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Showing posts from October, 2013

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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ABC Project, Z

I'm taking part in an ABC challenge for October. A different letter for each day. Because I need more of a photographic challenge, obviously. I'm also lazy and will just be embedding my G+ posts for this month long 26 day long project. You can catch up with the the previous photos here!
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ABC Project, Y

I'm taking part in an ABC challenge for October. A different letter for each day. Because I need more of a photographic challenge, obviously. I'm also lazy and will just be embedding my G+ posts for this month long 26 day long project. You can catch up with the the previous photos here!
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ABC Project, X

I'm taking part in an ABC challenge for October. A different letter for each day. Because I need more of a photographic challenge, obviously. I'm also lazy and will just be embedding my G+ posts for this month long 26 day long project. You can catch up with the the previous photos here!
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Blue Bay Bridge

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The Bay Bridge I was looking through my blog posts and noticed that there has been a lot  of black and white or monochrome postings. Between my black and white project, and the ABC project you have to go pretty far back to find something with vivid colors. I had a shot that I was originally going to use for today but it was basically monochrome so I'll share that one later. So then I got started working on this shot. I don't know why I thought this would end up being a vivid colorful image, because it certainly wasn't when I started it. I did, as you can obviously see, bring out some blue in the water. Probably too much, but I flip flop between too much and just a little too much. The exposure was an 8 second long exposure so I liked what it did to the water, this soft dreamy look to it. As far as processing the heavy work was done in Clarity  which has been my favorite tool to work with for just about any photo. Using the clarity sliders I was able to make the clouds p
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ABC Project, W

I'm taking part in an ABC challenge for October. A different letter for each day. Because I need more of a photographic challenge, obviously. I'm also lazy and will just be embedding my G+ posts for this month long 26 day long project. You can catch up with the the previous photos here!
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ABC Project, V

I'm taking part in an ABC challenge for October. A different letter for each day. Because I need more of a photographic challenge, obviously. I'm also lazy and will just be embedding my G+ posts for this month long 26 day long project. You can catch up with the the previous photos here!
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ABC Project, U

I'm taking part in an ABC challenge for October. A different letter for each day. Because I need more of a photographic challenge, obviously. I'm also lazy and will just be embedding my G+ posts for this month long 26 day long project. You can catch up with the the previous photos here!
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Weekly Photo Projects, Week 42

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Foggy day on the pier I've been shooting/processing a lot of black and white photos over the course of October, so when I saw the theme for  +Weekly Photo Project 2013  was Black and White, I wasn't as excited for it as I had been about a month ago. A foggy day, making high contrast black and whites harder to come by, didn't help. But a foggy day does make it easier to "see" in monochrome. I wanted to somehow use the fog in my shot, and I think this worked out pretty well. Straight on leaf For  +Project 52 B&W  I knew what kind of shot I wanted. That cliche shot of a fallen leaf either in a puddle or just on the ground. As you can see, this is not that shot. This is the shot I take when I procrastinate and don't have the time to get the shot I wanted. I do like how it came out though, with the detail looking nice. You can view my Weekly Photo Project album here . My black & white project album here .
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ABC Project, T

I'm taking part in an ABC challenge for October. A different letter for each day. Because I need more of a photographic challenge, obviously. I'm also lazy and will just be embedding my G+ posts for this month long 26 day long project. You can catch up with the the previous photos here!
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ABC Project, S

I'm taking part in an ABC challenge for October. A different letter for each day. Because I need more of a photographic challenge, obviously. I'm also lazy and will just be embedding my G+ posts for this month long 26 day long project. You can catch up with the the previous photos here!
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ABC Project, R

I'm taking part in an ABC challenge for October. A different letter for each day. Because I need more of a photographic challenge, obviously. I'm also lazy and will just be embedding my G+ posts for this month long 26 day long project. You can catch up with the the previous photos here!
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ABC Project, Q

I'm taking part in an ABC challenge for October. A different letter for each day. Because I need more of a photographic challenge, obviously. I'm also lazy and will just be embedding my G+ posts for this month long 26 day long project. You can catch up with the the previous photos here!
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Vintage Golden Gate

