Category Archives: Nature
Day’s End Before/After
Hey everyone,
Here is another before/after shot.
(Best viewed in Firefox. Other browsers might not render correctly)
For a little over a year I working in Carmel, Indiana which is about 2 1/2 hour drive from my home. I spent a lot of time on the same stretch of road driving to and from work. I’ll just say I utilized our public library quite often for their books on cds.
I would always take my camera gear with me on this drive since you never know when a photo opportunity might arise. I’d also find time to take stops throughout the drive when I came across anything I thought would make a good photo. Sometimes I’d vary my commute a little and take the smaller roads to find some of the hidden gems of Indiana.
This image was taken during one of those diversions from my normal commute. It was taken just outside of a small Indiana town called Lakeville. As I was driving home it had been storming and raining and was just breaking up as the sun set. The main part of the storm is just to the left of the image. As I passed the small lake in Lakeville I took some of the smaller roads around the back side of the lake. This was taken just off the road over the river that flows into the lake.
This image is also a HDR image where the final image is composed of three other images, each with a different exposure, to better capture the elements of the scene. One exposure will capture the colors in the sky but the foreground might be too dark to have any detail. But the next exposure will have the foreground detail but the sky will over exposed and too bright to get the colors. When you combine the images you can get a full range of exposures needed to render the scene.
I hope you like the before/after shots. Let me know if you have a image you would like to see done this way.
Thanks for visiting!
Before/After Oregon Coast
Hey all,
For this weeks post I’d like to show you a little before/after shot of one of the pictures I took while on the Oregon coast in August. You can use the slider bar in the middle of the photo to view the before and after versions of the photo.
(Best viewed in Firefox. Other browsers might not render correctly)
I’ll be the first to admit that my photos don’t always look the best and almost always need some further help in the post processing process. The final version of this image is actually made up from three different shots taken one after the other. The three images taken only differ in exposure which allows me to capture a larger range of light and detail than you could achieve with a single shot. The three images are then merged together to create a High Dynamic Range image also known as HDR. (I plan on creating a HDR tutorial at a future date)
After the images are merged together I open it up in Photoshop to make the final adjustments to blend and adjust it as needed.
The Photo itself was taken just outside of Pacific City. This Haystack rock is just outside of Cape Kiwanda as is sometimes referred to as “the other Haystack Rock”. (As opposed to the popular tourist destination on Cannon Beach.) This Haystack rock is one of the largest standing at 327 feet tall and is the world’s fourth largest sea stack or off-shore sea monolith in the world. (taken from Wikipedia)
The picture was taken on a overcast and gloomy morning after I had gotten up very early in hopes to capture a sunrise that never happened. 
It’s always hard to get Mother Nature to cooperate so you’ve got to take what you can get.
I plan to do more of these before/after type of post in the future with some of my other shots as well. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this and if your interested in more posts like this.
Year’s First Snow Fall
We had our first snow of the season a little over a week ago. I’m not a huge fan of winter/snow/cold but it can make for some unique pictures. A lot of times if you’re willing to brave the elements and get out to take shots you’ll end up with unique pictures that others aren’t willing to work to get.
I took these photos as my wife and I walked our dog. I didn’t want to have to carry all my camera gear for this little outing so I just grabbed my camera (Canon 7D) on one lens (Canon 100mm f2.8 IS Macro) and went out. This can be a challenge as your not able to switch to a different lens as you see different shots. It forces you to work within the limits of the single lens you have.
This can be a fun challenge to try and can get you to look at things in a new way. For example a lot of my shots are wide angle landscape shots. I tend to look at the big picture of a scene and by having only a macro lens I’m forced to observe the details of it. It opens up a whole new world of photography to dive into.
Another version of this challenge is to give yourself topics or themes for a photo outing. For example you can use themes like “Leaves”, “Reflections”, “Water”, or “Happiness”. As you’re out shooting try to incorporate the theme of the outing with all of the pictures you take. This type of challenge is great and you don’t need to have a fancy camera or gear to do it. It can be done with a cell phone camera if you’d like.
Granted these pictures I took probably aren’t all keepers. If you have made it this far and you’re still reading this post I’d like to know what pictures you like. I hope to use the blog section of my site to not only post things I’m working on but also to find out what everyone likes. Please feel free to leave me a comment and let me know what you think and if you have any questions about my pictures, techniques, or post processing.
Thanks for looking and till next time… ta ta