123

A few days ago while walking to my zero block at 7:15, I noticed that the sun rose right behind my school. The class room is at the bottom of a big hill so the next day I brought my camera and set up my tripod at the top and started snapping pictures as the sun rose.

Day 122

Today you can get some bonus points. If you can leave a comment below that correctly states my favorite part of this picture than I will give you 10 extra points in the contest.

Day 121

I recently discovered that there is a "secret" road in my neighborhood. I discovered this little road by just getting out of the house. It is very peaceful and it is gorgeous with the sun setting behind it. It is amazing that these types of things exist when we don't know about them. This picture does not do it justice. That's for sure.

Day 120

This is ugly grass. I don't know what is really called but it is kinda ugly. Do you like the picture? Or do you think the selective coloring just adds to the ugliness of the ugly grass?

Day 119

This is my brother Sam. Times six. One of him is bad enough! To get correct exposure for all of the Sams in the photo I had to change shutter speed for each exposure. This made post processing a lot harder but it looks so good so I'm not complaining. 

Contest standings:

1st Jeff - 30pts

2nd David - 25pts

3rd - Savannah - 20 pts

Keep commenting!!!

Day 118

This little flower has some interesting critters on it. If you know what they are please share! I like bugs. Well, pictures of them at least. Their wings are my favorite. I love the intricate patterns and translucency that make them so mesmerizing.

Day 117

Today I decided I had to get out of the house. The pictures there were way to repetitive and it needed to get better soon. Apparently, when you ride your bike around the neighborhood you find stuff like this to take pictures of. This little flower was in the middle of the lake. It was a really shallow section were the water was only a foot deep. The mud at the bottom was another 8 inches or so. To get this picture I had to trek out into the middle of this "swamp" and get and squat down to get a low angle. I like the results though. It was well worth it in my opinion.

Day 116

A couple days ago I mentioned a contest. The contest I mentioned is going to start today. First, the rules. The winner will be the person with the most points at the end of this month. You can accumulate points by either...

1. Posting a comment on the blog. (10 Points)

2. Referring a friend to the site. To get credit for this one, your friend has to comment on a picture saying you referred them to the site. (30 Points)

3. Suggesting a topic for a picture via a comment. (15 points)

Now... 

Restrictions on these points. I am posting these restrictions so that someone one cant just comment a billion times on one picture and end up winning.

1. You can only get credit for two comments a day. These two comments include a topic suggestion. For example you could post a comment and a suggestion for a total of 25 points or two comments for 20.

2. The topic suggestions can not be bogus. They have to be an actual good idea. Do not tell me to go take a picture of water because you wont get points for a topic suggestion or a comment. Instead suggest I take a picture of water dripping from an umbrella.

3. The same thing goes for comments. If you say some thing like "Good picture!" or "Wow. That picture really blows" then you will not get credit for the comment. Be detailed about what you liked or didn't like in your comments.

4. I have veto power on all comments and topic suggestions. I can say that's a stupid comment that took no thought from the person that wrote it and completely deny you of all your glorious points.

5. Every day I will try to post the top three people in the competition and how many points they have that way you know how far you have to go to kick them from their podium!

I know that after reading all of this you are asking yourself, "This sounds like a ton of fun and all but whats in it for me?" 

Well the answer to that question is an awesome, amazing 8x10 print of any of the photos on the blog! I will print what ever picture you want on professional quality photo paper and deliver it to you free of charge!!! So get a move on. You only have a month to accumulate points so the sooner you start the better off you are. If you have any questions leave a comment below. I am looking forward to seeing who ends up on top after this month.

Day 115

I have now officially felt the now familiar work load of IB home work. Its a lot. We have an AP world history class that is supposed to be taught over a whole school year but we have to do it in half that time. I'm not complaining but it has definitely become harder to post the picture of the day on the day.

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.