Spring Break

Welcome to my spring break week, which actually started Thursday night at about 5:15 after my last class. So far this normally joyous time for students has consisted of being sick, working and that's about it. But I decided to not be a bum and go out, enjoy the outdoors and make the most of my time off. Today was actually pretty nice out; sunny and not windy, which makes for a nice winter day. So I headed off towards a local park in the area that happens to be right along a river...after I treated myself to a lunch at Qudoba. [For the record, it's terribly busy at Qudoba around 1o'clock...]

I frequently do reading on a digital photography website and this weekend I did a lot of reading about HDR (High Dynamic Range) images. Generally I'm against heavy editing in photos, but this technique just makes the colors of a photo so intense that I had to look into it. One description from someone who creates these images said that they use HDR imaging to create an image that is more like what the human eye sees. Our eyes and minds are way more powerful than any camera and can take in so much more when viewing something and sadly its not easy to convey this into a photograph, but HDR imaging, in my opinion, gives images back some of that natural coloring.

So I'll start of with my HDR images because I'm super excited about them. I'll post the HDR image and the original image, then add some comments below each pair of images.

So, image of the same object, but notice the.....depth of color in the first image. I guess depth is really the best way to describe that. This was a tree that I noticed as I was walking near the river. The had lots of rabbit tracks leading up to it and and I wondered if I'd be able to get any cool animal track shots when I discovered this sweet tunnel through the base of the tree. In order to create an HDR image like this I had to take 3 shots, at different exposure levels: -2, 0 and 2. Then I used a program to stack these images and it gives me a bunch of sliders to adjust different elements of the image. Luckily the program offers a complete free trial and all it does is put a watermark on my images. Totally acceptable until I can get rich and buy the program for about 100 dollars.

Again check out the depth of color in the first image, the HDR image, versus the regular second shot. It's so intense, I mean just look at the color of the water. The amount of fascination I have with this style of imaging is unfathomable; I am enjoying this way too much.

Again the HDR image is on top. Again that image is just amazing. Just stare at it for a bit.

Obviously I am infatuated with my HDR images. I'm not saying that they are the greatest masterpieces ever created and I am suddenly a master of HDR, but the new possibilities my mind has opened up with this technique has me super excited.

And now here are some more images from my day. Also today I worked in all Aperture mode. It's the easiest for me when taking pictures outdoors. I was walking around looking for cool things and I was in a few different lighting situations so adjusting aperture vs shutter speed is a much easier option. I didn't really adjust much else besides exposure. I was just too excited to try out HDR imaging that I didn't play with much else.

[Tree with some vines or something growing all over it]

[Close up on that tree with the sun behind a branch...trying to be creative here I guess]

[Log......]

Again I have more images from today up on Flickr. Feel free to go there and check out today's set: Riverside Park Images

Week 2- 52 Week Challenge

Well last week I got sick and was fairly busy with school and work so I am a week late on my challenge. I'll be posting another one this week to make up for it since it is break and I have no excuse for lack of time. I had my tripod with me today to help take my HDR shots so I decided to use it for my self-portrait. Well I felt kind of awkward because I was within eyesight of the road and lots of people kept driving by so I only ended up taking about 4 pictures of myself with the timer. None of them are all that awesome, but they are done. So, here is my "favorite" aka "the one I disliked the least":

Funny thing of the blog: (Yes, I plan on doing this every post, get used to it.)

So this is a link to an "comic". Basically it starts with a picture of some soccer guy in a really weird position, so then they copy and pasted him into all these other scenes and I found it pretty great. So enjoy: soccer guy comic

Thanks again for reading my blog. Please feel free to comment. As much as I might seem to enjoy writing for my own sake I do enjoy hearing what people thing of what I'm up to in photography. Tell me if you think my shots are cool. Tell me if I'm the worst photographer you've ever met. Tell me if you have any suggestions. Whatever. Just comment, I enjoy it. And check out my Flickr account anytime, I have a link on the left side of my blog.