Shoot What is Around You!

Sometimes it is nice to travel someplace different, and get your photographic juices flowing, it is easy, you are seeing something new and just capturing the newness. What is harder is finding the newness in what you see everyday. This is why I sometimes carry a macro lens, but not today, I was planning to shoot stuff further away than the macro will reach. 

I walk around my neighborhood a lot, especially the lake nearby. I am often going later at night or am in a hurry and cannot take the time to stop and take photos, so I deliberately left my camera home.

NOT today! Wahoo!

Determined to capture the beauty around me that I often don't notice (in a hurry, tired etc...) I grabbed my camera as I went out the door to walk my daughter to school and take a walk with my wife.

Today it was totally worth it. Water droplets on some fallen leaves? Notice and walk past usually, today: down on my knees falling behind daughter and wife taking some quick shots.

Cormorants, love these dorky looking things!

Lots of ducklings at the lake, wondering how she keeps track of all of them!

Guess it was portrait time, he posed. I swear he posed!

I have been wanting to get a photo of a red shouldered blackbird for awhile, usually they look like this. Stupid things. Somehow they know when I am about to press the button...

Not all of the ducks are up and doing stuff yet. This duckpile had a rather sullen looking member.

Some poppies along the trail make for a nice splash of color.

At the north end of the lake there is a wooden trail through the rushes and cattails. This year there have been multiple birds hanging out right next to it, and not flying away when you walk by. Better than 2 years ago when there was a red shouldered blackbird that would dive at anybody who got close. I think she had a nest close to the trail that year.

I do not remember these guys being in Utah when I was a kid. Like them, though. A lot. The yellow/gold is beautiful, their call is not so beautiful though, imagine a rusty coffin being opened in a hurry.

Finally got the Red Shoulders I have been wanting. They are so dang dark that I had to fiddle with the files a lot, but glad to have gotten some shots. It was kind of like an itch I could not scratch.

I think this is a female Red Shouldered Blackbird. Pretty little thing!

Not sure what this bird is, but I LOVE the plumage!

Glad I got to get some good shots today, in my hood. All you have to do is look and take some time and you can find beauty all around you. You don't have to travel a long ways to take photos. Even though it is really fun!

Of Eggs, Ducks & Geese

So... Easter came and went in Some Dude's house, where the annual staining of the counter, and walk around the lake events occurred. (Actually the granite is fine and the lake was actually perfectly pleasant, usually it rains like crazy on Easter weekend so I was totally fine with it.)

Shooting indoors without direct light I felt that my fastest lens, DA* 55mm f1.4, was the appropriate lens, shooting at f1.4-2.2 mostly I did alright shooting the egg dyeing. I really do love the bokeh and rendering at those large apertures, but the thin Depth of Field is hard to work with, the natural postural sway in your body can totally move your focus point completely off and tripods are a bit of a pain in the kitchen. Got a few shots though.

Out on the lake with my DA 55-300 the Ducks and Geese were happy to pose, I think my hands are getting less steady as I get older, I didn't quite get the results I normally get with that lens, but then again... I'm picky too.

I pushed my K5 to the limits of shadow recovery with this shot, pretty happy with it though!

Taking Time The Only Way He Knows...

In case you are wondering, the title of this blog post comes from a Jethro Tull Song I was listening to the other day. I felt at the time it was speaking about me in a way, taking the time to relax in the only way I know. Taking pictures. 

I was host of a continuing education course last weekend, where we had time to take our lunches on our own. I chose to take mine with camera in hand while walking around Memory Grove and downtown Salt Lake. Both days I took my Pentax K5, day one with my DA 55-300 and the second day with my Sigma 17-70. The days were warm and dry, and perfect to walk off the stiffness of sitting for several hours at a time.

I have an affinity for this building, the Utah State Capitol, you get a different view of it from across the ravine to the east. (DA 55-300 @ 300mm)

This was zoomed wide to 55mm. I love the detail of old school craftsmanship.

I had never seen this spot before, looking over the ravine that contains memory grove. I really want to shoot this as a sunset shot someday.

The trees are blooming early due to the dry and warm winter, I hope they all survive. This is the type of shot that the Sigma 17-70 excels at.

This was my wallpaper for several days. At full resolution it is spectacular.

Dogwood blossom in the Avenues area of SLC. Didn't know they grew here...

This is the same monument as in the second shot. Just shot at 17mm and from a totally different angle. Like them both.

Clouds!

I am a detail guy. Not that I am organized, I'm really not, but that the small details of a scene are what I remember. Doorknobs, the shadow of a chair that makes an interesting pattern that is what keys me back. I also like clouds but it is hard to get detail shots because... well... they are BIG, a LONG way away, and if you zoom in too far you lose too much and the photo doesn't make sense. I am trying to figure out the best way to shoot what I see in them. These shots are getting closer to that. A word of warning, I have played with the contrast, white balance, histogram (Exposure) and a few other things to give these photos a LOT of drama that was only potential when I took the shots.

Is this how you see clouds?

A Walk Around the Lake on a Summer Morning.

I'm behind on editing and posting photos, LOVE being busy but it gets me crazy sometimes. Like I NEED crazy added!!!!

These were all taken with my DA 55-300mm lens, "consumer grade" but plays above it's origins as far as IQ goes. There are sharper lenses, but for the size and weight, it works very well. I shot all of these out by the lake by my home. I had never seen a Yellow Headed Blackbird before, that was pretty cool! So was the Green bee...