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Sepia Gate Bridge Though I only show usually three photos a week on here I work on a lot more. Usually I have an idea as to what I want the finished photo to look like, but sometimes I go into working on a photo with no real idea on what I want. I went into Black & White Effects  wanting to get a dramatic look, but the overall flatness of the image (it was a cloudy, surprise, and dull looking day) wasn't helping things out. So then I thought I'd just play around with the image and see what I could do. First thing to do was to bring in a sepia tone to the image. This is a light yellowish tone that often makes a photo look old or vintage. I don't get to often play with sepia toning because my black & white group is/was kind of strict about what makes a black & white photo. Which, now that I think of it, makes sense; sepia toned shots probably fall under the category of monochrome. So after sepia-ing it up I felt that the charm of the bridge was missing. So I
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ABC Project, P

I'm taking part in an ABC challenge for October. A different letter for each day. Because I need more of a photographic challenge, obviously. I'm also lazy and will just be embedding my G+ posts for this month long 26 day long project. You can catch up with the the previous photos here!
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ABC Project, O

I'm taking part in an ABC challenge for October. A different letter for each day. Because I need more of a photographic challenge, obviously. I'm also lazy and will just be embedding my G+ posts for this month long 26 day long project. You can catch up with the the previous photos here!
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ABC Project, N

I'm taking part in an ABC challenge for October. A different letter for each day. Because I need more of a photographic challenge, obviously. I'm also lazy and will just be embedding my G+ posts for this month long 26 day long project. You can catch up with the the previous photos here!
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Weekly Photo Projects, Week 41

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Mirrored Clouds  For  +Weekly Photo Project 2013   our theme was Mirror. I experimented with some shots of mirrors that I didn't really like but lucked out with this shot. Great big puffy clouds over some relatively calm water. Didn't do too much to the photo, though I did use Clarity  to accentuate the clouds even more and Detail  a little on the clouds and in the water to, oddly enough, blur the water more. Spoiled? Street Photography for  +Project 52 B&W . I don't really like shooting street photography. I feel like I'm spying on people. I want to ask them if I can photograph them, but then the spontaneity of a shot is gone. This shot was fun, and I didn't feel like I was spying too much. This was also shot with the wonderful 20mm Panasonic 1.7 pancake lens that a friend let me borrow. I really like this lens for its size and sharpness. Not to mention that fast 1.7 aperture! My only gripe is how slow it is when focusing. I was lucky this dog was thi
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ABC Project, M

I'm taking part in an ABC challenge for October. A different letter for each day. Because I need more of a photographic challenge, obviously. I'm also lazy and will just be embedding my G+ posts for this month long 26 day long project. You can catch up with the the previous photos here!
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ABC Project, L

I'm taking part in an ABC challenge for October. A different letter for each day. Because I need more of a photographic challenge, obviously. I'm also lazy and will just be embedding my G+ posts for this month long 26 day long project. You can catch up with the the previous photos here!
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ABC Project, K

I'm taking part in an ABC challenge for October. A different letter for each day. Because I need more of a photographic challenge, obviously. I'm also lazy and will just be embedding my G+ posts for this month long 26 day long project. You can catch up with the the previous photos here!
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ABC Project, J

I'm taking part in an ABC challenge for October. A different letter for each day. Because I need more of a photographic challenge, obviously. I'm also lazy and will just be embedding my G+ posts for this month long 26 day long project. You can catch up with the the previous photos here!
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Infrared Clouds

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Infrared Clouds Every so often I'll look out my window and see a shot that works for X kind of processing or method, or kind. When I shot this a couple weeks ago I looked out my window and saw great big white clouds with a deep blue sky backdrop that I knew would work for some dramatic looks if shot in infrared. And I wasn't disappointed. Take a look at the RAW color, the in camera B&W conversion, and a quick HDR'd version and see for yourself: RAW, In-camer B&W, and HDR'd In each of the "natural light" versions above the clouds look flat and listless, nothing how I remember seeing them. It was almost as if the clouds overwhelmed the camera sensor. Looking over the shots from that day I remember being disappointed when I ran across the color RAWs and camera B&Ws  and was preparing for more disappointment when I got to the shots with the IR filter on. I like to try and take a number of shots in the natural light before putting the IR filte
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ABC Project, I

