West Virginia HDR Stream

While sorting through old photographs yesterday in the archive and cleaning/rearranging files, I came across this set of bracketed landscape images with long exposures of water I took while checking out some of the historic and forgotten back roads of West Virginia. This one was off McKendree Road, considered McKendree, West Virginia (unincorporated). There's a bridge over it that water was spilling off of onto the other side. I used that shot for an altered landscapes composite project for a college assignment at the time, and this was just a lovely landscape behind it that I captured as a personal bonus. I hope you like it!

Low and High Key Flowers: Lighting Tutorial

This idea is based off the first project from the 52 Weekend Digital Photo Projects book.

So the first project in the book is how to capture low and high key blooms.

It's a few days after Valentine's, but I had some flowers left over, so I used them for this project. First, I attempted the low key bloom, the process of which I shall explain below.

First off, I set up the black studio background. Next, I placed a diffused light to the side, about at a 45 degree angle to where my flower would be placed. Then I set up my camera on a tripod so that I could rely on lower shutter speed without having to worry about camera shake or upping the ISO. Then I placed my flower below the camera. I've no idea where my studio clips are so I made do with clothespins to hold the single flowers. See the image below for an idea of the layout, equipment setup, and specs.

Set your camera at two-stops below center on your in-camera meter. The original bouquet image came out like this:

After touching it up in Lightroom, the image turned out as below, cropped to square to share in Instagram.

Finally, I sent the touched-up version into Photoshop to personalize it, as shown below:

So now the same process applies to the flowers below:  

Now let's move on to the high key photograph.

For the high key process, I switched the black background with a white one. Instead of using the continuous light, I used a flash and a couple of white cards around the subject. See the image below for a set-up idea. 

I used both a white flower and a white/pink flower for this part of the project. Remember to expose these two-stops higher for high key images. Now below the same process applies to these images as above:

Où est la carrière?

Take the road behind Pierre Cardin's chateau in Lacoste, then go right at the gargoyle sculpture to get to the quarry. It's giant old ruins, you can't miss it. That is where we went together as a class on Wednesday, July 2nd. View the images in this post to get an idea of what the quarry is like. If ever you visit Lacoste, or for those of you who are already here, the hike is not so extreme and is definitely worthwhile. Many students won't wake up in the wee hours of the morning, so for those of you visiting who are morning birds, this would be a great spot to relax and reflect with less distraction while feeling like an amateur explorer. It is also a great time for good photographs, the wee hours of morning. If you are a night owl, however, the evening would also be an auspicious time for shooting (assuming you're not a photographer and you don't already know that rule of photography).

On July 4th, America's Independence Day, we took a trip to Nîmes and Pont du Gard, then we had a barbecue, so I'll post more on that tomorrow.

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Je suis désolé pour mon mauvais traduction. Je suis juste apprendre le français maintenant.

Voila....

Prenez la route derrière le château de Pierre Cardin à Lacoste, puis allez à droite à la sculpture de gargouille pour se rendre à la carrière. C'est ruines géantes, vous ne pouvez pas le manquer. C'est là que nous sommes allés ensemble en tant que classe le mercredi 2 Juillet.

Voir la images dans ce post pour avoir une idée de ce que la carrière est comme. Si jamais vous visitez Lacoste, ou pour ceux d'entre vous qui sont déjà ici, la randonnée n'est pas si extrême et vaut vraiment la peine. Beaucoup d'étudiants ne se réveillent dans les petites heures du matin, pour ceux d'entre vous qui sont des oiseaux visite du matin, ce serait un endroit idéal pour se détendre et réfléchir avec moins de distraction tout en se sentant comme un explorateur amateur. Il est aussi un grand moment pour de bonnes photos, les petites heures du matin. Si vous êtes un oiseau de nuit, cependant, la soirée serait aussi un moment propice pour la prise de vue (en supposant que vous n'êtes pas un photographe et vous ne savez pas déjà cette règle de la photographie).

