Photography

I'm most comfortable with subjects that don't move much, preferably shooting with a tripod and lots of time to compose my image. I will never be a concert photographer, or an event photographer or even a portrait photographer.

So why did I pay an extra $199 to take the pre-conference, Real World Concert Photography class at Photoshop World, taught by professional photographers Alan Hess and Scott Diussa? Because I wanted to have fun, and I wanted to challenge myself with something I am not very good at. 

It was a challenge all right. I made pretty much every mistake possible. Here's what I learned.

This past January I saw the Digital Darkroom show curated by Russell Brown. The show inspired me to push myself and use my Photoshop skills to create unique imagery.

Renewal is my first major composited, photographic creation.  I am happy that it is done and proud of the effort. The first 10 hours or so were the most difficult.

There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays.
Merry Christmas from our Home to yours.

The Chrismtas image of our home was digitally painted from a series of photographs taken over a two-hour period of time. I set up my camera about half an hour before sunset, while there was still plenty of daylight to compose and focus my image. Once my camera was set in place, I only touched it to change the shutter speed for exposure.

CAPTURING THE PHOTOGRAPHIC CONTENT

Daylight to Night Light

I captured a full range of exposures from daylight to night light. At times I bracketed the shot by capturing three exposures at one time, normal exposure, +2 over, and -2 under. Other times I manually adjusted the exposure to capture either the detail of the lights or the detail of the shadows.

This year I have one image hanging in the San Diego County Fair Photography Exhibit. It was selected for the black and white architectural category. There is more than a little irony to this since the majority of my photography is not only in color, but color that usually pushes the edges. I only recently decided to work on my black and white photography as a means to help myself see better, with the hopes of improving my picture taking.