Monday, May 30, 2011

Wow, I won a weekly photo challenge on facebook!

There were only 11 entries (2 of them mine), but it is still cool to win.  The image of Don and the kids running on the beach is the one that won for "Summer Activities".  Now I have to think of what the theme will be for this coming week.   Gil Scott-Heron, a poet/musician died this last Friday, so in memory of him I think I am going to pick a theme from the song list on his last album.  The theme is going to be "Where Did the Night Go".

Sunday, May 29, 2011

This week's Weekly Photo Challenge is "Summer Activities"

Since its not summer yet, I didn't have any good photos to post from 2011, so I took a look through my archives.  I pulled from two different time periods.  I found some surfing pictures I took with my D70 back in December 2004 in Hawaii when we took a family trip there.  I noticed that a lot of my photos were a bit fuzzy.  I don't know if that is due to them being slightly out of focus due to my technique (and possible camera shake), or due to the lens combination that I used (which was the 80-200 with 2x teleconverter).  I did get a few photos that I was happy with such as the one submitted (I do not know the surfer).  I may have overdone it a bit on the saturation in post-processing, but otherwise am happy with what I submitted.  The sky was extremely grey, so I added a touch of blue tint to it using Nikon Capture NX2 color control points (it still looks grey, but better than the original)

The other photo is of my wife's brother Don, and our two kids (Maia and Rowan) running on the beach at Hilton Head 4th of July weekend in 2010.  I like this photo because it shows the kids just having fun in the summer.  We'll see how my photos do, there is already one submission that I like better than mine of kids in a colorful field (although it seems more appropriate to Spring than Summer because of all of the blooming flowers, but hey, my surfing picture was taken in December so who am I to judge!! :-) ).


Tuesday, May 24, 2011

I didn't win the "sweet" themed weekly contest...

Well, there were actually a couple of better photos (both image wise and technically).  The image that did win was a very cute picture of a toddler sleeping, and it was "sweet".  Unfortunately the image wasn't to my technical liking (it seemed a bit underexposed, and the white balance seemed off).  However, the "sweetness" of the image did still come through.
So I think a technically strong image helps to amplify the subject matter and put focus on it, but sometimes images don't need that amplification, depending on who the audience is.....and in this case the judge did not need that amplification to find the "sweetness" of the image shining through.  My congratulations to the winner, and all of the entrants.  These different interpretations of the theme are interesting.  The theme for this coming week is "Summer Activities".  I'll have to give that some thought......

Sunday, May 22, 2011

A few flowers from last weekend...



Both shots taken with a Nikon 105mm VR

Rainbow

Caught this off my porch in early May.  It was still sprinkling and I ran to get the shot before it disappeared...

Saturday, May 21, 2011

Submissions to the photo of the week...

So I thought about my image for the Facebook group for photo of the week.  This week's theme was "Sweet".  I thought of going several different directions, possibly combining the taste (a sweet) with one of my kids being sweet, but the choreography behind that was too daunting.  Therefore I went more with sweet foods and took a photo of a lollipop and also of whip cream with sugar sprinkled on top.
Both were taken with a flash to camera left, with a bit of flash coming from the camera mounted unit (about 1/32 or less).  The lollipop added a third light kicking in from the lower right.  Unfortunately I could not completely get rid of the hot spot caused by the flash units in the lollipop, but was able to minimize it in post processing.  All shots were taken with my 105mm VR.  The lollipop shot was tripod mounted and was a big production.   The whip cream shot was hand held and literally thrown together in about 2 minutes from original thought to final image.

I'm not entirely happy with either of them, but I think they work for a first submission.


Thursday, May 19, 2011

Joined a weekly photo challenge on facebook.

This week's theme on the weekly photo contest is "sweet".  I have through the weekend to come up with something.  Will post it here as well.....

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Windows and roofs from the Bahamas



These two images are from a 2008 Vacation to the Bahamas.  I really liked these photos.  I like the geometric lines, the pastel colors and the contrast in this.  The fact that I was able to have a well exposed sky and clouds adds to the images as well.  I am not certain others will like them as much as I do, but I am happy with them.





Saturday, May 14, 2011

Springtime fun


Its Spring, time to get out and in this case, to view the world through the lens of a bubble....


Spring 2011 - New family of birds in the backyard


Sitting on our backyard deck, I noticed a family of birds in our birdhouse. Looks like the little one is hungry, and isn't shy about letting its parents know it!
:-)


Photo Details: 400mm (using a 2x teleconverter); f/5.6 and 1/250 sec.