Category: Blog

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  • A little loopy

    A little loopy

    Today I took several stills I shot in succession of a crepe myrtle tree using my macro lens. I noticed while shooting that as I adjusted the focus it created an interesting kaleidoscopic effect. So I decided t to do a little experiment. I took a couple frames and put them into video. Sadly I didn’t get nearly enough frames to really feel like the effect was all it could be, so I looped it up a few times ti give it a little more substance. Next time I hope I remember this lesson and get many more frames to work with.

    As I am a hobbyist, there was no planning that went into this endeavor. I just got an itch and grabbed my rig and went outside. In my next blog post I will have several stills from this endeavor, which turned out very nicely. I was very pleased with this little session that spontaneously happened a couple days ago.

    In the near future I may do some kind of shoot with the goal of a much longer kaleido loop. Bring the tripod for some stability and consistency of frame and just shoot a ton of stills while racking the focus. This sounds like fun.

  • Color ‘sallright

    Color ‘sallright

    This post has more macro shots. I’ve been playing around with my macro lens lately. For the record it is Tokina AT-X M100 PRO D Macro 100mm f2.8 AF.

    Shooting close-up macro is a different kind of challenge than other styles. One need not use a macro lens for only close-ups though. It’s just what I think of most when I think of photography with a macro lens. Close up stuff is what I’ve been concentrating on lately, but I am curious and interested in doing some other longer macro photography. Hopefully I’ll get to do that in the near future.

    This set of pix are some extreme close ups of a yarn quilt. I’m not sure what kind of yarn it is. My Mom made it, so I need to ask her. Judging form these frames, I’d guess it is some kind of synthetic blend. I don’t know. I was struggling with ideas for some extreme close up subjects. I’m always struggling to think of interesting subjects. Anyway, this seemed like a good idea. It turned out kinda cool. It’s not particularly dynamic, but it is very colorful. From vibrant to more muted there is a lot of different color here. I played around with lighting while shooting these. It was an educational experience. I used some gels, which turned out pretty cool. I think I like the gelled shots the best here.

    There is also a lot of texture to be had in this set. I do very much like texture. It is useful for layered backgrounds and overlays and such. These are all the full frame without cropping. If you crop and zoom the texture is quite different looking. I make these fairly low resolution for the blog though, so if you zoom too much you will loose some detail that is there otherwise.

  • Run for your lives

    Run for your lives

    It’s been some time since my last post. I have been busy. Not many a day goes by without me having done something, which isn’t particularly noteworthy really, but does have a way of consuming time and energy. I suppose most adult types know this. However I do try to do things I want to in the process of doing the things I have to. And I did manage to some some good things since my last post. A couple of which I am going to show you now. Like it or not. Yes a couple of these shots are possibly scary to someone, but tough. After all, I’ll probably be the only person to ever see them anyway, as is the case with my tens of thousands of other shots. Yes many of which are simply different variations of the same thing. But as I’ve posted about in the past, sometimes it’s difficult to pick the best one. Sometimes a great many are very good, and only my discretion is used as to what I post publicly for, pretty much no one else, to look at and enjoy.

    I am trying to approach this blog with an emphasis on photographs I’ve made, and thoughts on them. I have and probably will in the future posted more personal thoughts and observations. I have so many. Part of my time and energy consumption is on thinking and observing. I guess most people would say I’m just a stupid dreamer, and that my time is wasted. When looked at in the mores of out time, and most times, human culture is a completely selfish, materialistic culture where greed and accumulation are the ultimate goals in life, those people are right, I am a dreamer. That is in part why I concentrate my time on photography where the dream can become material. I suppose that is a major motivation for many artists, whether they realize it or not. I know I always knew that on some level, but never really thought it out like this before. And that is a part of why I enjoy writing, as it structures my thoughts and dreams in a material way, instead of the ephemeral torrent of things that go though my mind at times. It’s really a damn damn shame all the interesting things I’ve though of that are lost to the ether.

    So this part of the dream is kind of a nightmare I suppose. At least maybe for some people. I find this type of thing fascinating and beautiful in its way. I recently had a prompt to think about using my macro lens. Macro photography is something I’ve always appreciated. And insects have always been a big part of the style. I remember as a child looking at the insane detail and art of insect physiology detailed in macro photography, when on rare occasions I was privy to such delights. I am so glad that my parents encouraged curiosity and learning. I remember spending much time in various issues of the National Geographic magazines I had access to. I can’t remember if our family had a subscription or just managed to get a copy now and then. It was probably the latter. But I do remember reading the article and soaking up the imagery. Which brings me to these few macro photos I present for your enjoyment. It’s just some bugs from in my back yard. I don’t have vast resources to stage anything like this, just pure random happenstance, and the motivation to break out my rig, which can be difficult to overcome at times. So it’s nowhere near National Geographic quality, but I enjoy it none-the-less.

