Outdoor – Page 8 – Always Breaking

Camouflage

Camouflage Hosted on Zooomr

My foot is getting better, so I’ve been able to get out and take a few pictures. The day before Easter I went out for a walk with my kids, mostly to take pictures of wildflowers. I did more walking on rough terrain than I should have, making my foot throb with pain.

At any rate, I took pictures of more than just wildflowers. This is a private bridge that crosses the Russian River very near where the river starts. The bridge is actually an old rail car, with wooden railings. The rails obviously have a lot of moss on them. Moss often has a pretty wide range of colors, and textures, not just green. And it is not always wet. This moss was pretty dry. I’ve tried taking pictures of moss before, but without much luck. I like this shot, because although the moss is the focal point, the lines of the railing make it more interesting and draw your eye.

I did some contrast and saturation editing in Picasa, just to bring out the colors and add some pop. See it on Zooomr with GeoTag.

Apple Blossom

Apple Blossom 2 Hosted on Zooomr

It’s definitely Spring in Northern California. The wildflowers are blooming, and many fruit trees have long since bloomed and pushed out new leaves. We have an apple tree in the back yard that has some really beautiful blossoms this year. The apples always have worms, so now is when we really enjoy the tree. Unfortunately the tree is not going to be around much longer because we are building a garage. It’s not a very old tree, but it will be sad when we have to remove it. I’ll plant another, though.

This is on Zooomr, but without the Exif information. For the first time I took pictures in RAW format, which doesn’t capture Exif. I could have used RAW+JPG, but I only have a 1 gig card and was worried about taking up too much space. Next time I’ll use RAW+JPG and switch to just JPG when I get low on space. I never fill the card up anyway, so I don’t know why I was concerned.

There are a few other photos on Zooomr that were also taken in RAW. (apple blossom, sunset, and wildflowers) Picasa handled them OK, it was a little slow. But the ancient version of Photoshop I have (6.0) didn’t recognize the files. I’m going to see how Gimp handles them. For what I do, I didn’t see the advantage of RAW. But this is just a hobby and I don’t spend anytime tweaking the photos.

Rose Highlights

Highlights Hosted on Zooomr

This was taken the same day as my last photo post, I just haven’t had time to do a blog post for it. There really isn’t much to say about it, other than I like the highlights and the color variations caused by the natural light. This shot was taken outside, in full sun. This rose was in a bucket of roses my daughter and her friends were using to make flower arrangements.

My wife is a floral designer and loves flowers, so I end up taking a lot of pictures of flowers. I’ve taken a lot of the pictures on her web site, and will continue to take more at any wedding or event she does.

This shot is on Zooomr, and will be offered as part of their stock photography when Zooomr Mark III is available.

Flower Fairy

Flower Fairy Hosted on Zooomr

We have a small magnolia tree in our backyard that’s only about 5 feet tall. It’s been in the ground for a few years, but doesn’t seem to grow. This year it had more flowers than ever before. It just so happened that it was in full bloom on my middle daughter’s birthday, and she is very into flower fairies right now. This particular flower looked like something out the the fairy books she has, and seemed like the kind of place one would expect to find a fairy hiding. My daughter is able to find fairies amongst plants and flowers, but I haven’t spotted any, yet. You can visit the Flower Fairies web site to see some fairies.

I took this during the birthday party while the girls were making flower arrangements. I took a few shots of this particular flower, but this was my favorite. The short depth of field makes the center of the flower really stand out. I also liked the lighting and shadows. View the exif data on zooomr for exposure details.

Rocks, Fence, Clouds

Rocks, Fence, Clouds Hosted on Zooomr

I took this the same day as the Farm Clouds shot, but since I missed another day I’m posting two today. This was taken very near the Farm Clouds shot. See the geotag at Zooomr.

The fence runs on both sides of the road with a cattle guard across the road. I stopped to take pictures of the fence on the other side of the road, but when I parked I liked this side better. The far off background with clouds was a better backdrop, at least that day. I might go back and take shots again of the other side.

The lighting changed a bit while I was shooting because the clouds kept moving, which actually made things more interesting. and kept me guessing for exposure.

Farm Clouds

Farm Clouds Hosted on Zooomr

This really has been a great week for clouds. Everyday I see some clouds that I’d like to take pictures of, but I’m usually driving or don’t have my camera. I took a drive into the hills east of Petaluma a couple of days ago and shot this. I did take it into Photoshop to adjust the contrast, but not much. I did use my graduated filter so the sky and clouds wouldn’t be overexposed.

View on Zooomr with the geotag. The shot is facing south from the geotag.

On a breeze

On a breeze Hosted on Zooomr

It was a somewhat wild day on Sunday (ok, I’m still behind) so the kids and I went out and flew our kite. It was pretty windy and the clouds kept changing, threatening rain most of the day. It did rain, but we got lucky and didn’t get wet, other than kids slipping in wet grass.

This photo isn’t anything special, just me capturing some fun we had together. It’s darn hard to take pictures while holding a kite string. I actually shot this on manual because I didn’t trust the auto exposure to get it right – too much contrast, especially since the sun is just to the right, behind a cloud.

View on zooomr.

Two Rock Sky

Two Rock Sky Hosted on Zooomr

This was taken on one of my last days of work at the USCG Training Center. I drove around at lunch at the clouds kept changing. We had thunderstorms over the next couple of days, so the clouds were amazing.

I did have to touch up the exposure in Photoshop a little. Clouds can make a landscape really interesting and dynamic, but I’ve had a hard time with exposure, especially when there is a lot of contrast in the clouds and then the ground is dark. I should have used my gradient filter, but didn’t. It cleaned up nicely in Photoshop. It would have been nice if the fence in the lower right had come out better.

You can see the geotag on Zooomr.

Garage and Sky

Garage Hosted on Zooomr

Another nice, warm day, but being at work I didn’t have much of a chance to take photos. I shot this while running downtown to buy movie tickets. This is on top of a new parking garage in Petaluma. It’s really not a very interesting structure, but with few cars in it, the cables looked kinda cool. The really unfortunate thing about this shot is that not long after I took it the sun set and the sky was beautiful with reds and oranges. But I was already home, where power lines scare the view. Maybe another day.

I did some alignment adjustments and cropping in Photoshop. I took a few other shots, which are not edited, and posted them to my Picasa photo site.

This is on zooomr with the geotag.

Valley Fog

Valley Fog Hosted on Zooomr

This post got blasted from the blog. It was orignally posted on February 14. I can’t remember all I wrote, but it was something about enjoying getting out and taking pictures even if they aren’t good. I like this shot, but of course not every shot turns out the way I hoped.

This is posted on Zooomr with a geotag so you can see where it was taken. I think I got lucky with the fog and timing. I was on my way to work, driving on a road I rarely drive on. I’ve been taking alternate routes to and from work looking for things to shoot. When thinking about this shot and the blog post, I realized why I like landscapes. They capture a moment in time that is a unique experience. I will likely drive this road again some morning, but this shot will not be repeated. I captured that moment in time and was there to enjoy the entire view (which a camera can’t quite grab). The downside is that I always have some level of disappointment with the shots, but as time goes on and my memory fades the photo is all I have, and today I like it much more than I did the day I took it.

At any rate, I’m getting outside and enjoying taking pictures.