Ladybug and Flower

I hate naming my photographs. Either I choose something completely descriptive, which adds nothing beyond what you get when you see the picture, or I will be tempted to choose something like "AEther mind storm" which is just a load of croc.

Soccer Players

So I really like these pics. I guess they are portraits, except they weren't posed or taken in a studio. Humans (except the autistic ones) are really keyed in to a face, so much so that even a picture of a face in the room can influence psychological experiments. It's probably like my love of converging lines....I love them because they are easy and powerful. On the other hand, I really have no talent at getting people to pose. Isn't it ironic?

The blue and the gray

Ok, I have to say that the last one it my favorite, because it really has that "old timey" feel. Except that film back then was like....ISO 10, so no horse could have held this pose for long enough to get a good exposure back in the day. Also, the guy looks more like a bandit hiding out in the mountians of mexico.....

Yurtle the Turtle

Taken in the turtles majestic and wild habitat: Central Park.

U.S. Open

Awwww Nuts!!

So I was playing with the vibrance slider in Lightroom, and I'm worried I may have overdone it. Anyways, I like the diagonal lines, and I always love playing with depth of field. I like the pattern of light and shadows on the table as well.

Updates

Alright, so Carl gave me some suggestions on some of these, and I'm also developing my skill with lightroom and photoshop, so take a look at the new versions.

exposition/failure

one has the perfect composition, but is out of focus, and the other has a crappy horizon line where there shouldn't be anything.

The return of the post

So with a title like that, I suppose I should have had a LOTR themed picture, but I don't, so tough. This is a flower (or bud, I guess) that I found at my Granparents' house in Cleveland. It was about a foot in front of an off-white wall, which gave me the option to put some negative space around my composition without worrying about distracting backgrounds. Also, this shot in particular came out exceedingly sharp, which is kind of like taking off a shoe that dosen't fit. Many of my pics are just a tiny bit out of focus, which you don't notice until you see a shot that is perfectly in focus. I actually didn't realize my camera and lens could produce pics this sharp. The composition, as well, is nice. Repeated forms are always good. I think if I could do it again, I would move the camera a bit more to the right in order to get a bit more separation between the buds.

FIRE!!

So I took like 20 pictures of firing canons, and only one came out just right. I love the way the smoke is jetting out the top. It makes me want to play some civil war computer game or something. I didn't do much of anything to this one. Just some basic contrast adjustments and sharpening.

Call of the Wild

Go to a bark park. See cool dog. Imagine cool dog fighting wolves and pulling sled. Take picture.

Youth

From the Warsaw Ghetto Memorial. There is this whole sweet sculpture with a bunch of people on it, all with the noblest expressions on their faces. It is a really beautiful piece of art, and I hope I did it justice.

Buggers

Well, ants actually. They have a lot of noise b/c I had to shoot at ISO 1600. I wish that ants didn't move so damn fast, and I wish I had more depth of field and sharpness...the price you pay for not having pro equipment.

Season Inversion

Yup, it's a nice autumn pic for you. I don't really have much to say about it. I should have taken a design class instead of all that stuff for my major.

Thinking about thinking about Katie

Ok, so my complaining about the background made me realize that this pic would probably be better in b&w. I like it more this way. Good tonal range, I was able to selectively darken the lips a bit. In both pictures, I'd like the eyes to stand out more. I expect that I need to work on my lighting a lot more to get them right.

Thinking about Katie

So I thought it might be interesting for you to take a look at the original (cropped a bit). I like the expression on her face. Like she knows something you don't. I am also obviously not a professional. If I was, I would have known to look for the hung up earring and the creases in her neck (I'm sure a pro would make sure they were covered by hair, or her chin, or something). It could also use a more interesting background (darker, brighter, colored, etc).

Thinking about Andrew

No, she's not thinking about Andrew. I was. I thought the pose, with her expression that is all bad-ass, deserved the pop-art treatment, so I played around in photoshop until it looked cool. There really isn't much more to it than that.

Boom!!

It is almost that time again. Just one more month until the fourth of July. Which I should really call Independence Day. Anyways, nothing special technically here. A shutter speed on the order of a second, an aperature that left the sky decently black, and a tripod. That's pretty much all there is to it.

I don't want the world to see me, cause I don't think that they'd understand

Alright, so this is kind of disappointing. The top two are using my uber macro lens, but it was impossible to focus. In the very top one, you can see a nice reflection of the lens and the check book I had supporting it though, so it was kind of cool. The second one is the best I got with the closeup lens. Still not in focus. The third is with my normal 300 mm zoom, from the minimum focusing distance. It was mostly just a quick and dirty for comparison, I could have moved my light around a bit (or gotten some softer illumination) and gotten rid of some of the shadows and highlights. For a well done example of this, check out http://industrialhelix.blogspot.com/2008/05/iris.html