Purple Blossoms, Bellingham, 2010-01-18
I was surfing around looking at campsites tonight. Suggestions appreciated. If this February is a sign of what May will be like, I’m all for it. Consider how vivid these blossoms were in January. Any places you like to camp? Please share.
Purple Blossoms, Bellingham, 2010-01-18
This was a brief experiment tonight doing a “dissolve filter” and a mask. The unfocused background was kinda distracting because it was a lot of lens-circles. I blurred out the whole layer and masked the foreground out of it, dissolved it in and threw a “soft light” to rebuild the color on the blossoms. If you’d like a print of this, please ask.
Water Lid, 2010-01-26
This banal piece of rugged hardware has a very strong design. This is an experiment to bring out that bold design.
Water Lid, 2010-01-26
If you’d like a bigger file to print out, please ask.
Stones, Squalicum Beach, 2009-01-26
It was cold and rainy. However, I needed to talk a walk. I recall that this walk I had the back of my camera dripping wet from the fog condensing onto my beard. My gloves were soaked, and my jacket sleeves were starting to soak thru into my shirt. But I had my new camera! That made it great!
Stones, Squalicum Beach, 2009-01-26
Steam Locomotive, Perris, California, 2008
This was a fun trip, but it was hot and all my photos from there were immensely bright and contrasty. I felt like I spent a small eternity comparing the quality of this photo to other photos of locomotive wheels where the grays were smooth and rich … and it dawned on me that I took a photo of a dirty old locomotive. It hadn’t been painted in decades. There was no lipstick I could put on this iron pig…so I rolled in the grit and went for the aged effect!
Steam Locomotive, Perris, California, 2008
Sweat Pea, Seattle, 2009-07-25
I love the Gimp. Tonight’s experiment was producing good looking newsprint, and using layer masks. I think I’m getting this layer mask technique.
Sweat Pea, Seattle, 2009-07-25
If you’d like to get a print of this, please let me know, I’d love to hear from you.
Hexnut Handrail, 2010
Wow, what a pile of layers did I amass to get this look. This was a fun experiment. I love adding grain. I also used a grain extract layer to lighten the middle.
Hexnut Handrail, 2010
Print version? Email me, I’ll put one up. I’d be glad to hear from you.
Bark 1, Bellingham, 2010-01-31
I was tromping through Little Squalicum park, between the maintenance buildings and the new construction, and I found some “discarded” trees. The light was very diffuse and I was in a good mood, ready to capture a mix of color and geometry.
Bark 1, Bellingham, 2010-01-31
Mt Baker from Aldrich Rd, Ferndale, 2010
I was biking up Aldrich on my way to work when I viewed this. I expect more good things from this commute path.
Mt Baker from Aldrich Rd, Ferndale, 2010
I did a b+w version of this but adding a little bit of color back in made it just the thing. If you’d like to see a b+w version, lemme know.
Curb Drain, Ferndale, 2010
I added a color-normalized layer and a black and white grain layer to boost this one up.
Curb Drain, Ferndale, 2010
Infinity Fire Hydrant, Ferndale, 2010
I turned it a little past 11 with the title, no? Gritty texture.
Infinity Hydrant, Ferndale, 2010
Alley Van, Bellingham, 2010
The side of a van I saw tonight. I’ve got another picture that shows how tidily this van is parked, patching a hole in the fence of it’s yard.
Alley Van, Bellingham, 2010
Whatcom Creek, 2010
I was able to prop the camera against a signpost and get this 1 second exposure with my 28mm lens. Sometimes I’ll start some post-processing, get a bit frustrated, and come back to it after puzzling it out in the back of my head after a while. It getting texture I visualized for the water involved playing with grayscale layer for a while, coupled with a dodging layer on the top to restore the level of the mist that morning.
Whatcom Creek Bridge 2010
I’m going to start making all the desktop pictures 1680×1050 now.
Grass Pod, Razar State Park, 2009
I really like this one. I was able to get a good, distant background and multiplication darkened it easily.
