Took the Low Light Challenge…..

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artist life, being creative, black and white photography, dog portrait, low light photography, photography

This past week I have been watching Steven Simon on Lynda.com. Loved watching sessions of him photographing New York City at night. My last post was on photos taken in low light….but I wasn’t pushing my camera far enough to get the images I wanted to capture.

So did a simple experiment with my daughter and our dogs….inside with low light….and this is what we got.

Bruno yawning…..

Bruno loves a good yawn!

To capture this motion in low light the first thing I did was to move the camera’s focus off the shutter release button and onto the AF button on the back of my camera. (As always I googled it.) This allows my camera to fire continuous rapid shots. Hence a frame by frame recording of Bruno’s yawn was possible because my camera wasn’t trying to refocus with each shot.

The second thing I did was set the minimum shutter speed to 1/125 sec. This allowed the camera to freeze movement…..but to do that in low light I set the ISO to auto with the highest setting at ISO 6400. These photos were taken at  the 6400 ISO. I must admit….I thought the photos would be really grainy or noisy because of the high ISO…but they were pretty clear straight out of the camera. Although I did do a little enhancing in  post processing to remove a little grain in the images. The images even without this post processing step were passable.

Thirdly, I had the aperture around  f5….this helped the lens to allow a lot of light in…..but made the depth of field shallow…. hence the little dog is in sharp focus….but Bruno is slightly out of focus….but still thought the photos worked and told a great story about our favorite big dog.

Would love to join Steve Simon in New York on one of his workshops…..maybe someday I will get the chance.

Sabi……

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Athens at Twilight…..

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architecture photography, athens, Athens Georgia, blue, BullDawg, creative living, Georgia Theatre, motorcycle, night photography, night sky, photography, street photography

Athens, Georgia is wonderful little college town. It’s summer time so downtown is a little more laid back than usual. We walked around enjoyed coffee…..ice-cream…..and here are a few of the sights we saw on this beautiful night.

First sight we saw after parking the car….the sky was a real eye catcher that night….

same building as above….different angle and a little later in the evening….

Football is a big thing in Athens….all around Athens are BullDawg statues like this one…..each statue is decorated up with the sponsor’s theme or logo….

All these photos were taken in a single night……

Sabi

Living with Teens……

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abstract photography, being creative, black and white photography, black and white photos, living with teens, macro photography, photography, portrait photography, portraits, teens

Started a new series of photos called “Living with Teens”. As parents we all tend to think our kids are the best….and we are no exception. Our kids are hard working….do well in school…and most importantly they still like to hang out with us….the parents.

This first picture is of our son….he is a freshman in college and is studying mechanical engineering. His classes are crazy hard and he spends hours studying….and yes he is still living at home. We are fortunate enough to live near a major university and his goal is to get out debt free.

So here he is…. hours after his last exam for the semester…..he promises after sufficient time of chilling out he will clean his room….we shall see. By the way….the computer pictured here….he and his sister built it. Ok…I know that was a parent brag there….sorry….but my kids never cease to amaze me.

Next is our daughter…and yes she is stressing. Not only does she have regular exams to take but 4 AP test…..she is a real go getter and wants to study Physics in college….few more days sweetie so hang in there.

Not sure what pictures are ahead for this series….but ready and excited to see what happens.

Sabi……

Bottle Caps…..Bats…..and Unique Cars…..

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abstract art, angels, art, artist life, Athens Georgia, bat image, being creative, car art, frog image, image of car covered in art, image of car covered with angels, image of truck covered with bottle caps, unique cars, Virgin Mary

Today we went to the Human Rights Festival in Athens, Georgia….while there we saw two unique autos.

The first one was an old truck completely covered in Bottle Caps…

The second car was a hatch back cover with….well…I really don’t know what the theme was except a mixture of images…..frogs…horseshoes….devils…

bats……

Angels and Saints…….

Must confess the frog and bat are my favorite…..but the spirit of these artists really captured my attention and imagination….they acted with full courage to bring their vision to the public and the tenacity to make their visions came to reality.

There is definitely a lesson in there for me….

Sabi….

Pathways……

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abstract, abstract photography, black and white photography, black and white photos, footpaths

So for the last 7 months I have been adjusting to a new job….

To help adjust to this new step in life….I try to walk during my lunch hour….and occasionally…. I have the camera in tow…

So on this day I focused on walking paths….I figured a change in my life’s path deserved to be reflected on camera…

This first picture is of a foot crossing over the a very busy road….

This second picture…as you can tell is of a set of super steep steps….

This last picture is of an iron gate that leads out from an old garden complete with a fountain..

Sabi….

Pink House with Green Shutters…..

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art, artist, artist life, drawings, Paris, pen and ink drawings, pink house

I want to live in a PINK house with GREEN shutters….in PARIS.

Today on Instagram @vuthears a very talented artist living in Paris….posted a Parisian street photo…he is always posting beautiful pictures of Paris…and today’s photo of a little pink cafe really made me want to go back to Paris….like right now!

So in my own little way I salute Paris….and it’s artists….with this simple drawing.

Poppies…..

Tags

flower image, image of red poppy, image of white poppy, image of yellow poppy, macro photography, nature photography, northeast georgia living, photography

Managed to photograph these poppies right after a rain….

First HDR photos……

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black and white nature photography, black and white photography, bnw images, HDR images, landscape photography, nature photography, photography, rural georgia landscapes

I have used Lightroom  for processing RAW photos for some time now….but really wanted to try taking photos using the HDR process. So finally got software that can layer the bracketed photos….and here is my first try at it.

These are not the greatest  HDR photos….but I was so excited to have finally been able to do HDR photos just had to share them any way…

Both of these photos were taken just a few miles from our house. I pass these fields everyday on my way to work.

The first photo is of a pecan tree with thunder clouds in the background….pecans are one of the last trees in our area to put on leaves in the spring…so the tree is looking a little sparse. ..but this allowed the sky to seep through the branches.

This second picture is of a stand of manicured pines taken in the early evening on my drive home….the rancher of this property keeps his fields and fences in top shape…..in the morning the sun rises up through pines….hopefully some morning I’ll have the time to stop and get a picture of the sunrise…

This picture turned out a little over the top….since I really raised the contrast and clarity sliders in Lightroom during the processing step… It may be a little much and overly punchy….but felt it made for a visually stimulating shot and left it that way.

or maybe that was just the way I was feeling…..

Sabi……

Singing Finch….

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bird images, bird photography, house finch image, male house finch image, nature photography, pink, red bud image, spring, wildlife photography

This little guy was singing his heart out…so to say…right outside of our house.

So for a little while last Sunday afternoon I pretended to have my own photography reality show. First, I combined two lawn chairs together…. covered myself with one of the kids blankets, then sat as still as I could with only the tip of my 300 mm lens peeking out from under the blanket.

Then along came this handsome fellow….

Pretending to be in Japan….

Tags

cherry blossom image, Cherry Tree image, flowers, nature photography, spring images, white flower

Last week, I came across a row of Cherry Trees in full bloom…I grabbed my camera and started shooting. I have always dreamed about visiting Japan and following the blooming of the Cherry Trees. So for a little while while under the Georgia sun….I pretended to be in Japan.

Happy pretending everyone!!!!

Sabi