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I am hung up on flowers, obviously. And I am also once again compelled to comment on the power of the photographer's point of view. The conventional view of flower is from the side and from a short distance. The tulip becomes something quite different when you view it from the top at close range.
This is one of my wife's beautiful flowers, incidentally. I'll admit that I did wander into the neighbor's yard again today. But the pink tulips called me back home. . . .
Well, here they are: my neighbor's purples tulips Water droplets from morning dew or from a spray bottle? I'll never tell.
Canon 5DIII 1/80s f/7.1 ISO400 100mm
I call this post "Finally!" because after what seems like and endless winter and cold spring, it finally feels like summer. And my wife's daffodils are celebrating the occasion by blooming.
This photo, incidentally, started out as a completely different concept. In the failing light of a beautiful day, I noticed the heads of these daffodils bobbing in the gusty wind. And I thought this would be a perfect time to try dragging the shutter, a process that uses camera flash and a fairly slow shutter speed. I took 5 or six using this technique but didn't really like any of them.
So instead, I put the camera as close to the ground as I could and tried to focus on on a single daffodil. After I took the photo, I noticed the camera was seeing a very interesting deep, blue bokeh in the out-of-focus boughs of the a pine tree behind the garden. And so I ended up with this photo. I will probably try the dragging the flash thing another time.
By Scott Shephard
Leave it to one of my photography students to apply a little artistic flair to what is otherwise a pretty monotonous sea of black. Actually, several of the Lake Area Technical Institute Photo/Media students added bling to their hats, though Elsa's ended up being the most well posed cap of all I photographed.
Canon 5DIII 1/250s f/2.8 ISO2500 200mm
Do you want to see the entire 2 hour and 15 minutes ceremony in 60 seconds? Hold on to you hat and watch:
Yes, I'm stuck on streams. And, once again, I didn't go looking for this photo, which was buried in my 2008 collection. What fascinates me about this shot is that it is of the same place in the stream as the photo you see below. The camera position is different, but if you compare the two, you'll see the same old rocks. And they haven't changed.
This photo was "adjusted" with Nik Color Efex 4 and OnOne Perfect Effects 4. (I'm in a filtering phase and I need to get over it because years from now these filters won't seem so cool to me.)
By the way, I still have 5 spots left for the July "Black Hills Photo Adventure." You should join me and I'll teach you everything I know (or can teach in two days) about photography similar to the kind you see here. And we will visit all of my secret spots along Iron Creek.
Canon 5D I 5s f/22.0 ISO100 40mm
It is a fact known to my family, friends and associates. But I haven't in any formal or public way made the announcement: after 36 1/2 years of being a classroom teacher, I am retiring. I am down to my last three days with "my" students in "my" classroom.
When I was younger, I used to think that retirement meant being "put out to pasture." Thus, I offer today's photo. But having watched friends and colleagues who have retired, it seems that life sometimes gets busier after retirement.
So the question I get is: "What am I going to do now?" The answer: "More photography, of course."
Of course, this view of the distant Los Angeles skyline, taken from the Hollywood Bowl overlook just off of Mulholland Drive, isn't alien to the denizens of LA. But to a flatlander in a relatively rural state (with little or no air pollution) this landscape is certainly foreign.
That's not to say that it isn't enticing and interesting to me. In fact, once I played with an HDR setting in my OnOne software, there was amazing detail and texture in this scene. I see things here that I never see in my home state of South Dakota.
By the way, in researching this post, I discovered that California is our most populous state and it is the third largest. South Dakota is 46th in population (out of 50) and we are the 17th largest in square miles. California has twice South Dakota's area but it has 35 times more people.
This is the fifth in a series of HDR Black Hills photos taken in April, 2013. This was actually the first place I stopped the first time I went out hunting. This is not the first time I've taken a photo with weathered grass dominating the foreground, a distant horizon and an intriguing sky. (Lonesome Lake) But when you've found something you like, why not wear it out? (I will say that in the year since I did the Lonesome Lake HDR photo, I've gotten better - or at least I've found a formula I like better. In fact, I can think of a lot of things I can do better now than when I was younger. Except sit-ups.)
(PS: If you look closely, you'll see Mt. Rushmore in this photo.)
Canon 5DIII 1/20s f/18.0 ISO100 16mm
There are still 6 spots left in the July "Black Hills Photo Adventure." How about joining me?
If you were lured to this post because you thought you were going to see a beautiful church, I apologize. But there is something dome-like in these trees that arch over the snow-covered ground and that's what inspired today's title
To be honest, I posted this photo mainly so I could post a link to a short video I made a little bit after I took the picture. So you should watch it.
Where am I? The photo was taken in the "front yard" of our family cabin in the Black Hills of South Dakota. The snow was still falling when I took this and altogether we got between 10 and 12 inches. And it was beautiful. . . The video was filmed with a GoPro Hero 3 stuck to the front of a 4 wheeler. Why is the video black and white? The white balance kept shifting on me. (I'm still learning how to use a GoPro.)
If you go to the YouTube site, you'll be able to watch this is glorious 1080p HD. Look for the gear icon on the bottom right. . .
This is the 4th in a series of recent posts that are photos I took to my recent visit to the Black Hills. It is also another surreal looking HDR photo. Generally, I am very conservative about filtering my photos but I guess I am captivating by the alternative reality that HDR brings to the world we see.
And now my mind is wandering to people from the 1960s and 1970s like LSD guru Timothy Leary ("Tune in, turn on drop out") and peyote promoting Carlos Castenada (A Separate Reality, The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge, etc.). Mushrooms, peyote and LSD were considered "mind altering" drugs. I will admit that I never tried any of them.
Nik HDR Efex Pro 2 is my mind altering drug. It may even be performance enhancing. It has no side effects and its use is legal in all 50 states.
Canon 5DIII 1/10s f/18.0 ISO100 16mm
There are still 6 spots left in the July "Black Hills Photo Adventure." How about joining me?
By Scott Shephard
I would be the first to say that my crocus photo is nothing to write home to Mom about. But these flowers are significant to me for two reasons: first, they are the first flowers to appear in my wife's garden this spring. And given that we have endured a fairly long winter here in South Dakota, even little yellow flowers are cause for celebration.
The other reason is that this photo is one of about 240 photos of the same subject over a two hour period that I took as part of a time lapse study. This was my first effort at this kind of photography and though I don't know that I have the patience to do it often, I am happy with my first attempt. Here's the exciting YouTube video, soon to go viral, no doubt. Incidentally, the two hours have been compressed into 14 seconds.
You may not have thought much about this but hood ornaments have largely disappeared from "modern" automobiles. This no doubt happened for a variety reason, including aerodynamics, cost and aesthetics. Of course, another reason is that ornaments became a target for thieves and vandals. Some automobile hood ornaments, like the Rolls Royce "Flying Lady," are still part of the design but cleverly disappear through a trap door when the car is turned off and locked. Take that thieves!
This ornament decorates the hood of a beautifully restored 1938 Chevrolet. Randy Tribble, the restorer, told me the car was a real hulk when he started the process and so I'm guessing that the ornament pictured today is a replica. Old or new, it's beautifully designed.
On a technical note, I have to say that this car wasn't photographed in ideal circumstances. I was at the Lake Area Technical Institute Auto Show and while the light was very good, I don't think it was ideal for this kind of photography. I was playing with my 50mm 1.2L lens and when I took the photo, I didn't really like the bright lights beyond this shot. But in the end the bright bokeh the lighting results in seem to complement the photo.
To see more of this auto and to purchase prints, click here.
Canon 5DIII 1/320s f/2.0 ISO400 50mm