Le 4 Juillet, Jour de l'Indépendance de l'Amérique, nous avons pris un voyage à Nîmes et le Pont du Gard, puis nous avons eu un barbecue et je posterai plus sur que demain.

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 Above you see, this is the quarry, or at least one view of it. Hero, another photographer I've met during this quarter, has shown me this vantage point at the quarry, for which I am very grateful. You see during the middle of the day, the shadows are deeper so there is not as much detail as there could be during times of day when light is more diffuse. This is a basic understanding among photographers, but it is important for anyone who wants to take lovely photographs outdoors to know.

Ci-dessus vous voyez, c'est la carrière, ou au moins une vue de celui-ci. Hero, un autre photographe que j'ai rencontré au cours de ce trimestre, m'a montré ce point à la carrière de vue, pour qui je suis très reconnaissant. Vous voyez au milieu de la journée, les ombres sont plus profondes donc il n'y a pas autant de détails que il pourrait y avoir pendant les périodes de la journée où la lumière est plus diffuse. Il s'agit d'une compréhension de base parmi les photographes, mais il est important pour tous ceux qui veulent prendre des photos de belles à l'extérieur pour savoir.

 Here is another student and friend I've met at Lacoste. It is Catherine, and she is pursuing her graduate degree in fashion-marketing. I chose the photograph of her above because it's interesting to see how small she is against the giant rocks. This also serves to provide you with a sense of scale for the rocks.

Voici un autre élève et ami que j'ai rencontré à Lacoste. C'est Catherine, et elle poursuit ses études de deuxième cycle en mode-marketing. J'ai choisi la photo de son ci-dessus parce que c'est intéressant de voir comment elle est petite contre les rochers géants. Cela sert aussi à vous fournir une idée de l'échelle pour les roches. Some graffiti is apparent around the quarry, but it is frowned upon and shameful. Don't be that bad tourist or just rude dude who decides to spray harsh paint chemicals and chlorofluorocarbons onto the world's natural resources. This reminds me of a place at home in West Virginia, called Beauty Mountain, and the amount of vulgar and tasteless graffiti wasted all over its surface, which I will also show below for your reference. Anyway, "Goodbye Lacoste" really stood out to me here, and I noticed another student in Location Research who was painting it for her class, so at least I am not the only one.

Certains graffiti est apparent autour de la carrière, mais il est mal vu et honteux. Ne pas être si mauvais touristique ou juste le type désagréable qui décide de pulvériser des produits chimiques et les chlorofluorocarbones de peinture sévères sur les ressources naturelles de la planète. Cela me rappelle un endroit à la maison en Virginie-Occidentale (West Virginia), appelé Beauté Montagne, et le nombre de graffitis vulgaire et insipide perdu sur toute sa surface, que je vais aussi montrer ci-dessous pour votre référence. Quoi qu'il en soit, "Goodbye Lacoste" se démarque vraiment pour moi ici, et j'ai remarqué un autre étudiant en Situation de recherche qui a été peint pour sa classe, donc au moins je ne suis pas le seul.

Whoever does this is the scum of the earth. And also to my loved ones and friends at home: so you see, West Virginia, this doesn't only happen in West Virginia. Apparently cultivated art students from SCAD and from supposedly higher class families commit this crime as well. It's worthless, pointless, and it makes for bad images, and bad family hikes. Who would want their kids to see that? Anyway, you can also look at it like a Monet painting. As in the photograph below of the view from Beauty Mountain in West Virginia, you can see that the scenery from afar is breathtaking.