    I have some totally different style macro shots to talk about in my next post.

  • Soft

    Soft

    There is a very narrow focus on this shot. Only a small part of the frame is in focus, and I like it like that. It has a dreamy feel to me.

    It’s been a busy week. I’ve gone back to work. The new school year just started and a bus drivers job is never done, which is good for job security. =)

    As always the first couple days are chaotic and crazy. Combined with the shock of coming back to work after a summer hiatus, and the uncertainty felt by thousands of new students in new situations, there is bound to be problems. However the organization I work for is well skilled with the pressures of first day back. There is a lot of pressure for all. For some a lot more than other, for certain. With lives literally on the line it’s not something to take lightly.

    I myself had made a mistake that caused great distress in one family. I’m happy to say that everything ended up positively. But it could have been less than a good ending in many ways. I felt bad and stressed and probably will for some time to come. It’s difficult to anticipate every scenario, and even then in the heat of the moment to always be perfect. I know I used to think school bus drivers were kinda lame, but I tell you what, we have to deal with a heck of a lot going on all at the same time and do it knowing lives are at stake. It’s no small job.

  • Butterfly with a broken wing

    Butterfly with a broken wing

    Even though I still have some good waterfall photos to look at and play with I wanted to look at something new. I have scanned through this batch I got recently at the butterfly place. It’s really quite nice, but oh so hot. Apparently butterflies really like hot weather. I most certainly am not comfortable in it, so I didn’t spend as much time there as I should have. Although, I did get some pretty nice shots while I was there. I need to work on my outdoor conditioning and really my general conditioning too. When I was a kid I remember loving the summer heat and thinking I wanted to be outside all the time my whole life. That was a long time ago though. It was also in a place that had far less humidity. I wonder if I spent my youth here in middle Georgia with the semi-tropical climate I would have been so happy to be outdoors?

    I realized when well after the fact that this little buddy has a broken wing, or torn, or whatever the correct terminology would be for such a disfigurement. I can tell you it didn’t seem to hinder it’s progress jumping from one flower to another in the search of pollen. As I mentioned I didn’t even realize it had this handicap. I expect butterflies are really quite resilient. I’d imagine they encounter quite a lot of obstacles in their lives and they manage to carry on. I wonder if it even realizes it has this disadvantage? Whatever the case, it is a beautiful animal in a beautiful environment, and I like beautiful things. I hope you like it too.

  • Generic Title

    Generic Title

    I’m not feeling particularly inspired to write right now. It’s funny, I was thinking last night. My mind was wandering all over the place. I probably had a half a dozen ideas of things I thought would be good to write about. For some reason as I’m trying to sleep my thoughts frequently kick into overdrive and prevent me from attaining the rest I so desire at the time. I actually thought about this a little bit last night. I’m happy I just remembered that thread of thought to give me something to write about now.

    I don’t know what it is about night-time or bed-time or even more lucid times, but my mind has a way of running in a lot of different directions all competing for processing power at the more or less the same time. I can go from thinking about some conversation I may have had earlier that day that made me upset for some reason into thinking about some cryptic religious topic and then as soon as that starts to go somewhere I’m off wondering why I can’t keep my attention on any one topic for very long. I do know that Ive been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder (ADD). It seems a fairly common pathology, and I’m not worried about anyone knowing as much. Heh, I can’t imagine anyone will ever take the time to read this screed anyway.

    When I was a kid things like ADD either weren’t known or so little known it hadn’t filtered down to the the salt of the earth type people yet. You know, the non-rich. I wouldn’t be surprised if the rich have had access to this knowledge a long time before us common folk. I imagine that, at least, the surface knowledge of things like ADD, for example, is now pretty much common knowledge to the average person in the civilization and society of well developed cultures. Where in less developed cultures where things we take for granted are a struggle, I’d be surprised if even many of the cultural leaders are aware of such things. Don’t get me wrong please. I’m sure that even in the most impoverished societies on this planet have many well educated and even brilliant people. I just doubt that the benefits and knowledge possessed by those fortunate few are even available to the majority of their society either by design or simple poverty of resources and ability to educate. Then there is the simple willingness to want to learn about new things like mental health that I’m sure is lacking in large part of the human race anyway. If they can’t eat it, F**k it or piss on it I’m afraid the average person simply doesn’t care.

