Japanese Gardens

One of my favorite places in Fort Worth is the Japanese Garden. We go there a few times a year to admire the Japanese Maples when they turn red.

Water Drops

I remember the first time I saw pictures like these. I thought they were so incredibly beautiful. The amount of form and structure in each little drop overwhelmed me. The ability to freeze that split second of shape seemed unachievable to an amateur like me. I really wanted to learn how to shoot water drops. To make these pictures I used a tripod, ziplock sack, duct tape, long stick, and a few different colored backgrounds. I also used my Nikon SB-600 (external flash) in wireless mode. Basically, I can put the flash anywhere in the room (not attached to the camera body) and it will fire when I press the shutter release. It's called commander mode and it's a feature that my D40 body didn't have. I am excited to find new uses for wireless flash control.

What not to do...

Below is a perfect example of an opportunity being wasted. This is a picture of my sister and as you can see, the composition has ruined the picture, mainly because I cut part of her face off. I really love the lighting and the lines in the background are great, naturally leading the viewer's eye to her face. The worst part of this situation is that I didn't take advantage and snap a few more pictures until I had one I could use.

Borders

When I was in college none of my photography classes were for digital photography. All of the time I spent perfecting my dark room skills seems like a waste now. I remember the first time I saw a print from someone who had superior darkroom capabilities. It was my wife's friend who lives in Brenham, TX. Some of her prints had really neat borders that gave them an antique quality. [You can find her blog here:Shady Acre Blog] I still don't know how she put those borders on in the dark room, but I have been looking for a way to recreate them digitally. I used TTV frames to create a cool border on the pictures below. The bridge is on the way to Round Top, TX just outside of Brenham.

Paige

This is a candid shot while Paige was getting ready to go eat. It isn't sharp or anywhere close to perfect but I like the odd lighting.

Oak Tree

I have always loved trees. This is not the best picture, but one day I hope we can own property with some old, impressive oak trees.

Mariachi

Editing

I mentioned the new camera body but I've never really mentioned editing. The first copy of Photoshop I ever used was Photoshop 7.0 in 2003. I couldn't believe how amazing all the built in filters were and I loved using the clone tool. I spent hours editing photos, sometimes at 350% pixel by pixel.  When I look at those pictures I now realize that the finished product looked worse most of time. I never really knew when to stop. Now I use the most current edition of photoshop (CS5) and a MacBook Pro instead of a PC. Ironically I try to keep any editing extremely basic. I do love the new "Content-Aware" features of CS5 but I mainly just crop, rotate and play with curves (i do still give into editing temptation sometimes).

I just recently started playing with the curves after reading an article about tone. Now I use curves for B&W edits and to create a soft vintage look. I took this picture at the park by our house while taking Ollie for a walk. I have also been reading about sun flares. This is my first attempt to capture a sun flare.

Here is the Original

After minimal editing