Celui qui fait cela est l'écume de la terre. Et aussi à mes proches et amis à la maison: si vous voyez, Virginie-Occidentale, cela ne se produit pas seulement en Virginie-Occidentale. Étudiants en art Apparemment cultivées du SCAD et de familles de la classe soi-disant supérieurs commettre ce crime ainsi. C'est inutile, inutile, et il fait pour de mauvaises images, et les mauvaises randonnées en famille. Qui veulent que leurs enfants voient que? Quoi qu'il en soit, vous pouvez également regarder comme un tableau de Monet. Comme sur la photo ci-dessous de la vue de Beauté Montagne en Virginie-Occidentale, vous pouvez voir que le paysage est à couper le souffle de loin.

 More students at the quarry.... Plus d'étudiants à la carrière ....

Here is TJ setting up his equipment to take a shot of himself. He has an interesting fine art series in which he takes self-portraits. I am interested in seeing more about it...I know it reminds me of Cindy Sherman whenever photographers do this. TJ also has background in the fashion industry, as he has interned with a major fashion industry while in high school. As soon as I discover his blog url, and the other students' blogs, I will also post them for further reference.

Voici la mise en place de son équipement pour prendre une photo de lui-même TJ. Il dispose d'une série de beaux-arts intéressant dans lequel il prend des auto-portraits. Je suis intéressé à voir plus à ce sujet ... Je sais que cela me rappelle à chaque fois que Cindy Sherman photographes le font. TJ a aussi expérience dans l'industrie de la mode, comme il l'a interné avec une importante industrie de la mode au lycée. Dès que je découvre son blog URL, et les blogs des autres élèves, je vais aussi les publier pour référence ultérieure.

Above, Shannon and Catherine. This helps you get a sense of scale again. Obviously Shannon is not afraid of climbing or heights. This is fortunate for her because she can use those extra angles for additional vantage points when photographing.

Ci-dessus, Shannon et Catherine. Cela vous aide à avoir une idée de l'échelle de nouveau. Évidemment Shannon n'a pas peur de l'escalade ou les hauteurs. C'est une chance pour elle car elle peut utiliser ces angles supplémentaires pour les points de vue supplémentaires lorsque vous photographiez.

This is my professor, Kyle Ford. Professor Ford has worked in the past for Steve McCurry, the photographer famous for the National Geographic image of the Afghan girl with the shawl and the brilliantly sharp eyes. Her name is Sharbat Gula. This professor is awesome and inspirational. At SCAD, I've had a few professors, one in particular, whose teaching style toward students was so restrictive and contradictory that it felt like I was trying to please the most difficult client in the world with no luck, no matter how much we conversed about what her, or his, preferred outcome should be. Professor Ford isn't like that. He thrives off watching students pursuing their passions. Any time I've had any trouble or questions, he is happy to help, and he seems happy to allow us to discover our own styles and pursue our own agendas in our work. At the same time, he helps guide us and has already shown us what access we have to scholarly and more creditable resources in the photography field. If you, as a SCAD photo student, don't know this already, there are many photography book resources in the library in Upper Village. Not only that, the professor has been showing us what types of travel photos do and don't make it into editorials and other publications in the travel industry. For my mom and dad, don't worry, this guy also shows us how we can market our work under several different brand names so that we don't have to restrict or pigeonhole our work into narrow fields of photography. In other words, I can still photograph the world and have one business for selling street photography, landscapes, architecture, another for fine art, another for food photography, another for wildlife, another for portraiture (or on the side is more likely for supplemental projects). This is wonderful again, because I've had professors in the past tell me that I needed to focus on a narrow field in order to make it as a successful photographer in the world. I'm still happy at my refusal to embrace that limiting notion. Alright, that's enough on Ford then. Here's one of his url's showing work largely from his home, the Adirondack natural preserve: http://www.kylefordphotography.com.

