Old Friends

I was managing some websites for my wife's business this afternoon, and in the process was reminded of the original location of this blog. It's kind of a shame that I was never able to merge the two together, because there were actually some pictures over there that I really liked. Over the next few days (weeks? months? who knows, I'm horrible about these things) I'll try to copy over some of my favorites so they're all in one place. This one was of a rail yard in Richmond, Virginia.

A Tree in a Field

Seeing a good shot, and realizing when the right light might happen, is great. It also might be a good idea to look the OPPOSITE direction to make sure that the light you're expecting might actually come. The forest on the other side of the road behind me in this shot meant that instead of waiting 30 minutes for sunrise, I waited 90 for the sun to crest over the trees ...in 20 degree weather. (brrrrr) Since it wasn't true sunrise, the color wasn't as good as I would have hoped. The only solution might be to wait until summer when the sun come from a different direction. (Now THAT'S a long time to wait for the light to be "just right"!)

An old favorite

This is one of my favorite pictures of Atlas, which I actually took about a year and a half ago. It's been hanging around in my "pictures I really like" folder for a while, and now that I've got Photoshop Elements I went back in and worked it up a bit. It fell together pretty well and, in my opinion, was just about the amount of work I like to put into a picture in photoshop. As far as I'm concerned, if you can't do it in a darkroom, the fact that you're doing it in Photoshop means you messed something up in the first place. (Unless you're being super crazy and combining eight pictures into something completely different. While extremely impressive, that isn't photography.)

Anyway, the long and short of the shot was that he used to flip himself upside down and play with the ball over the edge of the toy. I caught him at it one day and was fast enough with the camera to get a decent looking shot (no paw over his face, no motion blur, etc.) What really makes this picture work is that I got as close to his level as possible, with the camera practically resting on the floor in front of him.

If you ask anyone that's tried to take pictures of a black animal, they'll tell you that it is EXTREMELY hard to get something that looks like more than a featureless silhouette. (One photographer was quoted as saying that the only way to get a decent picture of your black dog was to get a grey dog.) This shot was taken so long ago that I can't for the life of me remember what the lighting was like, but I do know there was a bank of windows to the left of the frame, and the overhead light to the right was probably on. Long and short, I got lucky, and even then his front legs tend to lose detail.

Compare that to the 'unaltered' shot, which I only desaturated ('made black-and-white,' for you lay folk).

A Tweeting Bird!

We came home a few days after the snow storm (navigating through the snowdrifts...) to find a HUGE flock of robins right in front of the garage. I eventually figured out that the fifty or so birds were systematically stripping the nearby holly bushes of berries. Even though it was nearing dusk and an overcast day, I ran upstairs to grab my camera. I was a little challenged by the light and my gear (cheap glass...). In such situations, you have to shoot to the strengths of the gear rather than whining about not getting the shot you want. Lens not fast enough to catch sharp images of teeny tiny birds winging through the air? Wait for them to land and walk up to you to see what you're up to! Ok... enough ranting, any more and I'll start sounding like Mr. Rockwell. This little dude took a minute out of gorging himself to try and figure out what the freak in the bright orange jacket and camera was doing.

After the rise

A few minutes after sunrise, but before the light got too harsh. This was one of the last pictures I took that morning (with that much reflective material around, once the sun comes up it is UP). I like the shadows radiating away from the sign, and the symmetry of the wires mirrored by the shadow of the snow. Given a choice, I would have prefered to have the sign be a little more face-on, so you could more easily recognize what kind of sign it was (bonus points if the meaning of the sign ties in to the scene of the photo). Being unable to move the sun, the sign, or the alignment therein, I made do with what I had. If I'd REALLY been on the ball, I might have known where the sun was going to come up, and scouted the location more carefully beforehand. As it was, I wanted the shadows and picked the first thing I could find to hide the sun behind. (I was going to say I saw the sign... but that just creates bad flashbacks to the 90's...) I have another picture where I tried the same thing with a tree trunk, but since I didn't get the entire tree in the frame, I wasn't very happy with it.

After I took this picture I walked across the street to try to get a (bitter) Mocha from StarSmucks. They were closed, but the grocery store had chocolate-chip muffins!

How much snow?

This doesn't really have any photographic merit, but gives a pretty good idea of just how much snow we got. This is the morning after it stopped snowing (if i remember correctly). That line with a little bulge of snow diagonally across the top third (just for you, mom) of the frame?

Yea... that's a guard rail. Ever stood next to a guard rail? They aren't little...

Snomageddon, the aftermath

For once I managed to lever myself out of bed before sunrise to go out and take some pictures. Boy, did I pick a great day to do it. Fresh, clear skies, and nearly perfect unblemished snow. This picture was the highpoint of the expedition. This was probably the first picture I've ever taken that I was 100% sure I wanted to keep right after I took it. Normally, I tend to keep taking pictures of something well past the time I've utilized every meaningful vantage point. I took a few pictures before this to experiment with the composition, metering, and white balance, but as soon as I took this picture I looked at the camera, decided that it was what I wanted, and moved on. Photographer's nirvana.