was to record our lives. Our families. Our friends. Our travels. The things that give us joy. The things we love and care most for. The pursuit of "art" and self-expression is also a wonderful use of a camera. But it's a terrible mistake to allow such pursuits to distract you from covering all of the personal treasures of your life.
So may I suggest that today would be a good time to take pictures of the important souls in your world if you don't routinely do so. PRINT the pictures, the good and the "bad," and put them in a safe place. I can almost guarantee that one day they will become the most valuable pictures in your collection.

©2013 by Kenneth Tanaka, all rights reserved

No Apologies

 I'm no great photo editor but I do like to play. When I take the camera out for a spin I shoot a ton of shots trying to find a good balance of light and shadow, color and composition. Generally I don't think "What a great Shot!". I figure with a little digital magic from one of several photo-editing software suites I might come up with something interesting and possibly nice to look at.
    I saw these coneflowers while mowing the "north forty" the other day and figured they might be worth photographing. Mid-morning light with good contrast from daylight to shadow. Good configuration of individual blossoms and nice contrasting blue flowers in the background. I took about a dozen shots as I circled the threesome. I used an old Nikon 70-210 zoom adapted to my Canon. The telephoto opened wide gives a nice blurred background with shallow depth of field. Though the flowers were beyond their peak I figured I could use that to my advantage in editing. A nice enough picture but I wanted something a little more.


I first used the automated fixer in Photoshop elements,saved the new
file and opened it in OnOne PerfectPhoto. This software is the perfect sandbox for me to play in as it provides many one click variables for many different looks. I wanted a kinda old artsy look and fiddled with several options til I was satisfied and here you see the results. Nothing out of this world but I like it and for me thats what counts.

I

Relative Project

MO and I are digitizing a bunch of old negatives and hope to compile them in some meaningful way. We've come across some with unknown faces. In this photo we can only recognize Artemus Ellsworth Handy(Grandad),far left and Margret Mae 'Clark' Handy(Granny), 2nd from right. Who are those other people?!

Hummers Have Arrived

Got buzzed by a couple of males today...here's one of 'em. 500mm lens, f8 @1/125th sec, ISO 800. Overprocessed in Elements to get a little better definition.















 Original photo.

Before and After

 Ok, I guess I'll just post some raw photos taken with old glass mounted on digital slr in before and after modes. I was working in the garden and saw these birds congregating in the trees. I dropped the rake and ran to the house for a camera. I think a 55mm mamiya lens was mounted so that's what I used. Most of the birds were gone by the time I made these but with a little processing I may have something worth printing.

Photo shot with Canon EOS T2i with 55mm? at who knows what apprature, 1/1600 sec, iso 400.processed in Adobe Photoshop Elements 6.

Composition

Sheesh, you'd think with the billions of dollars spent on all the high-tech cameras NASA could get a little better composition. The horizon is all crooked, there are distracting shadows in the foreground, no hint of what the subject is and no human element...what's up with that?!

This image was taken by Front Hazcam: Left A (FHAZ_LEFT_A) onboard NASA's Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 157 (2013-01-14 07:23:49 UTC) .

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Winter Solstice

Nothing too fancy, but I really enjoyed taking these.  Had a little backyard fire for the Solstice.  Camera, tripod, bulb mode and remote.  No real strategy just snapping intermittently.  The last photo in the batch, if you look closely, captures Kieara's back of head and face at the same time; kinda cool and creepy.

Light Painting titled "Incomplete"

I haven't quite achieved the effect I was looking for, but work has moved in, the holidays have moved on, and night shoots have been buried for the time being.  I was trying to get a nice clean shot of the truck exterior while also capturing what's under the hood, along with some fancy-shmancy light painting.  Obviously I have some work to do, but feel like there is a good start buried in these captures.  These are all single exposures completed under the cloak of darkness with various battery powered lights from around the house (flashlight, fluorescent lantern, laser pointer).

Oh Tannenbaum

GF1 + 20mm (f1.7) panasonic pancake lens + tripod and a wireless interval timer.  Aperture was set pretty tight (f9) hoping to keep most of the room in focus, and a fairly slow shutter speed 0.8 seconds along with a 400 iso, hoping things would still pan out when I turned the lights on.  Post processing was minimal, adjusting for white balance and then throwing some music on it.  It was fun and will be much quicker the second time.  (The blurriness is a bit of compression you tube applies.  The photos, all 2,000+ of them are actually pretty sharp).


Take-two

Giving It Your "All"

With some vacation time coming up I've dusted off my lenses and started planning projects.  In my search I came across this little inspirational short.

OKLAHOMA SUNSET

Scene setting for Sunset with color tweaking and framing in Photoshop Elements

Venus Transit

We had a camera attached to a telescope more or less tracking the sun. With EOS utility we could watch the transit via laptop while snapping photos with the keyboard.
 

These photos,however were taken by Ivy with a Panasonic Lumix pointed into the eyepiece of a spotting scope with solar filter attached.

Some adjustment for exposure, shadow&highlight as well as contrast was achieved with Photoshop E6 and Ivy went a little further, playing with the software for the final photo effect.

Nature in its natural state - Skull Hollow Trail at Lake Oolagah

Closeups in Macro Mode

Along the Driveway

 We've sowed various wildflower seeds among the weeds that grow along our driveway and have the beginnings of a wildflower plot.

 These shots were taken yesterday in late evening sunlight and this morning a little after sunrise.

All were captured with Canon EOS with 500mm sigma mirror lens(note donut bokeh)f8 manual focus, tripod mounted. Tweaked in Lightroom3.

Virtual Contribution

Inspiration for the warped...like me 8-)  [Full Screen Increases Pleasure]

Fluff, Vapor Trail and Wisteria

Spring photos with sharpening and framing in Adobe.  Minimal tweeking.