Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Corn, pumpkins ... and a little horror

Fall, my favorite time of the year is in full swing. We took a ride this weekend to get some pumpkins and apples at Rocky Ridge Orchard over in Bowdoin Me. They also have a bakery and we ended up with a strawberry-rhubarb pie, some tiny apple cider doughnuts (I tried these ... oh wow!) and apple cider! They also had this year a "tent of horror" that consisted of both animated and non-animated Halloween horror characters. There was a horrible life size "baby" that caught my eye, so I took a shot and added a little horror of my own.

These are small images uploaded here as I have run out of space elsewhere so IQ is minimal




























Thursday, September 22, 2011

Getting motivated ...

I have been so busy with work and family that I have not been able to force myself to work on some editing. I have not even picked up the camera in a while. This past weekend I shot a few and have just now edited some of them. The first couple were taken at the New Meadows river where we stopped so the kids could collect some shells. As I shot the Quahog boat in the first shot I could hear and see something was chasing bait fish all over the little cove. After about 10 tries I got a shot ... not great but you can see fish in the air. The second shots were taken on the way to and at The Giants Stairs where we climbed around and I have many shots but I am having a hard time editing them. Here is what I have so far ...



A quahog boat ... if you look close there is one in use in the distance








Here are the bait fish that were taken just to the left of the scene above









This boat and crew were very photogenic I am glad I did not miss the opportunity





























If I can figure out what I am doing wrong with the rest I will post more. Maybe I should take a class LOL

Thursday, September 15, 2011

The Moon

When I can I try to shoot the moon. This is one of my better shots so far. I always hope that while I am shooting a meteorite impacts at the same moment :-D This is one of my better shots so far even though it is not at a great angle. The moon was low on the horizon hence the color.




Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Another trip to Bailey Island Me.

A few more from the weekend. This may have been the last swim trip for the season, I hear it will be chilly this weekend so who knows what I will be shooting.




Won't be seeing too many more of these guys either. This shot was saved from having a RAW file







Remnants of the hurricane






Just because I liked the color and texture






Remember this shot?




Here it is again!


Monday, September 12, 2011

One from the weekend and the harvest moon

This one is from another trip out to the ocean so the kids could swim. There are few days left that it will be warm enough to do it. I have more that I am going to post from the trip but I spent a couple minutes on this dragonfly already because it was really colorful. I wish I had my extension tubes with me for better detail ... but the color is cool.










This is a sot of the full moon. Normally I don't shoot the full moon because you don't get the dramatic crater action but I wanted to try some camera settings so I shot it anyway. This one came out best














Edit:

It was pointed out to me that the moon shot above is "soft" or blurry. After looking again I re-processed the next two images. The first is with no detail added and the second has a boost in detail. I thought about taking the originally posted image above and just replacing it with one from below but I thought it would be good to show them all. I also "squeezed" lighting levels a bit more for more contrast... to be fair I should reprocess the originally posted noise filtered image again and see how it looks with a more heavy handed lighting levels adjustment... maybe













detail added




Better right? ... now I will have to do another one #$&%*!


Sunday, September 11, 2011

In Memory and Honor

This post is in memory of those who were killed 9/11 and to honor those who tried to save them.

I will never forget.




Saturday, September 10, 2011

Flowers, mushrooms and webs

The first two flowers are from my brothers garden. He always has something in bloom to get a shot.






















The mushrooms are from walks with the grandkids ... they don't last long after I get the shot at least they let Gramps get a shot first! The first one is not in focus where I wanted it but it was the best of the bunch and if you look close there is a lot going on in the stem, that is in focus. The reason I am posting it is because I have never seen a purple mushroom! The other two just looked cool























The last for are a light and darker image of two webs. If you look close in the smaller web you can see where the spider makes a mistake placing a stitch too close and takes measures to correct it ... cool


























and a spider shot








Monday, September 5, 2011

A few from today

Why these? I used these for relaxation ... and to practice. I have taken 3500 shots in the last 20 days or so :-D I have to wade through the 3450 crap shots to find the few worth a look. It is going to take me a while so I picked a few to start. The first shot is from the yard and the other two are courtesy of the kids of a local school who made a great flower garden.























Indian Pipe


I am sorry I have not posted more images. I have a lot of them and plan to post more soon.


edit:

 I have  few new ones to post and will but first I came back to this post to add some information. This is a really cool flower check out some information here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monotropa_uniflora

I had no idea it is white because it is a parasite that uses the energy of its host rather than the sun for photosynthesis... cool




 



Thursday, September 1, 2011

One that I liked

I shot this on a walk with the grandkids. I thought the water droplets were interesting so I processed this one and after a crop I liked it so here it is. Again this is a reduced size image. I have not figured out yet what works best for posting images meantime to save time I am posting smaller images.