Ceci est mon professeur, Kyle Ford. Professeur Ford a travaillé dans le passé pour Steve McCurry, le photographe célèbre pour l'image National Geographic de la jeune fille afghane avec le châle et les yeux extrêmement nettes. Son nom est Sharbat Gula. Ce professeur est génial et inspiré. Au SCAD, j'ai eu quelques professeurs, un en particulier, dont le style d'enseignement vers les étudiants était si restrictive et contradictoire qu'il se sentait comme si j'essayais de plaire au client le plus difficile au monde avec pas de chance, peu importe combien nous conversé sur ce son, ou sa, résultat devrait être préféré. Professeur Ford n'est pas comme ça. Il se nourrit de regarder les étudiants qui poursuivent leurs passions. Chaque fois que j'ai eu un quelconque problème ou des questions, il est heureux de vous aider, et il semble heureux de nous permettre de découvrir nos propres modèles et la poursuite de nos propres programmes dans notre travail. Dans le même temps, il nous aide à guider et nous a déjà montré ce que nous avons accès à la doctrine et des ressources plus admissibles dans le domaine de la photographie. Si vous, en tant que photo étudiant SCAD, ne savez pas déjà, il ya beaucoup de ressources photographie de livres dans la bibliothèque en haut du village. Non seulement cela, le professeur a été de nous montrer quels types de photos de voyage faire et ne pas faire dans les éditoriaux et les autres publications de l'industrie du Voyage. Pour ma maman et papa, ne vous inquiétez pas, ce gars nous montre aussi comment nous pouvons commercialiser notre travail sous plusieurs noms de marque différents de sorte que nous n'avons pas de restreindre ou de classer notre travail dans les champs étroits de la photographie. En d'autres termes, je ne peux toujours photographier le monde et avoir un métier pour la vente de la photographie de rue, paysages, architecture, l'autre pour les beaux-arts, un autre pour la photographie alimentaire, un autre pour la faune, un autre pour le portrait (ou sur le côté est plus probable pour supplémentaire projets). Ce qui est merveilleux à nouveau, parce que j'ai eu des professeurs dans le passé me dire que je devais me concentrer sur un champ étroit afin de faire en tant que photographe à succès dans le monde. Je suis toujours heureux de mon refus d'adopter cette notion de limitation. Bon, ça suffit à M. Ford alors. Voilà l'un des montrant le travail de son URL en grande partie de sa maison, préserver le patrimoine naturel Adirondack: http://www.kylefordphotography.com.

Above you see the entrance to the quarry, a great deal of students, and Hero, a brilliant photographer who is one of my class members. You see he is looking through the actual live view section of his camera in order to gain insight into composition for the final outcome of the image. This might also serve as a bit of a SCAD advert because of his tee shirt.

Ci-dessus vous voyez l'entrée de la carrière, une grande partie des étudiants, et Hero, un brillant photographe qui est l'un des membres de ma classe. Vous voyez, il est à la recherche à travers la section de vue réel en direct de son appareil photo afin d'obtenir un aperçu de la composition pour le résultat final de l'image. Cela peut aussi servir un peu de l'annonce SCAD en raison de son tee-shirt.

All for now. Too da loo!

Tout pour le moment. Au revoir!

Gutstein Gallery Exhibition

Midterms this week and business in Charleston in the early A.M.Gutstein gallery exhibition in Savannah Thursday-Sunday, travel/accommodation arrangements underway.

That being said, uploads will be slow until Monday/Tuesday. I plan to make the most out of River Street and Tybee and see if I can't get a better look at a gator on that wildlife preserve just across the border.

Below are the two photographs that made it into this Silver & Ink exhibition.

Frozen Plum Orchard Lake, above

Coal Refuse Facility beside Marsh Fork Elementary, recently relocated, on Coal River Road, WV

Take care!

Busy Week

The workload has picked up at Savannah College of Art and Design under the instruction of a notoriously challenging professor in the Advanced Digital Imaging category. Lowe's weekend work seems also to be picking up with the warmer weather, but that's no issue. That being the case, daily posts will become a challenge over this quarter, but I will make the effort to at least update this blog on photos of the day. Fortunately I've already caught up on all work missed from my trip down south for a few weeks. For now, I'm posting a few photographs I managed to snap of Georgia and South Carolina on my way back up. Enjoy!

