Everett Panorama

This one is a must to see full size.  It is a panorama of the view of Everett from Whidbey Island. I love this view so much and it was such a beautiful day when I took the photos to make this.

Lighthouse in HDR

I took these pictures from the ferry in Mukilteo.  The first one I really like how it turned out. The second one I cooked a little bit too much.  I think it looks too fake.

Portraits of us

On Sunday, Deb and I went down to Richmond Beach, a local beach that has just been remodeled.  We found that it would be a great place to take photos, they have several structures that are good as a background.  Here are some pictures we took of ourselves there.  I think we needed a touch more light for them to turn out really good, but they are pretty good as it is. 

I think I over edited this one just a touch. 

HDR Fun

Here's the original

Here is the HDR Version

Here are 2 other HDR photos.

Even More Panorama Fun

Top 2 photos are at sunset, the bottom one is at sunrise

Light Trails Ferry and the Train

The great thing about winter is being able to get night photos, sunrise photos and sunset photos without having to change my sleep schedule, as sunrise is about 8am, and sunset is like 4:30-5pm. 
This first photo is of the ferry coming in. I took a bulb exposure (where the shutter is open until I tell it to close, in this case 2 minutes) of the ferry docking, and then a 25 second exposure of the ferry in the dock (unfortunately, its a touch blurry I think because the boat was still moving and I was in a hurry to get the shot before the train came for the second picture). Then I superimposed the light trails on the stationary ferry picture with photoshop.



This second picture was a 20 second exposure with the kit lens of the train going by right in front of the ferry.



Because of the really long shutter, any movement by light becomes a light trail, which I think makes a pretty sweet photo.

Happy New Year

Panoramas

Last Friday was a beautiful day here, so I went down to the beach and decided to try to make some panoramas of the different views.  They might be kinda hard to see here, since I'm limited to 1000pixels wide, but the full image is something pretty amazing. 
This is the hardest one to see. It goes from Mount Baker in the North, to the southern most Olympic Mountain that I could see. Almost 180 degrees of view. Click and you can view it a little larger in flickr.


This one is just the Olympics off the Fishing Pier in Edmonds.


This is the view to the west and north from the Jetty just north of the ferry dock.


This last one is from Sunset Ave. Looking down at the ferry dock with the Olympics in the background.


Photoshop stitched all these together by itself. Pretty awesome.

Digital Frame

I finally figured out how to make the frames I've been searching how to make.  I will need to improve upon it a little, but for a quick frame, I love how it turned out.  Not only that, I can quickly and easily swap out the photos, It rocks. 
Here is the tutorial I followed.  Its for Photoshop.

Click for a larger version.  The photos were all taken in our recent snow storm.

Canon 70-200mm Rental pt. 4

Sad sad day, I have to return this great lens to the School, until I can rent it again, wish I could keep it.  The bookah it produces is so amazing, here's a picture I took with it of some Snapdragons we have growing at work.  Enjoy.

New Portraits

Received rights to a few more photos to post on the portraits page.  Here is just a sample of whats included.

Again, the light was amazing under the tree.

I really like how the post provides a border edge for this photo.

Same great lighting

Photoshop plug-in's

Here is a old photo with a new trick. On One Software.com has three great free plug-in's for Photoshop, and Adobe Camera Raw (ACR).   They are trimmed down versions of their pay ones, but they don't leave water marks and are amazing.  This is the same photo from the Portraits page, and with the ACR plug-in and one click, it made the photo look like this. I think it has a lot of potential.  I think this one is called Edge10 or something like that.  I'll check it later.  There are about 30 really cool effects, and they will probably become a feature of new posts.  I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.  For some photos, I don't think this effect would work, but for this one I really think it does. 

Understanding Layer Blend Modes in Photoshop

Been trying to learn as much as I can about Photoshop.  For a while, I had a hard time figuring out what the blending modes meant and how to use them. Just found this great tutorial that explains them so well to me.  Check it out and play around with some photos.

Blending Modes

Softening and Fading a photo

I think I really like how this turned out.  It is a great picture to start out with I think (click either to view larger).  I love how the focus is so sharp on her eye.  Now, here is what I did, using Photoshop, I created a gradient Map layer, and changed the blending mode to screen (adjusting the opacity and fill levels to my liking).  Then I added a B&W layer and pulled down the opacity a little bit.  and here is what we ended up with. 

Night Photography 1

Went down to the Edmond's Ferry last night and tried taking some night photography.  Pretty interesting.  We were hoping to get to go to the other side and get a picture or two of the fishing pier all lit up, but felt a few rain drops and decided to go in.

It is an interesting thing, this night photography.  I felt like there were more colors in the sky then I was able to capture.  I will have to work on it some more.  I am quite impressed with the picture quality though, not a lot of noise, good sharp picture. 
It was such a nice night, til the rain started.  Calm, peaceful and quiet. I like that about the beach at night.  Not a lot of people are there.

