Well, I was finally able to get a self portrait that I actually didn't dislike to much. This school semester is officially in full swing and it has already been brutal. Hopefully the next few months will go by quickly and I will make it through in one piece.
Again because of busyness/laziness I have not been updating here as often as I like. So go by my flickr to see the days in between.
A quick Photoshop picture today that was taken while over at TJs watching some NFL playoffs. It is three shots that I merged together to clone us as well as display the TV better. This is the first of many clone style pictures I plan on doing, so expect more as I find the time and locations to do them.
I have also been really lazy posting here at blogspot, but I assure you that I have been following through on flickr. Go by and check ou tthe days I might have missed here at the blog.
Remember back in the days when your hobbies consisted of saving your pennies to buy that pack of baseball cards? If only photography was as cheap of a hobby as that.
Three weeks have passed and many photos have been taken. Some that are good and others that I feel could be better if I had taken the time. At the end of the month I am going to find my favorite and least favorite and post them to my blog. There was an obvious favorite by hits, but my favorite was not this one.
Thought I would try something different today, even with it being the first day of school. What you see before you is what is known as "Toss Photography." The main focus of it is not knowing what will turn up in your photo. Now, most people actually do toss their camera's in the air to achieve their photos, I however will not toss my camera in the air. It costs way to much for me to risk dropping it. What I do is keep the shutter open long enough for me to move the camera with my hands and achieve a similar effect. This one here was my favorite and it came out looking very abstract and reminded me of star trails, which I hope to get a few photo's of as soon as the weather clears up. Enjoy!
Photographing chrome is always a hit or miss, mostly because you never quite know what the reflection is going to do. However if you wait until night like I do, then reflections in chrome are not quite as severe. I decided to go black and white in this because, for the most part it was already in black and white. By doing so I thought it helped show off the chrome a little better and help keep the shadows the way I wanted them.
Another trend I have seen among photographers is using a deck of cards. While I am sure this will not be the last picture involving cards, for now it will be the first. I am hoping to get some decent weather this week and get outside and try some location shoots. Check back and see what I manage to come up with.
I don't know what most believe, but to me it's practically impossible for a photographer to have never gone off focus with lights to produce some kind of ambient/abstract photo. That is what I did tonight, it was taken just inside my truck while at a red light. I hope you enjoy!
I was out playing with exposures on the balcony of my apartment, mostly seeing if I could get any stars. After a few shots I started to try and catch car lights as they drove by. Eventually I ended up with this and thought that it was just like a sunset. Just to let you know this is not a sunset, this was taken at 8:00PM and those beautiful colors you see are thanks to the wonderful plants located around the Houston area.
Hello all, today I present to you a picture of the family dog, Abby! She is hard to photograph, so I had to sneak up behind her and get her when she wasn't paying attention to me. So I hope you enjoy!
Here is another HDR I shot while I was in Austin last weekend. I found the mixture of colors to be really interesting and thought that it just looked awesome. They say that the star at the top of the capital spans as wide as 8 feet hanging over 200 feet above the ground. Be sure to go view this at flickr and click on "All sizes" up top and view it as big as possible. These small versions really dont do the details justice.
I am also trying to think of a new "Clone" picture to replace my current banner. If you have any interesting ideas of a new location for one let me know.
Here is an HDR of the Texas State Capital Building. I have a few more from this location that I am working on right now. Hopefully those will be uploaded for all to see in the next few days. In case you hadn't read and/or heard I am working on entries to the Bayousphere contest for the end of January. If you have any suggestions of pictures you particularly enjoy please let me know, I will be sure to take an extra look at those in my selection process.
Two weeks in and I feel like it is still going really well. Soon I will start to gather images that I have taken for the last year and put together my favorite 10 to enter in the Bayousphere. If you have any favorites let me know so I can be sure to look at that one. Today the picture is of a book I am currently reading and am really enjoying it. I have a few non Project 365 pictures that I plan on uploading in the next few days. Be sure to take a look at those as well.
Today is nothing special, just a picture of a picture that I recently got returned from where it was hanging up at UHCL. I had entered this picture in a contest back in November for AIDS awareness day. It won first place and I thought since I finally got it back I should share it with everybody.