Grass Pod, Razar State Park, 2009
Thistles, Bellingham, 2010
I enjoyed the tiny bit of “sun” today and cruised some alleyways. I’ve gained a used Vivitar 28mm f2.5 M42 lens. This is the first lens that I’ve noticed a big difference in “quality” of the light. I mostly use modern lenses with smooth aspherical properties that make a picture seem evenly bright. The low-exposure areas drop off pretty steeply, and it meters the highlights differently. So with my Sigma zoom, I’ll get a 1/10th exposure at f2.8, but it will appear brighter than the 1/15th f2.5 exposure with this Vivitar. (I’m sure you think I’ve been swindled.) There are some homely reasons I like this vivitar lens, though. It’s focusing is stiffer, and the minimum focusing distance is about 4 inches…I can treat it like a macro lens and I’m not so afraid I’m going to wear this lens out as with the Sigma. The Tamron and Sigma lenses I have feel very fragile.
Thistles, Bellingham, 2010
This is also the first picture I’ve used a map/distortion filter on. I mapped the picture to a tilted plan in order to reduce the parallax in the picture. That was my biggest problem with the composition, the “looking down at” point of view in the picture made it look a lot cheaper. If it still looks cheap, let me know…I can take it.
Grass Blossom, Razar State Park, 2009
A bit more colorful than some of the others. I really like how my 50mm can focus in pretty close without needing to use extension rings.
Grass Blossom, Razar State Park, 2009
Grass, Razar State Park, 2009
I think this was one of the better desktop pictures, I think.
Grass, Razar State Park, 2009
Branches, Razar State Park, 2009
This “short walk” turned into a mini photo-safari. When I got back to camp, I had to pack everything up.
Branches, Razar State Park, 2009
Bark #1, Razar State Park, 2009
This is one of about a dozen pleasant images of bark. I was having fun with my shallow depth of field. Razar State Park was pleasant, except for the droves of mosquitoes.
Bark #1, Razar State Park, 2009
Driftwood, Point Roberts, 2006
I don’t clearly recall this trip. I think I was on autopilot the whole time, getting used to a life of small kids, constant server failures, lots of caffeine and less sleep. It must have involved crossing the border. I wonder if this was the trip we tried visiting the UBC campus and got lost trying to get back to Freeway 1 to get home. Probably. The signage in Vancouver BC sucked. Miracle we made it out with our lives.
Driftwood, Point Roberts, 2006
Is there something wrong with the balance of this photo? How would you crop it differently? I find a lot of interesting elements, but I think I study it too much. Should it focus on the rock, or the shadowy face it paints?
Gears, Semiahmoo Spit, 2006
I have visited Semiahmoo Spit twice. Each time, I’ve been impressed with the amount of driftwood along the spit. I took lots of photos of the driftwood. Few of those pictures seem interesting to me now. However, a fun experiment with some pictures of old machinery on the spit still shows sparkle. I often don’t use edge-detection techniques, but in this case, it gave the geometry of the gears a crisp punch that I like.
Gears, Semiahmoo Spit, 2007
Flower, Razar State Park, 2009
This was mostly an experiment in depth of field. In fact, after I got my 50mm F1.4, I went around snapping lots of pictures on the camping trips, trying to exercise my curiosity for detailed highlights. I’m posting this one because it’s…morbid. This is actually the most morbid picture of a flower I’ve ever seen. I don’t usually go there. You prolly don’t like it. I look at this picture and mutter, “that’s like a clinically depressed image of a very pleasant blossom.”
Flower, Razar State Park, 2009
I don’t even think I really like it. However, I’m fascinated by how I’ve twisted it. Does it earn me devil horns? Please suggest a snappy caption :-)
Sunset, Iron Springs, 2009
A nascent family tradition is to spend a weekend at Iron Springs. I was quite pleased that I was able to get some sunset pictures out of it. I don’t often take my camera near a wet beach. This time I was, and running around wildly shooting up the landscape.
This one makes a better desktop background I think.
Sunset, Iron Springs, 2009, 2
I make a black border around the print versions for framing purposes. Often the cropping of the image doesn’t match a premade 8×10 or 10×14 matte. It also allows me to not worry about aspect ratio. The black can be trimmed or cropped however.
Sunset, Iron Springs, 2009
Boats, Morro Bay, 2009
My father’s parents lived together for many years near Morro Bay. I visit there to see grandma Mary and bring the kids. Morro Rock is an impressive piece of geology, but it’s not in this picture. I was able to capture the weathering of the boats at the dock that day. I also got some blurry pictures of harbor seals, too.
Boats, Morro Bay, 2009
While this might not make the smoothest desktop background, I think it makes a great print. I upload the print pictures at around 14×12 inch 300 dpi resolution.
