I finally have some time to post again! I’ve been really busy editing photos from the recent engagement shoot. Here are a few good ones that I gave a more artistic edit. There are more on my facebook page too. Also, if you or anyone you know is getting married, I not only do engagement sessions, but weddings too. I’m willing to travel to you, so contact me!
After working on people photos for over a week, I’m dying to work on some landscapes 
These were all shot with my Nikon D7000.
For day 2 we decided to get up for sunrise because A) we both traveled pretty far to get to Joshua Tree and B) our sunset got snowed out the night before. Yes, we got snowed on in the desert. It was surreal.
We all got up around 4:30am to catch the sunrise at a spot I saw on the map the day before. It said there were views of the Salton Sea and even Mexico on a clear day. It certainly didn’t disappoint. The view was awesome and it was incredibly peaceful even as two photographers ran back and forth, shooting at a furious pace.
For all you travelers out there, I don’t recommend getting up that early when you have a 7 hour drive ahead of you. Having said that, I think I would still do it again haha.
I shot this with TrueHDR, but it looked nasty, so I cropped out the sky. Sometimes HDR just doesn’t work. I edited with Snapseed as I usually do.
Somehow, I ended up in Ashland this past weekend We didn’t plan on going there, but spontaneity took us there for a few days. It was great to feel at home again, even if just briefly.
I shot this out on the side of the road up to Grizzly Peak. It wasn’t possible to get up to the trailhead because of snow on the road. We didn’t have chains for the Prius and I don’t have much experience with driving on snowy roads. That didn’t stop us from making it up to Crater Lake though. I’ll post a pic from there tomorrow.
Shot with camera+ and edited with Snapseed.
Last night I thought about getting up early for sunrise. I guess that thought was enough for my internal alarm clock to set itself for 5am. Since I tend to wake in pain these days, I figured I’d get up instead of laying there uncomfortably.
This was shot with my Nikon D7000. I did take some with the iPhone4, I just haven’t got around to editing them because I was more excited about the cool shots I got with the DSLR.
This was taken along the Salmon Creek Trail. There was a gushing waterfall just beyond this point that was looking very healthy after some wet weather we’ve been having. Side note, wet weather in California is like 2 days of rain in a row. Hopefully I can find time to edit and share the Nikon photos of the waterfall soon. I’m still playing catch up with all my photos.
Shot with camera+ and edited with Snapseed. I’m sure this would look cool edited with ShockMyPic as well, but I never got around to trying it.
I barely noticed this guy as I was browsing the plants at the local nursery. Not an amazing photo, but cool to be this close to a hummingbird and get a decent pic.
Today I woke up way too early and there actually wasn’t any fog when I looked out the window, so I thought I’d head out for a sunrise shoot. Everything was clear while I was driving to the beach, but when I got there, it was socked in with a thin layer of fog. So much for that idea.
I drove around for a while thinking I’d find some beautiful light somewhere. There were a few moments when I saw something I liked, but I couldn’t pull over on the freeway. I finally just stopped at a native garden near my house. I couldn’t think of anything cool to shoot around here. I’m pretty bored with my surroundings now. I’m even thinking of running down to LA for a day this week for the change in scenery, even though I hate LA.
The original image was ok. Kinda blah if you ask me. I tried to use LensLight to add some rays and interest. These are 3 different versions I came up with using the app. I need to play with it some more before I review it, but its cool so far.
I’m back after a little break from this blog. I felt like it was taking to much time away from me and I wasn’t getting enough out of it, so a little r&r was needed. I do appreciate all the kind things people have been saying lately, but I’m still not sure if I’ll be posting everyday like I have for the past 3 months. We’ll see how things go.
A little storm passed through yesterday that showed us just how clogged up our gutters were. Once it cleared up, I got up on the ladder and got all the nasty leaves and dirt out. You’d be surprised how much dirt gets up there when you’re living within a mile of sand dunes.
Camera+ and Snapseed.
Its a shame most people don’t have enough free time to enjoy sunsets like this more often.
I’m heading to the Sacramento area today to visit my grandfather and cut the long drive to Oregon into 2 5.5 hour drives. I do have another post scheduled for tomorrow so you get your daily dose of iphoneography.
Today I’ll leave you with some simple, but important, advice on how to become a better photographer. Shoot more, show less. Starting now.
What I mean is, take a lot of pictures. Hundreds a week if you can. The light can change from moment to moment, so take multiple shots of the same scene. Try different angles and camera orientations.
Right now I’m taking around 500 pictures a month with my iphone, which is about what I’d do in a week with my Nikon. This is the most important part though, don’t show off all of your pictures. Right now I’m only sharing my top 8-10% of my iphone images if you do the math. With my Nikon its more like my top 1-2% get seen.
Be an editor and pick the images that you think should be in an exhibit or a magazine and share those. The more you play the role of editor the better your photographic eye will get.
I hope you picked up Snapseed today while it was free. If you haven’t yet, go do it now! This post will let you behind the curtain and show you how I use the app to edit pictures on my iphone. The app has a lot of features, but I won’t cover them all in this post or it would be so much longer than it already is. Lets start with the before and after.
This is the original image taken with ProHDR:
For this image I’ll start with “tune image” I like to add some brightness because although it may look great on the retina display, your image will probably look a little underexposed on the web. Here I added:
I saw this out in the yard the other day and thought I’d share it with you all. Not to get all deep on you (I was a philosophy major in college,) but this makes me wonder if you took the time to see love in everything, could you? Would you?
I’m really not a fan of valentines day and I sort of hate myself for sharing this pic today lol. I’ll keep the ranting to myself and try to post something later thats not cheesy.
Today I was feeling creative and thought I had a great image in me. Whether that be editing something cool in photoshop or shooting with my iPhone. Unfortunately, I felt stuck when I opened photoshop and again when I went outside to shoot. So I took a moment to become conscious of my surroundings. I heard the cars passing by, I saw the ugly eucalyptus trees that dominate our yard, and I felt the warmth of the sun on my back. After becoming aware of the sun, I thought I could let it guide my photography today. I wanted to capture the way it was interacting with what was in my yard.
First I noticed the shadows of the trees which then brought my attention to the trees themselves. I went over to one of our eucalyptus trees and noticed the different colors of the bark (which make for interesting abstracts) and I noticed the way the light wrapped around the side of the euc. There was so much texture and detail along with an interesting change in light and subtle glow on the edge of darkness.
Next time you feel stuck, take a deep breath and become aware of your surroundings. Use your other senses to become more conscious of what’s really going on around you.
