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.