Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Eagle before and After- Trying to learn

Trying to learn a little about photo editing in Photoshop Elements. Here's a before and after photo from a trip to the dump the other day. Before eagle before edit After eagle after edit
I'll try to remember what I did.
Started in lightroom, crop, exposure, fill light, brightness, blacks, contrast adjustments, did a brush adjustment on the eye - then opened image in Elements delete background (all but the bird and rock) clean up the beak (clone tool) clean up the remaining branches from the foreground bushes (clone tool) desaturated the Chromatic Aberration on the tail feathers with an adjustment layer Sharpened. I share this, because I know some of you are far better at this than I am. Hit me with what you would've done. Critique as much as you want, composition, camera settings, you can even tell me I should've used a Canon camera (although I'll likely ignore that comment until you drop such a camera and lenses in a box on my doorstep).


Friday, July 1, 2011

A photo from our almost empty house

We're not in Dryden anymore. We're in limbo. We have no home and no job and we are on vacation.

Here is a photo from just before we moved. Part way through the 3 or 4 days of work to get stuff in storage and sorted out... kids having fun. This image made me laugh out loud when I saw them all waving - arms stuck out of a wall....

(notice the healthy supper in the one hand.)
peek a boo

Friday, May 13, 2011

My daughter.

My daughter., originally uploaded by salguodbocaj.


This is my little girl. Here we've tried to straighten her hair. It didn't entirely work.

I love her.

Monday, April 11, 2011

Avian

A few of the photos I've been taking lately - it's been a lot of fun.

gull diptych

If you take photos for fun, get out shoot something.  Then share it.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Inspiration - photographically pt 3

Continuing on with some random type thoughts on photographic inspiration, or perhaps more for this post just creativity...

I've benefited a great deal from reading some stuff on Donald Miller's blog about what he calls  the way of the Creator.  Click that to see all the posts he's tagged with that...  Donald is an author, so don't expect any discussion on f-stops or shutter speeds, but he does talk about the creative process in a way that I think more of us need to think about.  In particular, the post on the "consumer-critic-creator" was quite helpful.
A quick quote from that post:

A consumer wakes from their ways and becomes a critic, and when the critic gets through their fearful stage they can become a creator. 

  Also, I'd recommend this post.

Photographers are an interesting bunch.  We all can be so different.  Some have ideas in their head that they HAVE to get out into an image, if they pick up a camera it is to create the image that they already see in their minds eye.  Others react entirely to what they see, they walk around and watch, hoping to 'see' something and record it.  Many are somewhere between the two.

I don't think one is better then the other.  Now, I'm a hobbyist, an amateur, or as I like to describe myself... a hack.  I enjoy photography because it can be so many different things.  It helps me regain perspective.  I am forced to 'see' what's going on outside my own world, outside my own thoughts.  Any time you are forced to see beyond yourself, well, that's good.  Photography often takes patience.  Especially true with wildlife photography as wild animals seldom do what you'd like them to.  In all forms of photography, you will get better in time.  It takes practice and thinking things through.
Me, with my new lens.
In trying to answer the question, "why do I take photos?" - my answer is; it depends.  It's therapy, for the reasons I mentioned above with regard to my own perspective.  I sometimes hide behind my camera.  Sometimes I use my camera to get to know people.  I will use my camera to help me escape.  I will use my camera to help me communicate something that will not come out with just words.

For me, maybe because I don't take photos for money,  all of these things are okay.  None of them is better or worse then the other.  If I was taking photos for a living, I expect some of these reasons would make my job taking photos more difficult.

In a slightly different vein...
I read a post on Chase Jarvis' blog some time ago about sorting through lots of photos.  If you deal with a large number of photos...g  o read it. In the post, written by Scott, he says he uses stars to rate the photos.  Not earth shattering perhaps.  He does lay out how he uses stars.  The system he describes can be a great help if you're stuck in how you're going to get through all the photos in your library.  Really though, if you struggle with going through your photos... go read that post.

(I will add to what he says, that I use the reject button in Lightroom to separate the photos I have gone through from the photos that I have.  So an unrated, unrejected photo is one that I have not sorted through.)

A few of my disorganized thoughts on some of this stuff.  Hope it's helpful.
Camera Bag Geekiness 2011


Thursday, March 24, 2011

Inspiration - photographically pt 2

"We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing. Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action."- Frank Tibolt
One of the guys in my camera club shared that quote with me. Thanks John!

Some more of the random like thoughts in my head about inspiration.






Inspiration Stealers:

  • Frustration
  • lack of energy
  • lack of sleep
  • lack of time
  • stress
  • fear
  • comparing your work to others
  • hurt
  • clutter in your mind
  • clutter in your life
  • failure avoidance - that is, feeling "I can't do that yet, so I won't try"


Inspiration for me comes easier when I'm relaxed and not overly stressed out.  I'll be thinking about that part in a bit.
Creating stuff for me is very emotional. Both in a good way and a bad way.  Once I get moving on doing stuff there's a great sense of purpose and calm and things just flow.  I think it's one of the coolest parts of this hobby of photography.  When things click - it's just awesome.  However, when you're not feeling it.... even picking up the camera can be difficult.

I think the positive side of that is why photography is somewhat therapeutic for me.  If I can get to a point where I can pick up my camera and start shooting, then within that process of shooting I start to find some perspective on all the stuff that I'm stressing about 'outside' of the photography.  The act of seeing (looking through a viewfinder is great for this) forces me to  see things differently - so I start to see the rest of my life and circumstances differently too.



How emotional is photography for you?

(the photos in this post are all mine and I included them only because I like them for different reasons)

Saturday, March 19, 2011

Inspiration - photographically

The other night I led the discussion at our camera club on inspiration.  I thought I would share the visuals with you.

I'll add some more thoughts in another post soon.


Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Dog Sled

Saturday we went to watch the Dryden Dog Sled Race. I went to shoot photos as a bunch of the camera club went.  The family came to just have fun.  What a good time.  Here's some photos of the event.


There's some name tags on the same photos on my Facebook account too.

Friday, January 28, 2011

My most "interesting" photos

My most "interesting"  photos as defined by Flickr.  One day I'll post new photos.

Friday, January 14, 2011

in colour and black and white.

I have been trying to shoot more in Black and white this year.  Tonight I was at a friends house and took some photos.  I couldn't decide which I liked better.  So here's both of them.

Wood. In colour.


Wood. B&W