And so there are a few pieces from the heart of scenery closer to my home town. I'm slowly working on a series with photographs of Atkinson County involving Kirkland, Pearson, Axson, and Willacoochee, and plan to finish that up for this first series on it in August/September. Have a great week!

Back Again

I returned to West Virginia in time to work all weekend, post a few photos of the day, touch up and disperse family and friend portraits from my trip to my hometown, and get caught up with school by completing two weeks worth of homework to SCAD. What I'm working on right now is Advanced Digital Imaging, whereby I'm learning more in-depth about photography software and techniques involved--such as heavy Photoshopping--and also I'm learning much more about Business for Photographers. I'll post a little more on that later but for now I'm studying much on portrait retouching and body sculpting. Once again, more on Kaymoor buildings later. I haven't had a chance to touch them up as much.

To get away from that for the time being, I'll talk about the trip, which was great overall. I was able to make some great contacts at the career fair, and it was even more awesome to actually get a chance to talk with professionals and other colleagues in person from SCAD and from companies SCAD was marketing to us. There was an unexpected death in the family but besides that, I was able to touch base with lots of family, friends, former colleagues, mentors, and professors, some of whom I hadn't seen for about two years, and most of whom I hadn't seen for about eight months. My godchildren are growing, they're two and four, my niece who's two is now walking, and my nephews will be starting preschool soon. I'll provide photographs below so you can gain a little more insight into my life and the loves of my life, as blogs go, and then I'll write a bit about the technical aspects of a few of them. I don't provide locations or names of these children, though, for safety sake.

These are all my little buddies. Without their assistance, I would not be as good as portraits as I am to date. I admit, I'm still learning, but I do owe them credit. I love getting photographs like this of the children as soon as I get there following the initial excitement that I have come to visit after its been so long.
The third image, involving my best friend's daughter, deals with low key portraiture--it was taken under low lighting conditions. The indoor lights were off completely, and while there was darkness to her right side, there was a sliver of light coming in from the left. In order to really bring out the darkness around her, I increased the contrast in the image and made sure that the lights were not brought down with it so that detail in her face would not be lost. Her beautiful blue eyes and golden hair really makes her features stand out against the dark background. It draws attention into her face.
The first image was of one of my nephews who had just made me help him clean out the fireplace and dump the bucket of cinders out into the field behind the house. You can still see the ashes on his face and arm, and I told him that he looked like a little coal miner. After playing a bit, he decided to go in and get himself some water, and while drinking decided he'd strike a pose, as you can see.
The photograph beneath that one is of my other nephew, who had been playing at the swings alone rather than asking me or his mother to help him get on them. Usually he's a bit more camera-shy than my other nephew, so I've learned that it's easier to let him do his own thing while I practice getting environmental portraits of him from afar. Shots like this of him seem to do quite well, as you can see. In one, it seems that he is modeling his CARS shoes, and in another, it seems he is just modeling as a child model would do. You can see that he is too short for the swings, but this doesn't seem to bother him.
The second little girl is playing Pop Goes the Monkey with my brother. Again, this is an environmental shot meant to provide a story while capturing a special, happy moment in time. It does look like she's smiling three times; her face reminds me of a super excited anime face. She's my niece, and she's just begun walking. It's easy to get photographs of her, she never seems to worry about being in front of a camera, and she generally does her own thing regardless while being cheerful and goofy, especially just before nap-time. In the first image of her, she's staring at me in nearly direct sunlight, so the blue of her irises were really standing out even though she may be squinting a bit. In the original, the black part of her bodysuit was lighter than it should have been, so to bring out contrast, I either brought down the shadows or blacks in the image. I had to bring down the highlights of the image in order to provide more detail in her face in this image. I then tinkered with a vignette until the desired effect was reached which still brought more attention to my little niece.
The final image is of Mancub, my awesome little Godson. He's packed with energy at all times, and he's always going. I don't know how he did it in this scenario, but he managed to get on a swing by himself rather than me picking him up to do it. I shot this photograph from across the park with a zoom lens in order to get the best detail of his face with little distortion to his facial features. The sun was blasting in a bit from behind him, which allowed me to capture that sort of crowning effect, and his face is calm and happy as always while it is fairly obvious upon close inspection to see that he has been playing non-stop for the past thirty minutes to an hour. I composed the shot with his little body a little off to the right while he was looking back at me toward the left, then focused at his eyes and captured the image right in time as he was looking toward me. That's my little Man-cub. Can't wait to see them all again. That's it!

