Inspiration

Some things inspire you. . . and some just don't. I went to the beach recently, something that normally inspires me. I just couldn't find a way to make a beach photograph unique. This is what I came up with. I like the photo, but it's not really anything original.

While looking at the things I wasn't "supposed" to be photographing (my dad kept saying I should take more pictures of the beach...but whatever, I'll do what I want!), I looked at this tree and captured something beautiful. I used my macro lens adapter on my kit lens to get the depth you see here. 

I love this photo. I love the colors and the depth. I think I'll make it my new background on my computer. I'll include one more shot I'm fond of from that day, I used the macro adapter for this shot too. I mostly like the colors for this one.

Over and out folks.

Airplane!

While in California, I went on to the aircraft carrier called the U.S.S. midway. I tried to take pictures of planes, which was really hard because of all of the people wandering around and the buildings in the background. Ultimately, this is the best image I came up with. I used picnik.com to edit the photo, it only took about 10 minutes to edit. I was tempted to try and remove the buildings from the background, and may do that when I have access to photoshop again, but for now I am very happy with this image.

Wildlife

I went to a wild life part near San Diego in California. I found myself taking more pictures of flowers than animals because I could get close to them and find an angle I liked. But I also have some great pictures of giraffes. I have photographs of other creatures, but these are some of my favorites. Enjoy!

 The next two haven't been tampered with at all

I couldn't help but put an effect on this one to make it look as if it was shot with infrared film. I loved it so much I got a print of it today!

I have decided to bail on GIMP for my photo editing and have started using picnik.com. I used it to edit these photos and I think it turned out great. The site is easy to use and is free for some great effects. I would definitely recommend it for anyone interested in editing pictures that doesn't want to blow a ton of money on photoshop (or use GIMP which is the worsttt). So yeah, I'm overall really happy with how these pictures turned out.

Capturing Movement

I went on a trip to California recently and my family decided it would be fun to go whale watching. It was really cool! I was really excited about taking pictures of whales, but unfortunately the lenses I have didn't have enough zoom to get a neat shot of the whales. I ended up taking some pretty neat pictures on the boat though. When they were raising the sails I saw this.

I haven't edited this photo at all. I really couldn't think of anything I could to do make it better. Maybe something will come to me, but for now I like it as it is.

Soon I'll have some photos of planes and wildlife and probably some abstracts. I kind of just wanted to post something because I haven't in awhile and I quite like this picture. The end.

What I See

I've gotten really bad at taking my camera with me places, but this weekend I took my camera with me to Littleton to visit Naomi. I just took pictures of things that intrigued me (like the feathers I posted earlier) and whatever seemed fun. There wasn't a purpose other than to start shooting again. It felt so good. I love the sound of the shutter. Anyway, this is what I came up with. I've been trying not to over edit my photographs, so I converted them to black and white. For one of the photos I erased the car from the background, but it wasn't too difficult.

This one was a little tricky trying to erase the car between the fingers, my friend Gigi helped me there!

Also, while I was playing around on GIMP I stumbled across this filter I really liked called soft glow. It can be a little too much, but adds a neat effect. Here is an original photo from the same day (feathers again!) and the photo with the soft glow filter.

It didn't really do that much, just changed some color intensity, but I really like it.

So that's what I've been working on this week. I plan to do a photo shoot involving paint soon, so hopefully I'll have more to show you soon! 

Background?

I found two pictures that i think would make nice backgrounds.
The first is from a few months ago, the first day I got my polarizing filter. It helps with glare and makes sunny landscapes look gorgeous. This picture is a simple shot of the sky, but I love how soothing it is.

Today, when in Littleton, I decided to take pictures of anything that inspired me. My friend Naomi had some sort of feather thing hanging from her rearview mirror, and I got a pleasing shot of that.

I know these pictures have no meaning and are just random snapshots. No, they don't require expert composition or anything. But they're nice, random photos I'm excited to show. I'll have some pictures up soon that have a little more substance soon, but before I can do that I need to access photoshop. I tried using gimp again. Gimp is great for the changing of a picture as a whole for altering the color and such, but for any specific manipulation, it's the worst. So there we are. Enjoy!

Alone.

I did an attempt at nudes awhile back. For the most part, I didn't feel very confident about it. It was a new subject matter I'm unfamiliar with, kind of how portraits were difficult for me at first. I edited a photo awhile ago, here it is. It isn't perfect, but it isn't supposed to be.