Snow Day

Due to a power outage most of the day on Sunday, I was unable to post my PotD. Here it is a bit late. It is kind of fun to get snowed in and, you know your snowed in when the only traffic is a John Deere and four wheelers.

Snow Day

We got another big dump of snow today! I got out for a walk in the woods with the dog and took some pictures before it piled up over 12 inches. It was snowing so hard that it was difficult to keep the water drops off the lens but, I was able to get a couple nice shots. Let me know what ya think.

Graffitii

Graffitti is always cool. I'll be keeping my eye out for some more spectacular examples to photograph.

Weathered Barn

I stopped by the barn again. The textures and colors of the weathered wood and rusty tin roof are amazing.

Fluvanna Barn

Its been busy week! Not much photo time.

I pass this barn on my way to work everyday. The weathered wood sides and tin roof catch my eye in almost every light situation. There is no good place to stop, but I hiked along the road the other day and snapped this photo. I post processed it and applied the sepia tone effect.

Hopefully I will be able to get permission from the land owner to take more shots of this structure.

Farm Sign

I thought the colors in this photo were really cool. I like the contrast between the green moss on the sign, the brown fence boards and the orange leaves on the ground.

Pigs Love

I wish these guys were a little less friendly. As soon as I walked up they came over to the fence and wouldn't leave. I left to run errands and came back hoping to get a shot of them in the mud or at their trough, or napping, but the second I returned they came right back over to the fence.

So, minus having to shoot through the fence, I think this one came out pretty well. I will at least give myself high scores for composition and to the pigs for modeling! What a couple of hams...hehehe.

Tracks

I have always been fascinated with trains and tracks.

I'm looking forward to getting back to some of the places where I have taken pictures over the last month to 'redo' some of them. Every time I process a batch I think of things to do differently.

More to Come

I've been slackin' on the picture taking the last couple days. Hope to make up for it today by getting a couple good ones to keep in reserve for days when I don't get the shot off.

Cars

I didn't get a single shot off today, so here is one from the weekend.

Picture of a Picture

January Rose

I took a bunch of pictures today, some probably much better than this one, but I was taken back by a rose bud in January.

Logo

A cold and rainy, lazy Sunday with little motivation to take pictures. I am looking forward to the longer, warmer days of spring and the opportunity to photograph some sweet rides at the local crusin' night. Stay tuned.

Banjo Girl

The C'ville downtown mall is another great place for endless opportunities of picture taking. This young lady was nice enought to let me take a couple shots. She gets an A+ for costume and entertainment value. I give myself a B- for composition and execution.

Robert E Lee

Thanks to Robert E Lee and Stonewall Jackson, I had the day off. Lots of time to play with the camera. This stautue of the General is in Lee park near the C'ville downtown mall.

I was able to take lots of shots, adjusting the f-stop and shutter, zooming, and playing with the on board editing functions. Great day! In the end, I still didn't end up with anything spectacular, but I'm enjoying the ride up the learning curve.

Definately have to look into some post processing tools in the near future.

Sunset Lake Monticello

Another rather ordinary sunset shot. Im guessing there will be a lot more of them to come.

Note to self: When taking lanscape shots, increase the depth of field to increase the objects in focus, ie. crank down the aperature (bigger number ;) Maybe that will sink in.

http://digital-photography-school.com/11-surefire-tips-for-improving-your-landscape-photography

Woolen Mills

The old Woolen Mills factory presents endless opportunity for cool pictures if you time the light right. I caught a couple this morning at sunrise. The mill is half abandoned and half utilized by a moving company. In 1861 the Confederate government seized control of the factory to produce uniforms for their soldier. Lots of history there.

Hopefully I have redeemed myself for the crap I posted yesterday :)

Big Dipper

Not much success with the camera this evening. Dead battery to start things off and little inspiration from my immediate surroundings. Some moon light would have definitely helped the cause. Low scores for composition and execution, but I was pleasantly surprised to find the big dipper glaring back at me in this one.

Moon at Sunrise

I think this will make up for my less than spectacular ice photo yesterday.

11 degrees this morning...burrrr! I used a long exposure zoomed at 5x (ISO80) to catch the morning moon with what I think is Mercury just below it. The cropped photo takes a bit of clarity out of the image, but makes for better composition. A shot like this pushes the limits of both my skills and equipment.