Lost on the River

View of Gorge Bridge from New River in West Virginia I was lost at the bottom of the Kaymoor Mining Trail the other day by straying from the path. I was at the bottom of the mountain, and would have to backtrack by climbing two steep slopes and rediscovering the old Kaymoor coal mine ruins toward the 844 steps that I would have to ascend in order to get to the rest of the trail which led to my car. Considering this, I decided I could spare an hour lost on the river before work. Taken 3/21/2014

Happy Spring!

Hi! Have been busy planning and preparing for a road trip coming up. Today I took this photo on the way to Charleston. It was a beautiful day and the featured scene here shows how nice the clouds were. This photo above was taken at 4:06pm, and because it's closer to Charleston, the elevation's lower than in Beckley, and it gets warmer quicker, allowing the noticeable effects of Spring to arrive sooner. Maybe once I get back from the trip, Beckley will look like this.... As always, feel free to recommend places to photograph. Happy Spring!!!

The Rest of Kaymoor Steps, a Walkthrough

Expanding on the stairs of Kaymoor, if you are not yet a master of stairs or haven't evolved mountain calves, then the Kaymoor Mining Steps in Fayetteville/Lansing, West Virginia, will help you get there. After talking about the trail with people who live around here, I learned that some people choose to go up and down it a few times weekly for exercise. Going down isn't so terrible, but walking back up is a challenge. I recommend keeping hydrated during your hike down and up, and to brace yourself so you can enjoy the historically significant experience. Below, I will provide a few pictures to give you a better sense of the number of steps to descend and ascend so that you know what to expect in the case that you want to go for it. From the top: This is the very top which introduces you to the history of Kaymoor Miner's Trail. From here you go down a path leading through rocks, down beside a waterfall, and through more of a dirt trail, as shown below.

Be careful when it's cold out because the ice on the rocks is slippery. If you slip on an icy rock, you might fall off a cliff and die. From there, continue down the narrow path... Finally you'll arrive at this point and turn around to see the beginning of the steps, as shown below. Here's the top of Kaymoor Bottom, shown below: From there, once you've reached the bottom of that straight series of steps, you'll come to these windy steps. You can see the rails where the rail cars used to haul townspeople (Kaymoor Number One miners and their families) up and down the mountain. That is also the next windy passage before this long straightaway below. You see at the end there that the passage stops. From there, you'll go around another quick windy turn, down and around to the final descending series of steps. Here is a view from the top of that final descent: As you can see, it drops down farther into the abyss. I'll show a photograph of the final descent which highlights form a bit better with shadows along the left side of the steps. There you have it. It just keeps going on and on until you get here, your destination of Kaymoor ruins. That's it for the descent. Can you imagine falling down any of those straight series of steps? Luckily the steps are so close together that you might roll more than tumble if you fall just right. More on the abandoned buildings later.

As always, offer travel suggestions in the comments below. I like to photograph landscapes, city-scapes, nature and wildlife photography, old abandoned buildings and other areas involving human-altered scenarios.

