Weekly Photo Challenge: Happy Place

There is no doubt about it, I love to be outside. I don’t always take my camera with me because I find that having my camera changes everything. I tend to be more analytical with my camera in hand. Sometimes, I find myself looking for photos instead of just enjoying the moment. Then there are the days when I plan to take my camera. A few weeks ago it was sunny and warm after a few days of cooler weather.  I went looking for bees, they didn’t disappoint:

ISO 125 200mm 0ev f/8 1/400

Now there are some who would point out that the light is too harsh in this photo, that I went at the wrong time of day and the light is all wrong. Technically, they are right. My argument against that line of thinking goes something like this, to me this harsh light creates huge contrast between the light and dark parts of the image and that says Fall to me. Fall is what I was trying to capture here.  Also, being outside just makes me happy, the time of day doesn’t matter so much to me.

When I got this photo home, I was pleased with its clarity.  So, in Photoshop I cropped it, messed with the levels a bit to bring down the harshest of the highlights, and then sharpened it a bit.  Here is the original:

ISO 125 200mm 0ev f/8 1/400

I think the crop helps this photo a lot.  I’ll also say that I used my 200mm lens to be able to get in close to the bee, but not be so close that I would bother it.

How about you, do you have a favorite place to shoot? would you consider yourself more of an indoor or outdoor person? Anything you’d like to say about the edits I have done?  Feel free to leave a comment below.

Cheers!