Day 114

Here are all the guys from First Flight Bikes that went on the ride. There were a couple others that met us up there but they left before we took the picture. 

If you follow the blog regularly than you have seen all of the pictures that I have taken. I am starting a contest in September to give you guys the opportunity to win a free print (probably a 8x10 print on professional quality photo paper) of what ever photo you would like from the blog! Check back in a couple days for all of the rules but in the mean time be thinking about what picture you would like!!!

Day 113

This is one of the guys that went riding with us. Most of us stepped in the river but he took it to a whole other level. He lied down in the river. Now remember this is a mountain river so it was COLD!

Day 112

This is my dad in the foreground wiping water off of his face. I went to Pisgah national forest to go mountain bike riding. After a 15 mile ride we found a small "crick" and washed off in it. All I see in this picture is Doh!

Day 111

The empty park bench is an awe-inspiring way to capture loneliness as well as peace. I think the darkness adds a lot to this picture as well.

Day 110

This chair was sitting in a shop window just waiting for its picture to be taken.

Day 109

This building sits on the edge of Davidson college's campus. I took this picture with a 1/20 shutter speed. Hand held!!! I am so proud of my self because of how it came out. 

Day 108

With school starting I fell behind with my pictures. So to compensate my Mom and I went to Davidson at night to take a bunch of pictures. I love the night. Especially if it is in a city or even a little town. I really need to get a faster lens so that I can take picture in the night better. I love this shot.

Day 107

My cousins from Seattle came down to stay in town for a week. So while they were playing in the yard I was standing on the porch snapping their pictures with my 75-300mm lens. This worked out great because I could get far enough away that they didn't really care that I was taking their picture. I got some great action shots but the depth of field in this picture really struck me. My brother is in focus while my little cousin is out of focus but maintains the status of main subject of the photo. I love small apertures and this picture demonstrates it very well.

Day 106

For some reason I have been getting very flat and grey images lately. I used to shoot exclusively in spot metering and after reading a convincing article online I switched to evaluative. I seemed to notice that on all the shots where everything is properly exposed they will tend to be grey but if the sky is blown out than the image will be a lot better. I hope that changing back to spot metering will help this problem.

Day 105

I had to do a lot of b&w photos for my digital photography class and they were ok but I love color so much better. B&W has it's place sure but not for everything. I love me some RGB (red green blue) sliders in Lightroom! They make such a difference in the photo. I put the original underneath this one so you can see the difference.

Day 104

I love sail boats. They make great pictures and they are often on the water which can reflect very cool lighting back onto the boat which makes my job as photographer a lot easier.

Day 103

One of the quintessential photos that has to be in a photographers portfolio is a good macro flower picture. I have plenty of these pictures! Just ask my dad who sometimes teases me about how many flower pictures I take. 

Day 102

This man came to our local scout meeting and did a talk on the history of scouting. A pretty interesting talk from a really neat man!

Day 101

A typical Sunday consists of going to my Grandma's house and eating lunch before going to play disc golf. Today we skipped on the disc golf but I took my camera to her house so I could get my daily picture. This old rusty bird house in the back had neat colors and an interesting design to it. In lightroom I sharpened the image to bring out that pattern.

Day 100

This is from my driveway. I used a 10" exposure with a 1600 ISO and 3.5f. The result is a picture with really weird lighting from the middle of the night.

Day 99

Yes. This is my brother. Nothing more needs to be said.

Day 98

I really wish my camera had a bigger resolution. I took this picture with the dragonfly centered in the frame. I re-composed the image by cropping it and I lost some of my sharpness. I would love a camera with more mega-pixels. Ten just isn't cutting it when you want to do some creative cropping.

Day 97

For this picture I took the picture of a face and found the edges. I then used these as a guide to make a face out of smoke. Then I made a very colorful gradient overlay to create the colors. Obviously that is a simplified version of what I did but it gives you a general outline. I really like using photoshop and I learn a ton by following tutorials and messing around.

Day 96

Today I was trying to find something different to do with my photo. I have always seen this effect before but never really knew how to do it. It turns out that it is all done with the pen tool in photoshop so after going through several tutorials on how to use this tool I was able to create the spiraling "energy". The flaming energy balls in my hand were made in a similar fashion except I made a circle with the marquee tool instead of the pen tool. To finish it off I added fire to the energy balls and color corrected the image. I learned a lot from doing this and most of it was from just playing around. If you like the composite type images comment below and say so. I am always up to suggestions so please send them my way.

Day 95

I've wanted to do water droplet shots for a little while. This is a decent attempt but the focus is not sharp. I tried to fix this by sharpening the picture and it worked a little but its not a perfect tool so it did not fix the problem. I think I am going to re-try this later and see if I can get better focus on the water drops.

Day 94

Today at my Dad's bike shop I had the opportunity to walk around with my girlfriend and watch the annual bike race. This race was exciting because there was a breakaway that ended up lapping the main field and the picture really captures the speed of those riders. I had a relatively slow shutter speed at 1/80 so when I followed the rider with the camera the background got a really pleasing motion blur instead of the rider. A really great technique.

Day 93

Yes that is a creepy doll head. I was working at my Dad's shop today and saw this doll head stuck into the wall. I've seen it there before and when I saw it I instantly thought of a grungy dirty picture that was slightly horror-esque. I think this picture pulled it off. It has that look like the head could come crawling out of the wall as soon as you turn away.

Day 92

While walking to the car I spotted this little guy flying around. I ran inside and grabbed my camera in order to capture him. As you can see he was almost posing for me!

Day 91

I took this picture for my digital photography course. For the final exam we had to submit 18 pictures to the teacher for grading as well as an artist's statement. An artist's statement is what the artist thinks of his work as well as how they accomplish it and just general information about the art. I decided that it might be a good idea to share that with my readers. So here it is, what I think about my art and myself.

My photography is my major past time. I spend countless hours behind my camera and in front of my computer taking and editing photos. If I'm not working with my pictures I have the world wide web open to the lastest photography blog post from several different sites. I am constantly gathering information from outside sources and putting this knowledge to good use.

I take photographs with my beloved Canon EOS Rebel XSi. I manage my memories with Lightroom 3 and I retouch those moments with Photoshop CS5 extended edition. All of these tools are just a means to an end though. I started with a tiny point and shoot camera paired with some free software. Its not about the gear its about the passion.

Photography for me, is that passion. More than a hobby but a life style and a never ending inquiry. I love to capture the instance and the moment through photography. The memories that come with a that single instant are priceless. They help me remember events. Remember people, places, experiences and the good old days.

Photography is what keeps me sane and if you ask any of my friends, they will describe me as a photographer. It is what I am known as and I am not ashamed by this at all. In fact, I love being called this because it describes me, to the full extent of who I am.

Day 90

Ah the fruit of labor. Actually this is a vegetable but it is still pretty impressive. My family can not grow anything for the life of them. That includes me. This is the closest we are probably going to get to a green pepper. I took a picture while this tiny little beauty is preserved. So far it is untouched by squirrels and raccoons which contribute greatly to the black thumb of my family.

Day 88

This is a car that my dad borrowed from a friend. It is a little RC car and it is F-A-S-T. The little thing will scream by you at speeds that surpass the legal limit on my street.