Missed Opportunities

As I was driving to class last night I was struck by how beautiful the sunset was.  I thought to myself, I just took a bunch of sunrise photos, I have all of my camera gear (including tripod) with me, I could stop and take a few pictures and then be on my way.  Unfortunately reason won out and I continued on to my class - on time.  Well, on the way home I was driving past Gray's Lake and noticed the pedestrian bridge and then noticed the water and decided, I wasn't going to pass this one up.  Now maybe I'll have better opportunities, maybe the water will be glass smooth some day, maybe I'll never know if I don't ever stop.  Here's the result of my latest attempts.

Weekend Regrets

I went to Chicago hoping to get a great picture of the sunrise but I also had realistic expectations that I may leave without a great picture.  Looking back, I think I did get some good (but maybe not great) shots of the sunrise and also of the Chicago skyline, but Kim and I have both realized that I totally failed in one photographic area.  I didn't take almost ANY documentary photos.  I don't have photos of Gino's East, I took one photo of the Old Water Tower but only two (with my camera phone) of the Field Museum.  I tried to get a few night shots of the skyline but those didn't turn out because I didn't have a tripod and I tried to get a photo of the bean (again with my camera phone) but that wasn't all that great either.  AND to top it all off, the only picture of Kim and I on the whole trip was taken by a stranger (also on my phone.)  Talk about a total bummer.  I don't even have the excuse that I didn't have a good camera around because I had my camera with me almost THE ENTIRE TIME!!  I could have taken pictures of the Sky Deck at the Willis Tower or of the really cool library next to our hotel, or of any of the cool buildings in Chicago, or especially of my beautiful wife in Millenium Park.  But no, I didn't and because of that I need to make it a point on our next trip to not be so narrow minded with my photography.  I need to keep my camera handy (not stuffed in my backpack) and always be at the ready to document the moment.  Just think of all the missed opportunities for street photography that I missed.  GRRRR!  I will do better next time!

Current theme - "Get Closer"

After last night's photography class and a recent post on Digital-Photography-School I have noticed one recurring theme for beginners - GET CLOSER!!!  I took a step in that direction with my last couple of pictures but I think there is still room for improvement on the rest of my pictures.  Apparently it's still going to take some time for that to sink in because as I left my class I noticed a particularly well lit ash tree that really stood out in contrast to the night sky.  So naturally, I grabbed my camera and snapped a few shots only to realize as I was driving away that I completely failed to implement the major point of the evenings class...DOH!  I will continue to work on that and hopefully someday it will sink in.

Photography Class

So my beautiful wife signed me up for photography classes as part of my Christmas gift this year and I had the first class this last Wednesday.  I have to say - I'm pretty excited.  I've been geeking out about photography for the past 15 months (since I got my camera) reading blogs, checking out all the equipment I would like to buy, etc.  The first class was about what I had expected a beginner's class would be.  She covered the basics of a DSLR camera and got a feel for what everyone expected out of the class, but some of the topics that she said we would be discussing are exactly what I am wanting.  Sections on lighting and composition, flashes, RAW vs JPEG.  For our first class she told us she wanted us to use some of the other setting on our camera.  I have been primarily Manual ever since I started reading the aforementioned blogs and they said the only way to really learn the basics is to use Manual.

Anyway, I went out last night with Elena and decided to use the Program setting.  I think I really like it for some basic photography.  Benefits of Program would be that it is almost all Auto.  I don't have to worry about shutter speed or aperture.  I only worry about ISO and white balance.  A downfall would be that Program mode would not be good for action shots of Elena (since that is how she rolls right now.)  =)  These pictures were taken at my parent's house with my dad's new Canon T3i (I'm a little jealous.)

Dead of Winter

I've always been taken by the photos taken in the dead of winter that have that dreary and desolate feel to them.  I'm not sure I can explain why I find them so interesting but there's just something about them.  There is one particular picture that I have hanging in my living room that truly exemplifies that feeling, it is called Winter Serenity by William Neill.  When I first got the picture I thought I was buying a B&W picture.  It wasn't until I got the picture home and had my face 3 inches from the picture while hanging it that I saw the faint colors of the cliffs and trees.  It is just a remarkable picture that I am continually amazed by every time I look at it.  The picture I've posted below is a picture of a bridge on a running trail north of where I live.  I was particularly taken at the supporting structure (although admittedly I didn't realize at the time just how poor the bracing looked.  Maybe because I was freezing my tail off.)  Anyway when I got the pictures home and downloaded, this was definitely the picture that stood out to me.

iPhone camera

I'm a bit of a tech geek and one of the things I really wanted when my old phone contract ran out was the new iPhone 4S.  I had read about the camera and that was definitely something I wanted to have with me.  I had tried multiple times (unsuccessfully) with my old phone to get pictures of our daughter and it was just too frustrating.  It took my old phone about 5 seconds to bring up the camera app and then another 2-3 seconds to actual take the photo.  Now if you know anything about kids, 8 seconds is enough time to miss 3-4 pictures let alone the original picture you wanted.  So I was pretty pumped about my new iPhone.  Well I can say without a doubt that this camera is great.  I had considered buying a P&S camera just to carry around when I didn't want my DSLR but now with my iPhone, the P&S seems completely unnecessary.  I haven't really gotten any great pictures of  Elena but that isn't the phone's fault (she abandon's whatever she's doing and heads straight for me whenever she see's me pull out my phone) but I did get a great shot on the golf course.  Here it is before and after post processing.

Not too shabby for a camera phone!

Simpson College

One of the blogs I follow DigitalPhotographySchool said in one of their posts here that you should take a camera on a walk and just pick a spot to take photos and really try and make a good picture out of what would apparently be pretty benign.  So I took our dog Kati out for a walk and tried to see what I could come up with.  For post processing I use Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X2.