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Showing posts from October, 2012

Running... Again?

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  If you know me you know there was a time about 10 years ago or so where I was running. A lot. At least 5 days a week and at least 5 miles a run. I wasn’t training, I wasn’t preparing for a race or a marathon. I just found myself enjoying the time spent running. I wasn’t obsessed with numbers, but I kept track of them all and liked seeing improvements in time and distances. It was good physical health and mental health. Then I tweaked my knee. Not bad enough that I couldn’t walk on it, just a tweak that told me I needed to back off of running for a little bit. So I decided on 2 weeks. At the end of 2 weeks I aborted a run very early as the pain was still there. 2 weeks became 3, became a month, became 5 years. 
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Week 44 GPlus Project 52: Reflection

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Reflections of a bridge I knew what I wanted to shoot for this week's theme of reflection, it was just a matter of weather and timing to work out. Luckily it did. Originally featured as one of my favorites of 2011 , I went back to the same place hoping for the same magic. It wasn't quite the same magic, as the fog got in the way. I was able to get some shots without the fog, but I ended up choosing this one because I liked how the reflection of the bridge stood out more so than the reflections of the clouds, which can be a little distracting. As far as photo processing went I did very little. I boosted the saturation a little and cropped. You can view this, and the rest of my Project 52 photos here .
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Fire in the sky

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Winter is making it's presence known with grey skies, and rain. I don't mind it when it rains and storms, but daily grey weather is kind of depressing. So with that mindset I came across this photo that I shot back in May(!) that, to be honest, doesn't come close to capturing what I saw. It wasn't a rainbow it was a streak. It took a lot of work to really bring out the streak, and in some ways I'm still not 100% happy with this. I don't know if it's an equipment issue, user issue (most likely) or not having the proper training/tools in post processing, but after far too long I've gotten it here. It's close to what I saw, but still lacking. Either way it'll be a good reminder that blue skies do still exist, just have to wait until May! Fire in the sky
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Week 43 GPlus Project 52 Openings

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An Opening, for week 42 This week's shot was a quick one, and a staged one. I don't normally like taking staged shots, but as I took the shot last night, and shots are due this evening, I didn't have much of a choice. I had wanted to get more flare from the light of the door, but it didn't quite work that way, and I was too lazy to try and get it through processing. You can view this, and the rest of my Project 52 photos here .
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My Dad

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Dad, in his throne A week ago my dad died, succumbing to a fast and aggressive cancer located in his neck diagnosed in May. He was 78 and passed peacefully at home. Dad wasn't a talker, a trait jokingly (honestly?) said to be passed on to other Harley men, which made growing up with him trying. He wasn't the hands on teacher type, I think he just expected me to know how to do things or how to behave. But, when you misbehaved you could be assured of him letting you know about it.
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Week 42 GPlus Project 52 Black & White

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Trinity Church Our theme for week 42 was an easy one for me, black & white. The difficulty was finding a good  subject for it. Immediately a couple came to mind; one I have shot before, the Trinidad Memorial Lighthouse, just not with the intention of converting to black & white, and one I've seen from a distance but never up close. Luckily they were both in the same town so I thought I could do both and choose which I liked better. It turns out that there are only so many ways to shoot the lighthouse, and I wasn't seeing anything which interested me, so I went in search of subject number two, a small church in town. This town is very small and for the life of me I couldn't find it, but thanks to Google I was able to locate and get some shots done before the sunset entirely. I lucked out with the clouds thinning in areas to give a little more contrast in the background.
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Location: 651-653 Parker St, Trinidad, CA 95570, USA
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Winter Falls

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This was from my second outing with the infrared filter, and I was really pleased with this shot. The only thing I did with this shot was play around with the white balance and the toning. I've still not come up with a good way to take out the red without going to a full black and white shot, and since I said I wouldn't do a black and white shot this week that wasn't an option. Due to the nature of the lighting I have some pretty bad blown out areas due to the 1 minute exposure setting. Also due to the 60 second exposure the background isn't very sharp, and this was a relatively windless day. Infrared Falls
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Week 41 GPlus Project 52 Body Part

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Fingers hard at work I had only one idea for this week, but it turned out to be too personal and difficult to shoot. So, with time running down we have my hands hard at work, possibly even typing up this post. As far as how the shot was taken? A tripod off to the right of me, a 10 second timer on the camera and that's it. In post processing I dealt with a little noise, and white balance. This isn't one of my favorite shots from the project. You can view this, and the rest of my Project 52 photos here . You can view this, and the rest of my Project 52 photos here .
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Bridge of Mystery

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I hate coming up with photo titles. I wanted to just say, "black and white bridge" but I was told that is  boring. This was taken on the opposite side from my Monday shot . The fog was coming in and the black and white conversion really helped emphasize that. I also tried to not post a black and white shot today, since this would make three in a row, but I really liked it. Next week I promise to try to not post a B&W. Bridge of Mystery
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Week 40 GPlus Project 52 Colors

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Art Not Crime for Week 40 Colors was the theme for this week. On a grey day with a grey backdrop this colorful graffiti caught my eye. Is it art? Is it graffiti? The shot is a 5 shot HDR capture with some editing to bring out the grittier details in the walkway. You can view this, and the rest of my Project 52 photos here .
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New Look

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I've been playing around with a new look for this blog for a while now. In fact I'd say for the better part of the year I've been wanting to change the look here. I thought I'd try Blogger's Dynamic views, but I really wasn't happy with the look, though I didn't think I really liked the look of it prior to that change. Blogger is a great platform to build on because you can theme it how you like. But I really didn't have the drive to come up with my own theme. Basically I'm lazy about this blog. I want it to function, look good, and be easy to work on. So then I went template searching.
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Popular posts from this blog

Running... Again?

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  If you know me you know there was a time about 10 years ago or so where I was running. A lot. At least 5 days a week and at least 5 miles a run. I wasn’t training, I wasn’t preparing for a race or a marathon. I just found myself enjoying the time spent running. I wasn’t obsessed with numbers, but I kept track of them all and liked seeing improvements in time and distances. It was good physical health and mental health. Then I tweaked my knee. Not bad enough that I couldn’t walk on it, just a tweak that told me I needed to back off of running for a little bit. So I decided on 2 weeks. At the end of 2 weeks I aborted a run very early as the pain was still there. 2 weeks became 3, became a month, became 5 years. 
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The Pros and (Mostly) Cons of Upgrading to a 4K Monitor

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I'm in the process of getting back into photography which will mean a new camera, more on that in a later post. But the first step for me was a new computer, one with the horsepower to handle a modern day camera and its RAW files. Along with the computer comes a new 4K monitor. 4K is great for media consumption, right? Your characters on your favorite show or movie really look detailed and realistic. Scenery looks wonderful. Everything looks great, right? Wrong. You know what doesn't look great? That photo I took in 2012 that I thought was sharp but is very much not. I transferred over my past catalogs of photos over to Lightroom Classic and eagerly began opening up some of my favorite photos. At first I was happy with how the colors looked and how the scene was composed. Then I noticed it was a little soft. Well I had just gotten a new contacts prescription so that must be it. Changed to my glasses and the photos were even blurrier! I went through photo after photo and most ca
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