Roadside Barn
This little barn sits just outside of Davenport, Iowa. The doors don’t appear to work anymore as they are off the tracks or off the hinges. In looking for a good barn to photograph without burning lots of gas randomly driving around in my limited time with a car, I resorted to Google Street View. I was able to find some good spots which also provided some spontaneous subjects along the way.
For this shot, I like the detail in the wood and clouds and how it all comes together. This is nice in color as well, but the black & white brings out the contrast nicely.
Deep in Thought
This image pretty much sums up how I’ve been feeling the last couple weeks. Completely wrapped up in what I’m doing and oblivious to the outside world. I think I have caught up, for now, to all I need to get done and can resume posting here.
What we’re looking at is my four-year-old daughter (she would correct me, 4 1/2) painting a mug for Mother’s day. This was a great moment where she paused to figure out what her next move was to trace the outline of what she wanted to paint.
Salsify, Revisited
Lets take a break from the California coast and once again revisit our (well maybe just my) favorite gigantic dandelion, the Salsify plant and its softball-sized seed ball. Before this year, I had never heard or seen one before. Now they are all over the place. It must have something to do with the abnormally cold weather we’ve been subject to.
To get these images, attempted to pick the seed head off the plant to give it a proper backdrop. Unlike a regular dandelion where this is a trivial task, salsify required me to resort to more aggressive tactics like such as employing a pair of scissors because breaking the fibrous stem by hand was difficult and risked disrupting the seeds.
Salsify Seeds II
What do you do when you don’t have a macro lens and you want to get on the Dandelion Bandwagon (1, 2, 3)? Get a bigger dandelion! Again, we have Salsify seeds setup in my ‘studio’. In the afternoon, the sun comes through a window in my house and has served as my back-lighting system for awhile. I think it worked well here. The one thing I don’t have and need is a black backdrop to make something like this stand out even better.
The details in the fibers are wonderful. Click through to see them in good detail.
Trying Something New
Since tonight is another club competition, I thought it might be fun to show the entries first, and encourage judge-like critiquing. After the competition, I’ll share the criticisms I got on the images. I’m all for hearing the specifics, so don’t hold back. Comment on one, or all of them if you like. 
The categories this week are Color Pictorial, Monochrome Pictorial, Photojournalism, and Travel. We are allowed to submit one image per category.
 Color Pictorial: A Blossoming Storm  Monochrome Pictorial: Goofball  Photojournalism: Preparing for the Boat Race - San Francisco, CA  Travel: Market Post Tower, San Jose CA |
To set the mood, I previously entered A Blossoming Storm into competition (we’re allowed to enter one image a maximum of two times). It didn’t place the first time and received the following criticism: “A wonderful image, especially around the bottom third. Great drama with the clouds and flowers. The stuff in the top right, it doesn’t belong. The flowers aren’t facing the camera and it is distracting. “
Caught
I really like this image. This is a single grab-shot that I got really lucky with. Walking through downtown, I noticed a nice row of benches curling around in the park across the street. Surprisingly, there were no people walking around at the time. Just this one gentleman who was sitting on the center bench watching the world go by. I liked the scene, which was about to vanish as the crosswalk signal was turning green, sending pedestrians scurrying. The scene was about to vanish forever. Thankfully, the camera was already in aperture priority mode so I didn’t have to fuss with it. Rather, just lift, check the corners and shoot. And just as soon as the shutter fired, I lost the scene. No do-overs.
After taking it, I thought it would be nice but nothing special. That changed when I brought it up at home, in Lightroom. As it turns out, he wasn’t the only one in the cross-hairs. I was as well! His expression made this photo!
Day of the Living Goofball
I love dark, gritty images, so lets go dark again and keep up the variety. I’ll opt-out of telling the story behind this one to let your imagination kick in.
Another Good Round
Last night’s photo club was good. I entered four images, one in each digital category (I have not yet submitted prints) and won first in each. These, along with my last entries will be judged together along with the top photos from clubs in the area at the next bimonthly 6C competition. I am very curious how they fare at that event. This is all very exciting.
 Good Morning San Francisco - Ferry Building, San Francisco, CA - Travel (Digital)  Wish Maker - Monochrome (Digital) |
 The Terror of Happy Hollow - San Jose, CA - Photojournalism (Digital)  Mystical Morning - Color Pictorial (Digital) |
The Terror of Happy Hollow
Happy Hollow Park & Zoo has a new kid-sized roller coaster. As much as I tried to encourage my adventurous daughter (guess which one) to ride in the front so I could get a good photo, she declined. She wanted the back since it goes faster. The other, well she didn’t enjoy things quite so much. I love this photo and just how different the everyone’s expressions are!
Lone Tree, Morgan Hill
Today I’m taking things in a completely different direction. It’s all about experimenting for me in this shot. I’m going for a sense of old, a sense of dark, and a bit scary. Almost like a zombie silhouette will appear over the hill. I really like the steep angle, the white fence and the low clouds in this shot. I’m also a fan of trying to make some eerie images, even if I’m the only one that appreciates them. (see my parking garage set. Another experiment with the dark side)
I’m curious what works and what doesn’t on this shot. Let me know.
Sweetgum Monkeyball
The other day, a coworker gave me these monkeyballs from the sweetgum tree as a challenge to make an interesting photo with. The weather and lighting weren’t right for the first couple of days. However, this evening, the light was cooperating and I was able to take the shots I was envisioning. The texture and shadow works good here. I think I fulfilled the challenge nicely .
The Reluctant Gardener
Having a bit of fun with the evening light and water. I’m not sure if the expression here is one of boredom or concentration.
#ds130 – Time to revisit a traditional photographic look. Make a black and white photo with high contrast today.
Past Prime
I like this shot. However, I have no idea what kind of plant it is. If you know, please let me know and I’ll update this post. I took this at Shoreline Lake in Mountain View.
Seagull in Flight
This was shot at Shoreline Lake in Mountain View. This time, the camera was properly setup for bird photography. I like the tones and position of the Seagull here.
Counter-Clockwise to Open
A brief walk today to fill my Daily Shoot assignment led me to this lock on the door of a utility box outside the office complex.
The DS assignment shot also turned out pretty good:
#DS71 – “Right (90-degree) angles can help define a composition. Make a photograph involving intersecting lines. (@lyzadanger)”
Cars, Bridge, Camera and Purple Haze – Daily Shoot 65,66,68,70
A wide range of shot types today. I fell behind last week on my Daily Shoot assignments so I spent some time this weekend to catch up.
Foot Bridge Over Freeway at Night (ds70 - Sunday challenge: Experiment with shutter speed today by making a photo with a long exposure.)
Camera Self Portrait - Canon DS50 (ds66 - Make your camera the star of the show today. Use another camera or mirror to put your camera in a photo of its own.)
Coming and Going on Highway 101 (ds65 - Make an interesting photo of a mode of transportation today: car, plane, bicycle, subway, or whatever you like!)
Purple Haze (ds68 - Let's have some fun on a Friday. Make a photo that goes with the title (or lyrics) of a song. Interpret away!)
Window View – Daily Shoot 47
#ds47: “The new year represents opportunity. Make a photo of a scene looking out a window.”
The great part about taking the caltrain is the view from the window constantly changes. The bad part is that for the most part, the view is not very good. This is a shot of downtown San Jose from the upper deck of the train with the HP Pavillion just to the left.
Recent Comments