What I Am Working On: The Road Ahead

So, technically it’s not a road, it’s a path. Also, I’m not exactly on it:

ISO 25 f/2.2 1/50sec 4.2mm

But I do love this spot. A green space in the middle of the city with such gorgeous trees, what’s not to love? I’ve been walking through this park a lot in the last week, it helps me clear my head a bit. There’s a lot going on in the world and in my life. Being near this path reminds me that it is actually about the journey, it’s not important that I don’t have all the details worked out yet. The photo though, I like it, so I edited it a bit:

ISO 25 f/2.2 1/50sec 4.2mm

First was the crop, it helps to bring the path and the trees a bit more into focus. I’ve added a custom vintage film look that I created within Luminar. To me, that settles the image a bit more into the way this setting lives in my mind. It’s a bit more rich and deep in my mind than in real life. That’s me bringing my journey on the path along and placing it in the photo.

Your thoughts and comments are welcome below. This post was written in response to the Len-Artists Photo Challenge, Long and Winding Road.

Cheers!

 

Searching for Spring

I know Spring is coming.  It has been a bit slow in getting here though.  We have had a lot of (needed) rain.  The other morning I went running at 7am and it was 29 degrees and windy, not my ideal!  With that in mind I went for a walk in the park searching for signs of Spring.  Here are two photos I found:

ISO 800 4mm 0ev f/8 1/1000

I deliberately blurred the background because I found it distracting from the buds on the trees.  The fast shutter speed gives away the fact that it was windy and I needed the speed to freeze the motion of the branch.

Here is my next shot.  I was a bit sad to find these on the bench.  Someone picked them and then left them there, I’m not sure why you would do that.  Although given that this is at a playground, it is possible that it was a little someone who just didn’t know any better.  Anyway, daffodils are my favorite:

ISO 800 4mm 0ev f/8 1/800

I liked the color in the flowers contrasting with the lack of color in the bench.  I didn’t arrange this photo at all, the scene was just like this and I took the picture.  Kind of neat when that just happens!

I took both of these photos with my Canon Powershot ELPH.  In Aperture I cropped them.  No other editing for either photo.

Cheers!

Travel Theme: Roads

One of the things that I love about the travel photo challenges at Where’s my backpack? is that it makes me think about all the things I haven’t taken photos of.  This week the theme is roads.  I don’t really think about roads all that much I guess; at the very least I don’t take many pictures of them.  Here are a few I came up with:

ISO 100 20mm 0ev f/11 1/160

ISO 100 9mm 0ev f/7.1 1/100

ISO 640 100mm 0ev f/5.6 1/40

That photo taken on a ferry features our car, the green one loaded down with bikes, headed from Kingston to Wolfe Island for a lovely day of biking. Wolfe Island is part of the Thousand Islands in Ontario Canada.  Windy but beautiful.  The street sign photo I took walking around Toronto on a rainy day.  The deer making a dash for it is an example of many blurry photos like it that I have of wildlife trying to survive amid the roads that we build.

Cheers!

Just here, trying to take a picture

I’m guessing that if you are reading this, you can relate to what I am going to say.  It’s a busy time of year.  For me recently that has meant I have fewer opportunities to take pictures and edit them.  Like everyone else, I do the best I can.  I take pictures as often as possible, which is what led to this photo.

ISO 2500 50mm 0ev f/1.8 1/200

I took this a few nights ago at a local park.  I just happened to be there for another event, and had my camera with me.  My thought was to do a bracketed exposure, but I didn’t set my camera correctly, and so I just had a single image.  In Aperture I created two other versions of this photo and changed the exposure value on them.  So then I had three photos each with a different exposure value, -1, 0, and 1.  Then I put the three into Photomatix to make an HDR image.  Of the different versions, I liked a color version best. So I exported that back into Aperture.  Then I changed my mind.  About the color that is.  I converted the image into sepia and the result is what you see above.

Cheers!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Changing Seasons

The WordPress photo challenge for this week is changing seasons.  I have put together a few photos from different times from this past summer and fall of a local park:

ISO 100 28mm 0ev f/20 1/20

ISO 800 135mm -0.33 f/22 1/160

ISO 100 28mm 0ev f/9 1/80

ISO 64 4mm f/2.8 iPhone

Cheers!

Landscape shot with a fountain

I took this last week while I was working on a landscape photography assignment:

ISO 200 f/22 1/100 28mm

I liked the view of the fountain against the detail of the statue.

Cheers!

A walk in the park

I love walking in the local park.  I got this photo:

ISO 800 135mm f/22 1/160

It was bright out, so I was trying to take advantage of the light to get a high f-stop and shutter speed.  The petals are still a bit bright, even though I toned it down in Aperture.  There were a lot of bees out on the particular day.  I probably could have gotten a better picture if I could have been shooting either earlier in the day or later.

Cheers!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Solitary

ISO 100 8mm f/4 1/100

One of anything is what solitary meant to me as I was thinking about the WordPress photo challenge for this week.  I was out on walk with my larger camera and tripod, but decided to use my point and shoot for this image.  My camera bag is acting as a sun shade since it was the middle of the day.

Cheers!

Happy Accident

I was at the park and got this shot with my iPhone:

ISO 64 4mm f/2.8 1/1193

I was really pleased with the way it turned out.  I have cropped it, darkened the right corner, and sharpened it in Aperture.  It was taken at noon, which I know is against the photography rules, but it was a cloudy day, which kept the lighting from being too bright.

Cheers!