To New Beginnings!

Hi All!

I have returned from my hiatus. I will see how often I can make new posts, but seeing as I have plenty of new material, there should be no problem getting posts up fairly regularly.

Well a quick run down of what has happened over the past couple of months: finished Spring quarter, started Summer quarter, and got engaged!!! Plus everything in between, but that's too much to go into tonight. The one thing you all should know is that I did get my photo Red, Green, Blue into the Edmonds Art Festival. I didn't win anything, but it was nice since it was the first time I've gotten my photography into that festival.

For tonight's photo, I have a recent picture picture from Richmond Beach in Shoreline. It's a 3 shot HDR. I entered it into the Washington State Photographer's Contest. Hope it gets in. Thanks for viewing!

Keys

Hi All!
Had a fun day going through stuff and found some awesome old keys. I'm sure Stephanie will have fun with them as she loves antique keys.

Continuing with HDR photography, when processing, having a good post-processing program is key. I've tried several programs, a free program, Photoshop and Photomatix. Photomatix was by far the best program that I used, and I fully recommend it.

My other piece of advise is when post-processing your HDR, don't feel that you have to make it look like how someone else thinks it should look like. Some think that HDR's should resemble exactly how the scene looked like in person, while others enjoy a more 'artistic' look. So enjoy the process, and you will enjoy the outcome!

Tonight's photo is not of an HDR, but of a macro shot that I took yesterday. Hope you like it!

Auto Exposure Bracketing

Hi All!
Another nice day of Spring Break.

When taking an HDR. It is important to have an Auto Exposure Bracketing feature on your camera. The other important piece of equipment to have is a tripod. Having a still setting is important when you post process your picture in order to align everything properly.

When setting up your Auto Bracketing feature, a good setting is -2, 0, and +2. Or for those of you with more stops, -2, -1, 0, +1, and +2. This setting will allow you to get the most light from the scene.

Tonight's photos are examples of yesterday's different exposures.

IKEA

Hi All!
I had a fun day going to IKEA with my wonderful girlfriend.
Also had the opportunity to take a few pictures today as well.

Tomorrow I plan on showing examples of the different exposures that go into an HDR.

Tonight's photo is from today, it's of the wonderful sunset that occurs over Puget Sound. Hope you like it!

HDR Intro

Hi All!
Tonight I plan on giving an intro to HDR.

HDR stands for High Dynamic Range. What HDR attempts to do is incorporate all the proper light levels in a given scene. A camera can only expose for one 'stop', whereas a person's eyes can expose for multiple 'stops'.

Tomorrow I will continue my talk on HDR.

Tonight's photo is an HDR I took a couple weeks ago. Hope you like it!

Spring Break

Hi All!
Spring Break has officially begun for me today! Whoot!
Now I can get out and start taking pictures!!!!

Tonight's photo is one of my first HDR's. Hope you like it!

Whew

Hi All!
Well I'm nearly there. One online test and my Econ Final to go and then I'm done with Winter Quarter! So yay.

Tonight's photo was originally going to go up yesterday, but here it is today. I took this shot at the Ellensburg cemetery, I was trying to go for the eerie look. I think if I try for earlier morning or later in the evening it may come up better. Hope you like it!

Aperture

Hi All!
Still working on my Anth paper, I should have it done by tomorrow.

Ok, photography tip for the night. Aperture, which is as I described before, how open the lens is to allowing in light (remember the eye example, your pupils). In photography, the aperture is measured by f-stops. The lower the f-stop, the wider the lens can open and let in more light, and vice versa. Lenses themselves are measured in f-stops by their largest f-stop. For example, I have a 50mm f1.8 lens and a 18-55mm f3.5-4 lens. The 50mm f1.8 lens has a larger maximum opening over the 18-55mm.

The other important thing to know about apertures is how they work with focusing on a subject. The larger the aperture (smaller the f-stop), whatever you have focused on in the foreground will be in focus, while your background will be more out of focus. The smaller your aperture gets, the more in focus your whole picture becomes. So depending on what you're shooting, you will want to choose how you want your exposure to comes out.

Next time I do my photography tips, I will discuss shutter speed.

Tonight's photo is an HDR of the Beverly dunes. Hope you like it!

Motivation

Whelp, the next week and a half should be busy. Got two reports to do, as well as studying for finals.

Tonight's photo is an HDR I took yesterday. Hope you like it!

LOST

Well today has consisted of studying for my economics exam. So far, I'm thinking it won't be too horrible, I just need to buckle down and finish reviewing everything.

That and I'm watching Lost, I'm going to make this quick tonight.

The picture I'm posting is another HDR (yes, yes I know, I still need to explain what that is. Next week, I promise!). It's of a window at an old train station for farming supplies I believe. Thanks for viewing!

Day 1

So I've decided to start a blog. I'm going to dedicate this blog to mostly Photography, and I'll probably mix in some other things I find to be interesting as well. Everyday I will post a picture, by doing this, hopefully it will keep me motivated to continue to get out and shoot!

This first shot is of a rundown gas station just outside of Ellensburg, Washington. It's shot in HDR (Which I'll discuss in my blog on another day) -2 to +2.