Rights to Photos

I've gotten a model release for a couple of the kids at work, I'm still working on putting them all together, but here are some images that I've gotten releases for.  I am super excited to be able to post some of my photos that I have been spending a lot of time and energy on. The first photo is a formal portrait, with a little bit of touching up and smoothing of skin, the second I took the other day at work and is SOOC (straight out of the camera), I like taking some pictures with the sepia tone.

One of my favorite photos, I love the eyes.

What I have learned so far...

This last week I took pictures at my daycare and also for a family from my daycare.  There are a couple of things I learned...
1. A Half hour is too short for a family portrait.  We got some good photos, and I enjoyed the time, I just wish we could have done more and I think we would have come away with even better photos. It didn't help that the first 10 or 15 minutes the little girl in the family was refusing to smile, even for ice cream....
2. I need to take charge more, I let the family talk me out of taking more photos, I didn't want to push too hard, and I thank them for respecting my time, but I'm learning here, its okay if we run over for a little while.  I didn't get to do some poses that I was hoping to do, and I should have been a little more leader like.
3.  Sometimes it is just hard to get kids to hold still long enough to get a picture of them that doesn't have motion blur.  I took over 1000 pictures last week, and I'd say at least 30% have some sort of motion blur.  I need to either make my shutter faster, or find a way to keep them still long enough to get a picture with out blur.
4. I need to visit some parks and come up with a list of places that I know of that are good for taking pictures.  I haven't spent a lot of time visiting parks around here because I don't have kids, and I have places I like to go (such as Whidbey Island) that aren't places that I would take some one for photos.
5. Photoshop (and Adobe Camera Raw) rocks.  It has taken so many pretty good pictures and turned them into great pictures in my mind.  I'm a little biased, but it has been quite the lifesaver.  Pictures that were underexposed or the white balance off, have been fixed with great results.  Cropping has been great, since I've been taking lots of pictures of kids and they move I wasn't getting too close to them so I knew they would be in the frame.
I think that is enough for now.  More to come later.

5 Tips on Portraits

I get to do photo day at my work (a daycare) and am super excited. I have been reading lots about portraits, and how to take good portraits.  This website has become my favorite resource for photography.  They have articles about taking the portraits, and they have a space for 'critique my shot,' where users can post a shot and have it critiqued.  I love reading the critiques and seeing the pictures.  Here is a short summary of what I have learned (of course, rules are meant to be broken, so these aren't set it stone).

1. Morning light is good.  Once the sun gets to far up, the light becomes harsh and unpleasant.  Shoot in the shade if possible to keep nice even lighting
2. Fill the frame.  If I am doing head shots or shoulders and head, fill the frame, however, make sure to get their whole head in the frame, and don't cut them out. 
3. Clear the background of any objects that will distract from the picture.  It's not one of the first things I would look at, but sometimes a branch or something will appear to 'stick' out from the person, move it or yourself so it isn't in the way.  
4. Posing, if it bends, bend it.   So elbows, knees should be bent (but each one doing something different. This gives the picture a little more natural look to it.  
5. Shoot from their level.  If shooting kids, get down at their level, shoot from just above eyes (for women) and just below the eyes (for men).  Also, focus on the eyes, as they are generally what attracts our attention to someones face.  
 

I hope to be able to post some examples, I just need to get permission from the parents at work.  I think I am going to wait and see how my school photo day goes (since I am the photographer) and will ask them when we are looking at proofs.  

Picture of the Week - August 6th

Earlier this week, Deb and I walked through the little town of Langley, WA. We saw this flower, if anyone knows what it is called, that would be a great help.  I'm not sure, but it was really cool looking so we took a picture.  It isn't an SOOC (straight out of the camera) picture, I just did some auto leveling with Photoshop Elements, mostly it just made the greens darker, and more realistic looking.

Portraits

I get to do a portrait photo shoot soon at work (with children), I am super excited.  I was wondering if any body had some tips or hints on what to do to make it the most successful it can be.  I've been reading up online and will share some tips later.  Mostly I think I am worried about having enough different good poses.  We will be doing the shoot outside, so hopefully the sun cooperates.  I'm thinking of trying to keep most of the shots in the shade so the sun doesn't cast shadows on people or in the background, but I will be trying different things in the coming weeks as practice. 
Shalom

Photo of the Week (July 8th)

Here is our first Photo of the Week.  My wife took this picture a few weeks ago of my Grandma's Dahlia, it is a great photo.  I did some High Dynamic Range lighting to it and this is how it turned out.  On the right is the original.  I really like how it turned out.  It appears to me to be more of a drawing or painting then a photo.
So how did I do this?  Well, I opened my original file in Photoshop CS5 and did some simple levels adjustments (with layer adjustments).  Then I when I got those to look how I wanted, I did Image-Adjustments-HDR Toning (this is a new feature in CS5 for single images).  The menu comes up and I adjust the Detail slider to my liking (in this case I brought it almost all the way up).  I adjusted the Raidus and the strength (to make the edges stand out even more).
I really like playing with this feature, but a word of caution that it can get overdone and over used really easily. 
Let me know what you think in the comments...