Lake Monticello Beach 2

Quite a bit of ice on Lake Monticello, about 1 inch in most places. I set the camera right on the ice and snapped this one.

Cows in the Morning

Everything takes so much longer now that I am maintaining the POTD page. A 10 mile drive to the vet takes an hour and a half because I have to stop three times to take pictures. I suppose I could be wasting time in many less productive ways.

Caught some cows enjoying the crisp morning air while I was walking along the river trail in Palmyra.

Albemarle Sunrise

I stopped by Tom Jefferson's place on the way to work in hopes of catching the early sun waking up the countless rows of grape vines. The fresh dusting of snow would have added a nice element to that photo. But, unfortunately I ran out of time before the sun crested the hill to reached the vineyard hollow. I did however get a pretty nice shot of this contorted tree with the sunrise back drop.

I may take this photo into editing software and try to fool with masks and layers in order to bring out some of the detail in the tree without washing out the colors in the sunset. I'll keep you posted on that one.

Pond at Sunrise

I found some ice and a colorful sunrise. In the interest of making it to work on time, I didnt have much time to dial it in. I'm looking forward to free time during daylight hours this weekend! It's snowing now. Hope to catch something dusted with snow to inspire my camera in the morning.

Boots

I played around with the b&w and sepia color settings tonite. Absolutely feeling more confident shooting with manual settings!

Hoping to find some ice tomorrow and dress appropriately to get some good shots.

A Pop of Color

It's not easy to find color outside this time of year. No leaves and snow covered dormant grass. The Mountain Laural outside my office and the sun shiny day were a pleasant surprise.
I was interrupted by someone who felt my work duties were more important than the POTD and didn't get to fool with it for long. Looks like I should do some more reading on depth of field and auto focus settings.

A Nice Warm Picture

Kind of a cop out today. Not so much time and no desire to go outside. A nice generic picture of my fireplace.

Reading a lot on the inter webs about digital photography, so hopefully I can put together some great shots soon.

Nice tip I picked up today: Use the timer when taking long exposure shots with a tripod. Amazing how much sharper the pictures are when you don't have the shake from pressing the shutter button.

Further review: That is a terrible picture. May have to repost something. Maybe Picture of the Week is a better idea????

Update: I revisited my fireplace and replaced the previous POTD with this one. Feeling much better about it.

Staunton Warf

I could spend an entire day shooting in dowtown Staunton, if it weren't so damn cold out! I snapped a couple pictures around the train depo on my way to brunch before retreating to indoor spaces for the day.

I worked more with the manual settings and am starting to feel much more comfortable composing my own exposure settings. Next task is to gain a better grasp on 'depth of field'.

I couldn't pick my favorite of the day, but narrowed it to three. Look forward to getting back to Staunton, but think I am going to focus on some warmer settings for shots this week.

Ice and Wind

Another sub-freezing windy day. Couldn't bear to be out to long, but I did work with the manual setting on the camera a bit. Turns out I can set the camera to take photos as good as when it's in full auto. I took a couple dozen photos of the dock pavilion at Chris Green Lake Rec. Area in the short time it took me to feel like an icicle myself and called it quits. Ice was, and will likely continue to be the theme around here through the week.

None of the dozen photos really impressed me much, but this one had some interesting texture and sparkle. f/5.6, 1/500 sec., ISO-80. Some fill flash might have helped accentuate the dock posts.

Full Moon on Afton Mtn

A very cold and windy night! Stopped on Afton Mtn on my way home from Jersey last night and snapped a couple photos. I would have loved to experiment more, but I was under dressed for being up on a mountain in the wind at 20 degrees. A beautiful moon one night after a full blue moon. The picture was taken at about 11:00 p.m. using a long exposure (4") and auto settings of f/2.8, ISO 800. Quite grainy when viewed full size, but makes a nice thumbnail.

I may be getting the hang of this.

Older Pictures of the Day

Santa came early this year and delivered, to my surprise, a shinny new Canon G11 under my tree on the Tuesday before Christmas. I am so excited to embark on my new experiment of learning to take digital photos and bringing you all along for the ride.

I am going to attempt to post a picture of the day each day (or two) with a blurb about the subject and brief details about the camera settings I used. The attached photos are my picks for Picture of the Day (PotD) from 12/23-12/30/09 before I started this blog.

I welcome and look forward to your comments and critiques. Cheers!