Didn't take a whole lot of time to shoot photos today, but I think that this might be one of my favorite so far this project. It is a photo of a clock hanging at my parents that I took using my canon 50mm at f/ 1.4.
Woke up early this morning to head back home from Austin and found my car covered in frost. It was a pretty cool sight to see and being from Houston you don't see that to much. So of course I took a few pictures of it and it has become my picture for today.
Being without Photoshop is hard for me, these last few days in Austin have shown me how much I take that little program for granted. There is a lot more I would have rather done with a photo such as this, but seeing as I am without PS I must go all natural. I am heading back to Houston tomorrow so expect quite a few pictures that were taken this weekend that needed a little HDR processing.
This particular picture was taken while I was on a hike with Catherine at a park here in Austin. It was full of trails for mountain bikers and you can make out the tracks of a bike tire that had passed by previously. We were on the search for a waterfall, but that search was unsuccessful, maybe next time when it is not quite so cold.
I went to the Texas Capital building today and believe me this is nothing compared to the others I took while I was there. The others just required a little more post-process work than this one required. So be on the look out for those coming around Monday.
Walking around Austin taking photographs I noticed that near the capital building they had left the sprinklers on the night before. This left an awesome array of icicles on the plants near by. I had to get a photo of it. I hope everybody is staying warm, its a cold weekend!
Well, I have officially made it one week!!! YaY!! I am in Austin right now watching the BCS Championship game and it is quite crazy here right now.
This picture was taken just as margarita's were being prepared for the UT - Alabama game.
Almost through my first week of the challenge and I am still going strong. Today's photo is one that I feel like I will probably have to explain, because of the title. I have a weird little thing when it comes to naming my guitars, all four of them are named after a moon of Jupiter. Within this picture are Io (front), Callisto (back), and Europa (right), the fourth (Leda) is not seen in this picture.
The best explanation of how that got started is because Steve Vai named his guitars Flo and Evo. Because of this, I decided that I wanted to be cool and name my guitars as well, but because I am a nerd I had to be different. I am sure that throughout this year, these guitars will be in more than just this one photograph.
Well day 5 is up earlier than the previous additions, maybe I am getting better at this. I have previously photographed these light bulbs but I had never thought to try and take more than one at a time. For as much as I like to use reflections whenever possible, I am surprised this shot never happened before. On Thursday, I will be heading to Austin. Hopefully I will be able to upload photos from my laptop, it will just have to be the raw files and not touched up in Photoshop. That will be interesting.
Day 4...almost through the first week. As it goes on I have noticed how much more it is making me take pictures of subjects I normally wouldn't. Hopefully by the end of it all I will have over 300 great pictures that I can be proud of, maybe.
Today's picture is another that was taken just inside my own room. I did go out and practice taking baseball shots of my brother while he was practicing, but decided not to use them. So here you have it, just in the nick of time today, my favorite pair of sneakers!
Here is another photo that I took today using my 50mm lens. I am still getting used to the bokeh that it provides and it can create some pretty interesting effects with blur if used properly.
Day two and I am still going! I was actually able to upload an actual picture from my camera today and I was able to use my new 50mm lens.
My subject today is my girlfriends dog Teddy. That ball in front of him is an exercise ball that seems to be his arch nemesis. Every time he is near it, he will start attacking and barking at it. I would not exactly say he is camera shy, he is more curious than shy. It is always hard to get a photo of him like this because he will charge and get right in my face.
Happy New Year!!!
Today is Day 1 in Project 365 and I am really not off to a good start. I was not satisfied with photo's that were taken after midnight at a New Years party and therefor forced myself to use my phone to snap this shot then email upload it to flickr.
Just in case you don't already know what Project 365 is, I will go ahead and explain. Project 365 means I take a picture and upload it every day for one whole year. I am hoping to make it all the way through and to help make it fresh throughout the year, I have found a few themes online I can follow. These include: only shooting B&W, Colors, Hunts, etc.
Keep on watching and hopefully every day for the next year I will have a new post and a new picture for you.