    So these are the kinds of things that swirl through my thoughts most nights. Most of the time it is just idle curiosity that has my attention. Occasionally I have some kind of deeper more profound thoughts, at least they seem that way to me at the time. But as I’m in bed trying to get some sleep so I don’t fall asleep at work, I usually just file whatever it was away in my mind and tell myself to do something with it tomorrow. But it never seems to work that way. Most of the time I forgot that I even had something I thought was important. Occasionally I remember and put it to use in some way or another, like adjusting my schedule or writing something down. But a lot of the time it is simply gone, vanished in the ethereal fog of my mind. And that’s okay, because it has to be, or what’s the consequences. After all what are the odds that anything someone like me could imagine would end up being worthwhile. Even If I imagined a solution to resolve conflict in the middle east no one would listen to me anyway.

    I really like this picture of Anna Ruby falls. I don’t have a lot to say about it right now. I spent my energy rambling about random thoughts that no one will ever care about. It’s so strange that when I want to say or write something about something in particular, like this or any of my other photos, I simply can’t think of much to say about it. I guess whatever I wanted to say is in the image itself, and doesn’t need much explanation. At least that is the hope.

  • Anna Ruby Falls

    Anna Ruby Falls

    I continue to move through the cache of photo files I created at Anna Ruby Falls. I tend to work on these things with a chronological continuity. Process what I have and move on to the next thing. I occasionally go back and look at things I really like, and possibly revitalize them in some way. I can see this folder getting revisited. I really like this collection. I’m having a good time playing with them.

    I started messing around with this picture this morning. I didn’t have any specific plans or ideas. You’ll probably think that’s obvious. But I’m enjoying learning as I play, and once again I really like this experimental piece. This has gone well past traditional photography into the realm of art, I say. You may say it’s some whole other thing. I like this at this time.

    I’m getting very close to the actual waterfalls, which you can see are in the background here. I’ll be getting around to them very soon. I think this may be my favorite exposure of the batch so far. I do still have many more exposures to look at much closer. And I fully expect to come back to this one at some future point and see what else I can do with it.

    I’m happy to say that my schedule has allowed me to take two day trips to acquire new images. I have a lot of new and different stuff to keep me busy once I go back to work when school starts. I’ll be able to play with butterflies and a bunch of dam pictures I got when I took my drone to a dam/lake not too far from me, and got some cool stuff. I’ve barley looked at either batch yet, but What I have seen looks nice.

  • Muted

    Muted

    Today’s selection is again from the Anna Ruby falls in Georgia. I got a lot off good stuff on that trip.

    As the title suggests today’s image has been edited to be more muted in color intensity. I also did some some light grading to achieve a look I liked, and I liked it.

    Once again this one of an almost infinite number of possibilities that can be achieved with this exposure. It is simply where I find myself today.

    I am happy to say I have the rest of the day off and I plan to do a photo field trip. I’m going to brave the very hot 94º F temps here in my home state of Georgia, not to mention humidity. There is a very good chance it will rain on my at some point today, as almost everyday at this time of the year experiences pop up thunderstorms. But I expect I’ll have a good day and come back with more good stuff to play with.

    Peace out.

  • Green

    Green

    I like this one. I pretty much like all of them, but this is the one I like today. There is no water in this one, but it comes from the same batch I got at Anna Ruby falls. It is obviously a trail. It is the trail from the bottom of the of the mountain/hill to the top where the happy little waterfall lives. I stopped many times on the hike up hill, both for photo opportunities and for breaks. It was a steep hill and I needed every break I took. Next time I need to bring a bottle of water.

    I barely did anything to this exposure. I was moving along systematically in Lightroom, as I do, and this was the next thing. There are a few more from this location/scene that are different in their ways. I chose this one to like today.

    No crops. No fancy grading. No masks. No fancy edits. All I did to this one was change the profile to Adobe Landscape. Then enabled HDR editing in LR (Lightroom). Did a quick auto levels for the illuminati, (I recently heard another photog refer to luminescence in this manner and found it cheeky) and saturation. Finally I made a slight adjustment the monotone-luminescence-level using the tone curve.

    I was quite happy with the results when looking at them in LR. But there is a lot of processing every time an exposure changes format. I say that because when I exported to a small JPEG, for use in this blog post, and later upload to Facebook, that image didn’t quite set right with me. At least I wasn’t as happy with the outcome as when I was exclusively in LR. Specifically, the dark hollow is to me seeming a bit too dark. I hesitate to post it, but am going to anyway as a learning experience.

    I probably should just not post any of this, but I will because I took the time to write it. I doubt I’ll come back to play with this image and refine it anytime soon. There isn’t any specific reason.

  • Resplendent

    Resplendent

    Resplendent. That’s the word I thought of when I looked at this one. I’m really happy with it. I don’t have a lot to say. I just wanted to put my output of th3 day out there for enjoyment by… Well.