Mostly photos, but some other random stuff
Dyeing Hosted on ZooomrThis probably should have been posted right after Easter, but I had a couple of other shots I wanted to get up first. Every year for Easter we head up to our parents’ houses. At my in-laws, the kids dye eggs outside on the deck where they can make a mess with little impact. This year, as with most, hands as well as eggs got dyed. It took a few days for the dye to come off my daughter’s hands.
The eggs came out quite nicely. The hands were almost black by the end.
Russian River Hosted on ZooomrAnother shot I took before Easter. I’m not taking photos during the week because I just don’t have time. I wish I did, but don’t right now.
Again, for this shot I used the polarizing filter which eliminated the glare off the water. Normally, without the filter, the water would reflect light, but in this shot you can see the rocks on the river bed. I also used a slow shutter speed to give a more fluid look. I’ve always like shots of moving water with long exposures. Sometimes it’s over done, so the water is really a blur, but I think this shot has a nice mix of motion and stasis. I posted it here because it is one of the few moving water shots I’ve taken.
I did not use a tripod, because I don’t have one. I just set the camera on the rocks and tried to hold it still. I wanted a low angle, so it worked out. I’d like to get a Gorilla Pod for situations like this.
See it on Zooomr with GeoTag and exposure settings.
Camouflage Hosted on ZooomrMy 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 2 Hosted on ZooomrIt’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.
So, Wednesday night I was replying to a comment on Zooomr for the Flower Fairy photo and decided to go grab the manual for my camera to check something. I snagged my little toe on the corner of the couch and broke my foot. Damn. I should have taken a picture of my foot with the toe sticking out a sideways. It wasn’t straight out, but definitely not pointing the right direction. I have a few photos I took the day before that I’m going to post, but it may take a couple of more days.
I went to the doc yesterday, but didn’t get the call back until after I left work, so I didn’t get the message until this morning. The really lame thing is that I went the see the Giants last night (they won, Zito was great) and had to walk a long, long way from the car, then back. After the walking I had an idea it was broken, so I wasn’t real surprised by the message.
If I can get the x-ray, maybe I’ll post that.
In the meantime, check out publicenergy. He has some really cool infrared shots.
Have your cupcake Hosted on ZooomrOne of my good friends, Laurie Lucov, is pastry chef who specializes in wedding cakes. She’s had cakes featured in bridal magazines and makes really, really good cakes. She made these for my daughter’s 8th birthday. I’ve already posted other pictures from that day, and am still slow at taking new pictures so I figured I’d post this one.
Laurie actually liked it and will be using it as part of her portfolio. Her web site is www.laurielucovweddingcakes.com
Highlights Hosted on ZooomrThis 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.
Wikimedia is Wikipedia’s somewhat lesser known counterpart for media, including lots of photos. Apparently there was some kind of contest to choose the best photo of 2006. I found out about it today via Digg. The photo that won is really stunning. You can view it at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Picture_of_the_Year/2006. I’ve always wanted to see the Northern Lights, and this just adds to my desire. Maybe someday.
About the photo, the final version was retouched and enhanced. The photographer posted the original to Wikimedia as well. I respect that because I often wonder when I see a stunning photo just how much it was edited. Photoshop is a great tool, but I have to question where the line is between artistic photos and realistic photos. I tend to be more minimalist regarding editing photos, and don’t get into the heavy enhancements or filters, but seeing the difference between the original and finished photo makes me want to learn more about retouching photos. I think the retouching done on this photo added to the visual impact without distorting reality.
Kudos to the photographer Joshua Strang.
Flower Fairy Hosted on ZooomrWe 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.
I’ve been waiting for Zooomr to come back online after their upgrade to Mark III, but as of right now it is still down. It was supposed to be up yesterday, but they must have run into some problems. I have a couple of photos there that I want to post here, but can’t get to them. Maybe later today or tomorrow.
Some of the new features sound really cool, as you can see from the screen shot. One that I’m anxious to try out is searching by color. From the Zooomr blog:
“Zooomr Mark III Boasts an impressive new search system along side our marketplace â€â€� one of the coolest features of marketplace is that we can now search by the overall color of each photograph. This requires intense processing of each photograph, and while we have 5 superfast quad-xeon servers processing multiple batches of photos, it is taking a bit longer than expected.”
Sounds cool, I wonder how it will work. What will a search for teal return? What about searching on hex codes? Anyway, can’t wait for Zooomr to get back up and running.