I'm taking part in an ABC challenge for October. A different letter for each day. Because I need more of a photographic challenge, obviously. I'm also lazy and will just be embedding my G+ posts for this month long 26 day long project.
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ABC Project, H

I'm taking part in an ABC challenge for October. A different letter for each day. Because I need more of a photographic challenge, obviously. I'm also lazy and will just be embedding my G+ posts for this month long 26 day long project.
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Weekly Photo Projects, Week 40

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Blinding Lights The theme for  +Project 52 B&W  was Lyrically Inspired. You remember back in class when you would be assigned to write some essay that you thought was stupid? That was my thinking on this. AND! And it involved more work because you had to find a song that would work for a photo. Or you could shoot a photo and find a song, but still, it's a two step process. So I found a song that I really (see video below) and thought I'd find a photo that worked for it. Please note I said "find" and not "shoot". To the archives I went. This shot of San Francisco worked just nicely. In the conversion I played up the contrast, pumped up the whites and got some blinding lights for U2's City of Blinding Lights . Angelic Colors I wasn't having any inspiration hit me photographically. Sure the ABC Project was easy enough, but I didn't know what I was going to shoot for  +Weekly Photo Project 2013  and our theme of Colors. Or Colours. S
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ABC Project, G

I'm taking part in an ABC challenge for October. A different letter for each day. Because I need more of a photographic challenge, obviously. I'm also lazy and will just be embedding my G+ posts for this month long 26 day long project.
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ABC Project, F

I'm taking part in an ABC challenge for October. A different letter for each day. Because I need more of a photographic challenge, obviously. I'm also lazy and will just be embedding my G+ posts for this month long 26 day long project.
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Photo in Favorites!

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Favorites! A little horn tooting today. I submitted a photo for the email group Favorites curated by Heather Champ  and it got picked! You can view it, with the other chosen photos for this past week here , and be sure to sign up to receive the weekly email here . The photo I submitted was from this past Thursday’s post  in infrared and black and white. I first heard about Favorites from  +Chuq Von Rospach  and this blog post .
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ABC Project, E

I'm taking part in an ABC challenge for October. A different letter for each day. Because I need more of a photographic challenge, obviously. I'm also lazy and will just be embedding my G+ posts for this month long 26 day long project.
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ABC Project, D

I'm taking part in an ABC challenge for October. A different letter for each day. Because I need more of a photographic challenge, obviously. I'm also lazy and will just be embedding my G+ posts for this month long 26 day long project.
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ABC Project, C

I'm taking part in an ABC challenge for October. A different letter for each day. Because I need more of a photographic challenge, obviously. I'm also lazy and will just be embedding my G+ posts for this month long 26 day long project.
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On the IR Road

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On the IR Road This was one of those, "what would happen if I do this?" shots. I had been taking some infrared shots for my black & white project  when I thought I'd step out onto the road and try a shot. As I mentioned in the linked post my 720nm IR filter and my non-converted to IR G3 don't make a good combination for faux color IR shots, but with a little help from Black & White Effects  I'm able to get some very high contrasty shots in black and white. Check out the shadows on the right side. I think they play with the mind a little; to see all this deep dark blacks yet still have shadows on the road is kind of a mind trick. I suggest clicking on the photo to see it full screen.
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ABC Project, B

I'm taking part in an ABC challenge for October. A different letter for each day. Because I need more of a photographic challenge, obviously. I'm also lazy and will just be embedding my G+ posts for this month long 26 day long project.
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ABC Project, A

I'm taking part in an ABC challenge for October. A different letter for each day. Because I need more of a photographic challenge, obviously. I'm also lazy and will just be embedding my G+ posts for this month long 26 day long project.
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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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