[contact-form][contact-field label='Name' type='name' required='1'/][contact-field label='Email' type='email' required='1'/][contact-field label='Website' type='url'/][contact-field label='Comment' type='textarea' required='1'/][/contact-form]

Kaymoor Miner's Trail Top

Kaymoor is an abandoned town in West Virginia that once housed coal miners and their families who worked at Kaymoor "Number One Mine", which operated from 1899-1962. This is an historic/cultural preservation reserve. During the 1900s, thousands of migrants from England, Ireland, Wales, Italy, Eastern Europe and the Southern United States immigrated to work in the mines here at what was once a bustling town. Below Kaymoor Top are the 800 steps leading to ruins of what was once a bustling coal operation with numbers of coke ovens used to make coke from coal. Coke is a fuel produced by baking coal in an oven under a regulated flow of air. Impurities burn away, leavining only high-carbon coke, which burns hotter than coal. Coke was used extensively to fuel iron furnaces. The Kaymoor mines were originally opened to supply coal to product coke to fuel the furnaces of the Low Moor Iron Company of Virginia.

Friday I said I'd post more Florida images, but then had a decent trip to Kaymoor Miner's Trail, so have been posting on that instead. Apparently there is an old abandoned miner's town at the very bottom, next to the river. I find the above photo interesting that the lines in it zigzag about the image and mainly down the center, with nearly all overlapping. The staircase leading down the mountain is the beginning of the main Kaymoor Top stair head. By showing the steps and the upcoming elevation changes from my current standpoint at the time (1503.3 ft altitude) versus the altitude of Kaymoor Bottom (709.3 ft altitude), you can get a sense of how steep a walk this is, and that you need to brace yourself as you walk it down. The photo above is at Kaymoor Bottom, and these buildings are the remains of Kaymoor's coal processing plant and power station. You'll find various coke ovens and other industrial remains wildly disbursed throughout the area. The town had died by the 1950s and the remains of old coke ovens and other signs of humanity were burnt in a fire that occurred in 1960. This staircase is known as the boardwalk. In the past, there was also a haulage cart available that would transport passengers down more efficiently on rails. It was an electricity-powered haulage cart descended from cables which spanned nearly half a mile up and down the mountain. This image, and the image below shows the initial trail heading up to the steps. Both were taken on the way back up to the entrance.

All for now. As always, feel free to suggest places for me to visit, study, and document in the future. Happy St. Patrick's Day! [contact-form][contact-field label='Name' type='name' required='1'/][contact-field label='Email' type='email' required='1'/][contact-field label='Website' type='url'/][contact-field label='Comment' type='textarea' required='1'/][/contact-form]

Photographing the Sun on Harsher Trails

Today's the last day of winter quarter at Savannah College of Art and Design and the next quarter doesn't begin until the 24th, so I look forward to more Photo Excursions and additional photo experimentations during the break. For now, I'll show you more of the exposures I got from this past photo excursion and my experience with photographing the sun. I'd not really done as much golden hour photos as many photographers had in the past, so I will highlight the nice golden colors you get from that here: You'll notice that as the sun gets lower in the sky, the more diffuse shadows become in certain areas, but also there is this dramatic glow that becomes more red as the sun goes down. This image isn't one to sell, but it highlights an important lesson in terms of understanding how color changes over time in terms of natural lighting. That plant is a Sumac, by the way. It's a plant found in the Eastern United States. Apparently it is used as a spice in order to deliver a tart flavor to foods but be careful to avoid picking any poisonous Sumac, because that also exists although it's not as common. The leaves are similar. Anyway, toward nightfallthe sky began to look morered as it lowered below horizon, like so:

This is nightfall, dark blue skies, and a nice jeep. Have a great Friday!

Harsher Trails

Yesterday I and a few buddies took a jeep out to explore some treacherous terrain around the Cool Ridge to Coal City region of West Virginia, starting out around John Lane Road in Cool Ridge.

The four of us started out about 4:30 pm and drove on well until after nightfall, so I got the chance to practice with a bit of starry sky photos. I will say, I did not expect to feel so tired from riding in a vehicle, but all the driving through creeks crossing the road and over so many rocks and up and down steep hills was apparently enough to make my muscles ache. At any rate, here's the starry sky. I'm not sure exactly where we were here. The GPS didn't work for whatever reason--I'm pretty sure I'd absentmindedly unscrewed it while sitting in the backseat, and I think we were in some part of Cool Ridge.

