New Camera!!

So a dear friend of mine decided to sell his Nikon D200. It had all kinds of goodies with it, including a battery grip! DH and discussed it and he agreed I could buy IF I could sell my Nikon D40. My D40 has been such a wonderful camera, and I definitely wanted it to go to someone who would really appreciate it. And it did, the proud new owner is one of my friends at work.
I was free to buy the D200. I LOVE it!! It's amazing.
I also learned something new: Kinetics. Kinetics is an experimental photographic technique in which the photographer uses movement resulting from physics to create an image. I attempted this by zooming in to the object during a long exposure. I had fun trying it out. My object was my silver jewelry box with my engagement ring in the center, and the box was on black satin place mats. The first version came out looking like an x-ray, pretty cool. But then I amped up the blacks and the contrast and got this eye catching image:



SO fun!!

Playing with Photoshop

This week I went to a BBQ at Jess and Andrews house.  I took the opportunity to bring my camera , because they have a FABULOUS backyard!!  (Thanks Maggie and Jerry!)  It comes with rolling green grass, bamboo clumps, bushes, rose bushes, stepping stones, and unique sculptures.  One of those sculptures is a squatting sumo wrestler figure that I just love.  I took some pictures with and without the flash and was using a polarizing filter to decrease the glare.  The non-flash picture turned out the best, since it was dusk.  

Once I got home I decided I would play with it in photoshop and see what cool effects I could come up with.  First I adjusted the Brightness/Contrast, Highlight/Shadow, and then amped up the green red and yellow.  Next I cropped it to focus on the sculpture more.  Then I applied a diffused glow filter.  I had to play with the various levels with that until I got it just how I liked it.  Once that was set, I added a layer and applied a glowing edge style.  Again I had to play around with that until I had it how I wanted it.  Once that was done I flattened the image and saved it.  All done!

Let me know what you think.  :-)

A Beautiful Day on Campus

Today I spent a couple of hours tooling around campus with my camera.   My main goal was to go take pictures of the french fries, or "Alachua" as it is professionally known, for a photography site called Digital Photography School (digital-photography-school.com/blog).  It is a website that has really helped me learn how to open my mind to viewing the world through the lens.  Each week there is a different assignment to do.  This week was "angles" hence the thought to take some shots of the french fries.  

Even though my initial idea was to use the french fries as my example of angles, I actually came away with a much better shot of the architecture of the Marston Science Library.  I looked up, and saw some fascinating elements created from the windows of some offices, the brick pillars/walls,  and the windows of the roof.  After I got home and loaded the images to my computer, I thought it was very happy with how it turned it out.  So here it is....

The last image I posted got chopped off on the right side.  I hope it doesn't happen to this one too.  If so, just click on the image and it will take you to flickr to see the full image, and you can see it in large format in full detail.  You can also see some additional photos from that day including, an alligator, the french fries, and century tower.

All in all it was a peaceful day on campus.

First Post

Welcome to my blog...I'm new here too.  Generally I will use this to post my favorite pictures of the week that I take, ones I am really excited about.  Tell stupid stories that are pointless and possibly entertaining only to me.  And maybe you will comment and give me insight.  Enjoy! 

Today my favorite picture is from Matt and Ashleigh's wedding.  The object is a chandelier candelabra from Ashleigh's dance instructor, Jen.  It is hanging from a tree since the wedding was outside.  The lighting was perfect and I didn't have to make any adjustments in photoshop.  Sweet!