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Clouds in the sky

Sunday, June 21st, 2009
Clouds in the evening - 10pm

Clouds in the evening - 10pm

Look at the angle of the light on the clouds to the right.  It’s at quite an angle, and yet it’s not yellowing.  You know, the yellowing that you see as it gets closer to the golden hour?  Not yet – it’s too early.  This is 10pm last night.  It’s probably two or three hours away from a colorful sunset.

There were great textures though, and the sky was unusually clear.  These clouds are probably over the inlet or, at the closest, over the open fields at Elmendorf Air Force base.

Classic for my situation, I noticed them almost too late – I had to pull out my good 80-200 f/2.8 lens & handhold at f/8 (1/250th sec.) to get this. This is fully zoomed out (200mm), so there’s an effective zoom of 300mm.

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Opportunities are where you find them

Monday, June 1st, 2009
View from our roof - doing repairs

View from our roof - doing repairs

Yesterday I posted about “frame within a frame” and metioned that it was a topic going around a while ago.  Well, it’s apparently back – I noticed in on Digital Photo School a post named “Crop and Chop.”  A slightly different point than I was trying to make yesterday, but the same concept.

Another meme going around these days is “shoot in your own backyard.”  As several pros have stated, there are thousands of photos of foreign places, sunsets, and exotic things.  Where are the common things?  Where is the spectacular in the ordinary?

I’m not so sure I’m all that big on shooting in my own back yard.  But it beats not shooting at all, and from the correct vantage point I can find fairly impressive views.

Take the shot to the right, for example.  I had some repairs I needed to do on the roof, so up I went.  Started looking around, and after a few days of rainy weather, noticed that the not only was it sunny, but it was a well saturated sunny!

So I did the logical thing: set my hammer & nails down, scrambled for my SLR (sorry, love that far more than my P&S – but the P&S is much, much more portable), and fired of a series of 9 photos.  Spent another 20 minutes shooting up there, so you’ll see a few more pics this week.

This shot: an HDR from 9 photos, all at maximum aperture (f/25).  Fired off on a tripod.  Much fun.

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Frame within a frame

Sunday, May 31st, 2009
HDR of clouds and trees

HDR of clouds and trees

I read a lot on photography.  One of the more common themes a year or two ago were about finding the “fram within a frame.”  That is to say, find a new composition an existing photo.  For example, take a look to the right.  An HDR from last weekend, which has some incredible light in the clouds, but sorta loses the feel in the trees.  This was hand-held, mind you, so that might have contributed to the trees being off, but it was also slightly windy.

Nonetheless, the light in the clouds was great! Wanting to capture this, I dinked around for a few minutes in photoshop, until I came out with the photo below.

There I go again with abstracts…

HDR Clouds, from cropping in the previous pic

HDR Clouds, from cropping in the previous pic

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A note on abstracts

Thursday, May 14th, 2009
Indian Pass - a hike to the south of Anchorage on the New Seward Hwy

Indian Pass - a hike to the south of Anchorage on the New Seward Hwy

When I originally started this blog, I had a stated purpose.  I believe it’s on my “about” page right now: to learn.  Well, I’m learning.  For example, I’ve learned that I like to take abstracts.  I never really thought about it before, but they’re always there.  Even when I take landscape photos, it’s not about the obvious subject, but the way the subjects trace lines in the picture frame.

For example, when I took the photo to the right (in hindsight), I was seeing the sloping lines to the sides of the photo.  Blame it on my (old, long in the past) background in economics.  I like graphs, and I saw one in this photo.

I just didn’t know it until I started this blog.

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An abstract

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009

Now, I’m no abstract photographer.  Wouldn’t consider myself a fan, or even knowledgable.  But sometimes things just jump out at you.  Below is one of those things: crossing power lines (maybe telephone lines?) that I’ve passed a thousand times.  On my Sunday bike ride, I finally looked up.

A series of shapes, drawn by the lines

A series of shapes, drawn by the lines

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The moon in the sky

Saturday, May 2nd, 2009

Last night, at my folks’ place: saw the moon, almost directly over their chimney.  The sky really was that blue – it’s late (8pm), the sun is still up but off to the (far) right, and the colors are rich.  This type of picture is really better served with an SLR, long telephoto lens, and extremely slow shutter speeds.  Unfortunately, I had none of that with me – only the sd500.  So I made do.

The chimney and the moon - lucked into this image

The chimney and the moon - lucked into this image

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