Free Photo Giveaway!!

Do you like free stuff? Of course you do!

Do you like pretty stuff?? Check!!

So do yourself a favor and head on over to the Facebooks where you will:

– Like our photography page
– Comment on the contest photo (same one you see above, but it will be on Facebook), telling us which 8×10 print you want to win

So easy, even a caveman can do it! (Assuming cavemen had electricity.)

For a bonus entry…that’s right, TWO chances to win a free print…share the contest with your friends!

(Sharing is caring, afterall.)

So…what are we gonna do!!??
Like, comment and share.

When are we gonna do it??
Now! (Or sometime before Friday, November 29, because that’s when the winner will be announced!)

Go team!

XOXO
Thank you all for your continued support.  Happy Holidays, Friends!
Shannon

Da Silky and Da Smooth

It’s a recipe, of sorts.  A recipe for photographing moving water.

The ingredients:
A camera with adjustable exposure settings
A stable surface / tripod
Perferably, a shutter release or timer

The recipe:
The smooth water effect is blur.  Bam!  The secret is out.  Shortest blog post ever, right? =)

But if you’ve been reading this blog on any sort of regular basis, you know I’m a bit long winded at times…ohhh…ummm…I mean, curious with a desire to know “why” and “how”.  And obviously, since you’ve made this far into the post, you are too!  Two peas in a pod, we are.  So let’s discuss, ok?

Blur is bad, right?  Well…generally yes.  But in the case of moving water, it can create a nice artistic effect.  In fact, for this image, I think too much detail in the water would have detracted from the impressive clouds overhead.  This is a situation where blur created a nice, artistic counter-balance and since the water is the only thing moving in the scene, the rest of the image is in focus.

As always, my first priority was composing the scene.  Once I scouted the location and decided what the best angle would be for my soon-to-be-image, I thought about the available light, and what I wanted to accomplish within the image.

For example, the image is a composite.  The sky was shot for HDR, because I knew I would want to pull as much tonal range out of the clouds as possible.  The water, rocks and reeds, however, are a single exposure.  The camera settings were:

F-stop: f/22
Focal length: 28mm
Exposure time: 13 seconds
Exposure bias +2.7
ISO 100

As you can imagine, with so much cloud cover, it was a low, soft light kind of day.  I wanted as much of the scene in focus as possible, so I chose an f-stop of f/22.  However, by doing so, I knew I would be letting less light in and would need to compensate by increasing the exposure time and changing the exposure bias.  That was the only way I would both create a smooth water effect and expose the scene properly.

In order for the rocks to be in focus, I needed to make sure the camera was as steady as possible.  I mounted the camera on my tripod, put flat rocks under the feet of the tripod (because it would sink into the sand as it was capturing the image…very confusing at first!), and used the timer feature.  This gave the camera a few moments to settle, so the vibrations from me pushing the button did not affect the image.  A shutter release (remote or cable) would have worked just as well…but in my hurry to get down to the beach before sunset, I left a number of items in the car.  (Oops!)

So the point of all of this?  Well, in a nutshell…

Long exposures + Moving water = Purty

Silky Smooth

 

Sometimes I Feel Like RBG…

Rock Art - Color

…Sometimes, I don’t.

Rock Art - Monochrome

Isn’t it interesting how much a little thing like color can drastically change an image?

Which one do you prefer?

The Art of Less

Have you ever Googled (or Yahoo!ed…or Goodsearched, for those of us that like collecting good karma points) the term “minimalism photography”…the results are striking.  That isn’t commentary on the quality of the images that turn up, although many of them were very good.  What I found more notable was the variety of images that turned up, all under the umbrella of “less”.

By searching for “less”, I found pride in my fellow photographers for sharing their vision of the world, conveying so much with so little.

Minimalism also reminded me why I love art.  It is a mechanism of expression and creativity.  It is both the way we view the world, and the way we wish the world could be.  It’s interesting and thought provoking without saying a word, and it makes my world a better place.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I took a recent trip down to the beach and enjoyed a pretty phenomenal sunset.  There were plenty of “foreground props” to choose from…guard chairs, boardwalk, a jetty…but none of them seemed to compliment the scene.  It was such a quiet, but mighty sunset and I knew that in order to do the colors justice, I needed a subtle focus point for the image.  In this case, less was more. =)

Minimalism at Sunset

What are your thoughts on minimalism, particularly in the world of photography?

Minimalism product of the week: http://www.zazzle.com/love_mug-168258405940665492

Feed Your Soul

My boss has always told me that I need to learn to categorize. His famous quote is that there is urgent, and there is important…and those two things may not always be the same. You may feel pressure to accomplish, to meet deadlines, to reach expectations…people may be banging your door down for things to be done now, Now, NOW (especially in our instant gratification society). But I’m trying to pause now, before I fill my days with fluff and filler, to determine if those things are important.

Every now and again, I try to take a step back.

The other day, I took a drive – just me, some good music, a tripod and my camera.  I had a strange craving to be near the ocean, which is weird…because I never have a desire to be IN our stretch of northern ocean. Haha  It was an odd cocktail of feelings.  I wanted to feel the enormity of the Atlantic, to see a pastel sunset over the subtle beauty of a quiet ocean, to appreciate the power of the water kissing the shore.  That day, the urgent had to wait.  It was important to feed my soul.

I actually spent about an hour on the beach, just appreciating life in that moment.  Most of my photos were taken on the way home – I’m a sucker for old diners, and I knew of a great one just off the highway in Middletown.  It was the perfect end to a very satisfying evening.

O'Rourkes - Middletown, CT

Remember to appreciate the moments, for they will soon be memories.