Picture of the Week 7-24-2009
July 23, 2009
This week’s photo is a special treat. Bryan and I went to Crystal Cove this past weekend to take some sunset shots and to try out our new polarizing filter. We set up the tripod high up on the bluffs and shot away. Bryan decided to use the Auto Exposure Bracketing setting on our camera so he could do HDR images. We have only recently dabbled in HDR but we decided to go ahead and purchase Photomatix Pro so we could really experiment. If you don’t know, HDR (high dynamic range) is where you take multiple exposures of one image and merge them into one. Taking the best parts of all exposures to make one “super exposure”. Okay I just made up “super exposure” but seriously the photos look awesome. Below is a photo Bryan took and made into an HDR image. What a sunset!
We ended up making a bunch of these HDR images and put them up in the GALLERY. Check them out!
Photo Info: Taken with the 5D Mark II. 1st Exposure- ISO 250 at F8 and 1/640 of a second. 2nd Exposure- ISO 250 at F8 and 1/1600 of a second. 3rd Exposure- ISO 250 at F8 and 1/250 of a second.
Picture of the Week 7-14-2009
July 14, 2009
I’ve been really busy the past few weeks with moving so I haven’t been able to go out and photograph as much as I would like. So for this week’s photo I had to go back in the archives. This photo was taken way back in February 2006 when we used to live in Pomona. We used to live on the third floor with a balcony that overlooked Holt Blvd. Even back then I seemed to have a fascination with shooting sunsets. I’m sure it’s not good for me to be shooting directly into the sun but how else would I have gotten this shot? I believe at the time this sunset was made even more spectacular by the fact that a fire was producing a huge smoke cloud. Photography Hint: Sunsets are made better by smoke from wildfires. Anyway, enjoy this weeks photo and hopefully next week I’ll have something brand new.
Photo Info: Shot with the Canon Rebel XT at ISO 400, F16 and 1/500 of a second.
Picture of the Week 7-1-2009
July 1, 2009
Picture of the Week 6-25-2009
June 25, 2009
This week’s photo subject is the Mandalay Bay hotel. I shot this last weekend after our trip to the Shark Reef Aquarium. As we walked down the hallway we stopped to look at the impressive water park style pool and luckily I looked up and saw this shot. The clouds were perfect and the reflections just made it all the more spectacular. Can you tell I shot this through a window?
Photo Info: Taken with the 5D Mark II at ISO 200, F8 at 1/500 of a second.
Picture of the Week 6-18-2009
June 18, 2009
Earlier this month I decided to experiment with long exposure shots. I chose the full moon as my subject. I set my camera up on a tripod and pointed it at the sky. The moon is very difficult to photograph, at least for me. It’s constantly moving, which means your shutter speed can’t be too long or else the moon will be blurred. I had to use a remote to release the shutter so I wouldn’t shake the tripod in any way. The thing I liked about the sky that night was the clouds around the moon and the eerie way they were being lit. Ideally I wanted a perfect moon exposure and a perfect cloud exposure in the same shot. However, there are limitations to what you can get the camera to do so I just had to settle for a happy medium between the two. As you can see in the shot below the moon is overexposed on one side but I love the way the clouds look.
Photo Info: Taken with the 5D Mark II at ISO 200, F4 at a 1.6 second shutter speed.
Photographics: Final Portfolio
June 12, 2009
Our final project for Photographics required us to put together a portfolio of images that we created in the class. The portfolio was to be 8-14 images, mounted with some kind of theme or uniformity to them. Some students chose a flower theme, some did all lumen prints, some did a variety of different tones. I was really impressed with the quality of work from our fellow classmates. Some of them are masters in the darkroom and many have a great eye for composition, most of them blew my portfolio away, they were just so good. Bryan chose to use his best images that he had turned in throughout the semester for his portfolio. I decided to do a batch of fresh images. I took two older film photos and reworked them digitally. For each photo I did a sepia toned image, a sabbatier, an applied color, a high contrast and a lith. The professor and my fellow students liked the idea and thought it was interesting to see a variation on one image side by side. Below is my portfolio.
Sepia by Jamie
High Contrast by Jamie
Applied Color by Jamie
Sabbatier by Jamie
Lith by Jamie
Sepia by Jamie
High Contrast by Jamie
Applied Color by Jamie
Sabbatier by Jamie
Lith by Jamie