For the photographers out there.... The ISO was at 12800 so you see a decent bit of luminance noise there, also shot at 0.5 seconds at f/2.8 aperture, so that adds up for a more blurred depth of field but the slower shutter speed did allow the light to blast in better. I would like to try this in the future with and without a three-legged tripod to reduce camera shake (causing the blurry outcome) with lower ISO, (to reduce luminance noise), slower shutter speed, and tighter aperture for greater depth of field... and also without a tripod at a similar ISO to reduce camera shake, slower shutter speed for greater light reading, and tighter aperture (higher f/#) for greater depth of field...although I'm not sure if the greater depth of field will be necessary at dark because the only things that will really come through are the two-tones of shadows against night sky color, and the stars peeking out between the sticks.

Alrighty then, that's enough for today. Tomorrow I plan to write on photographing the sun at golden hour because I got some interesting shots that way as well.

Where are some of your favorite places to visit in West Virginia? Feel free to let me know by writing suggestions in the contact form below.

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Daily Updates

Hiking someone's backyard in Mt. Hope, WV

Yesterday I went hiking with a group of friends in the woods behind many people's backyards. Above is a photo to give you an idea what we did. We were working with perspective, and while Brett's entire body isn't being squished by John's fingers, it was a great shot that included the third guy in the middle who was trying to help get Brett down.

Also the reason for this post is to explain I plan to begin daily updates, beginning today, and am going to see how that goes. Enjoy.

Photographing the Sun

This week I've been working on photographing landscapes that involve the sun, rays from the sun, or lens aberrations due to harsh sunlight. Early on in my photo excursion yesterday, despite frigid temperatures in Hawk's Nest and Carnifex Ferry Battlefield, both state parks in West Virginia, I realized that the sun was getting in my way of photographing without either harsh shadows, or by creating aberrations in my photographs. You should also know that I keep a steady monologue on my hikes, and during this particular monologue, I cursed the sun, the cold, creaky trees, and geese. Geese always deserve it, and as difficult as it may seem when being chased by one or a gaggle, it is possible to get away from those foul, loud-mouthed beasts. That being said, I could only run away from the sun by being in the shade, so I tried that, and remembered I could create a halo effect that way. I also remembered that I could work with a flare from the sun to my advantage in order to create a more appealing scene by highlighting a main subject, like in the photo below of the house that Henry Patterson built in the 1850s on what would become the battle field of Carnifex Ferry, Summersville, West Virginia.

Not only did I use this method here, but also in more photographs, along with one that I posted to Spotlight West Virginia. I'll show it below and explain the method I used.

In this photograph, I took my inspiration from the shots that Spotlight West Virginia tends to post. These posts seem to generate a decent amount of popularity for this area, and they all have the same type of recurring theme in photographs that the page itself shares--over-saturated/vibrant, sunset, sunrise, landscape; they love the colorful. Sometimes, I like to work with vibrant compositions, drawing from the personal style of one of my favorite photographers, Olivier Laude, esq. I take color theory into account in what I do in order to be sure the color schemes are complementary. So that's what I've tried here, and it's generated more local popularity than usual I think, in a shorter amount of time. The main thing I did for the shot was wait for the right time of evening involving a vibrant & warm sunset over an interesting landscape, frame the composition auspiciously, increase clarity, increase shadows very little to bring out detail, increase whites to bring out the ice, and there it was, an enhanced picturesque photo that is appropriate for popular photography. There's more, but that's all I've posted in photos of the day so far since getting in last night and post-processing. I hope you enjoy my work as much as I do. :) Have a great weekend!!!

Just for fun, here's one photo by Laude:

Glade Creek, West Virginia in Early Autumn, 2013