Meet Desiree

Meet Desiree -- the hostess with the mostess at the Best Western Motel in McKinney, TX. Never leave home without the ability to light a beautiful subject like Desiree.

We had driven to McKinney to visit with our beautiful granddaughters, Caroline and Catherine who were on spring-break. Luckily we drove so that I took an umbrella and reflectors and a tripod to hold the umbrella and an Nikon SB800 flash. I used wife Caroline to hold the reflector.
Compare Desiree's eyes in both photos and note that her eyes are slightly larger in the photo on the right. Thanks to the liquefy filter in Photoshop CS4. Remember never leave home without a portable studio and the best camera available -- the one you have with you.

Starbrights Sans - Filter

I have learned by study of Digital Photography Vol 3 by Scott Kelby that you do not have to spend money for a specialized filter that will turn dusk and nighttime photos into "Starbrights". He recommends setting your aperture to f22. My ISO was set to 200 as recommended by Nikon.

I experimented this morning by setting the Nikon D90 to aperture priority and snapping photos off our deck looking due east at the Blue Ridge Mountains as the sun started to rise over the ridge. I placed the focus point directly on the rising sun and noted the shutter speed was at least 1/20 of a second.

A little editing in Camera Raw and some additional tweaking in PSCS4 resulted in the photo. Click on the image to fill your screen.

High Dynamic Range - HDR

Another example of HDR. This photo was exposed as stated in the previous post. The photo is a view looking due east at the Blue Ridge Mountain range in between snow storms.

Click on the photo for an expanded view.

High Dynamic Range Photography - HDR

It has been a long cold winter -- the coldest that we have ever experienced here in Western North Carolina in the 12 years we have been this part of the Universe. It all started on 12/18/2009 when the global warming crowd dumped 19 to 20 inches of snow on us. Every other few days additional snow was dumped.

Every now and then I had an opportunity to photograph the surroundings in HDR. Each of the photos consist of three photos photographed with the correct exposure and two additional photos consisting of 2-stops over exposed and 2-stops under exposed. My camera - Nikon D90 allows me to setup the shots using the bracketing function. All three shots were hand-held using multiple exposure function. It's not that difficult. Of course I use some software that automatically blends the three images into a tonemapped image that is further processed in Photoshop CS4.

Click on each image to fill your screen with a view of these magnificent mountains.

My Winning Photo For Burnsville, NC Worldwide Photowalk

The Worldwide Photo Walk took place on July 18, 2009. The walk consisted of over 32,600 photographers from all over the world in over 900 cities. I did not get the top prize (Nikon D700 Full Frame DLSR worth over $3,000) but I did win a copy of Scott Kelby's new book for digital photographers. So maybe I should study his new book and improve my skills as a photographer so that I can have a better chance at winning next year. The title of the photo that I submitted is "Hitch Hiking on a Mural" (Scroll down to the 15th photo to read Scott Kelby's comments).

The gal in the photo is Zoe - she took some neat pictures too.

Click on the photo to enlarge.

I just found this comment and response by Scott Kelby. It is kind of overwhelming to picked our for a positive comment by the likes of a Scott Kelby.

I am truly humbled by the very thought that my photograph was in contention for a prize -- let alone a positive comment of recognition.

I will photo-walk anytime with all who want to participate.

Bill Stevenson says:

August 18, 2009 at 9:00 am

Wow! That is all I can say. If these are the shots that didn’t make the cut, it most have been incredibly inspiring to go through all 900. I feel like a couple of these shots could have one the grand prize themselves. Again it makes me realize how hard this must have been for you Scott. Great job and thanks for including this second post of pictures!

Reply

Scott says:

August 18, 2009 at 10:22 am

Hi Bill:
I feel the same way—-you could make a case for all of these to be prize winners (in fact, these were all in the running at one point in my judging). The quality of the entries made this an impossible job, and that’s why I felt they needed to be recognized.

Thanks for the kind words, and for being a part of the Photo Walk.

-Scott

Tracy Victoria Grant Portrait

Click on the photo to enlarge.

Celebrating Independence Day Slide Show

This slide show contains a selection of a few of the 84 photographic images taken of the Mountain Air Country Club fireworks display. The country club is located on the same mountain as our home in Burnsville, NC.

The Fireworks Slide Show can be accessed by clicking on the link.

I have a 60 page book of the photographs taken during the fireworks display. A preview of the book can be seen at the BLURB web site. Just click on the link.