Bannack | Besties

So, Here are a few of my other favorite shots from Bannack.  Clearly, I like taking pictures of things, rather than places.  I have really started to define my photographic style as a result of this trip.  I have learned that a big key to nailing a unique shot is opening your eyes.  When I really looked around I saw lots of interesting things to shoot.

Fence | 5.25.2011 6:45 pm | Bannack MT | f/7.1 1/250 | Pentax K-x
Sats, vignette, clarity.

Hearth and Home | 5.25.2011 1:30 pm | Bannack MT | f/5.6 1/50 | Pentax K-x
Sats, temperature, vignette, clarity.

On the Homestead | 5.25.2011 2:00 pm | Bannack MT | f/5.6 1/400 | Pentax K-x
Sats, contrast, clarity, vignette, temperature.

Lock | 5.25.2011 1:30 pm | Bannack MT | f/5.6 1/400 | Pentax K-x
Sats, clarity, vignette.

Mixer | 5.25.2011 4:30 pm | f/5.6 1/30 | Pentax K-x
Sats, clarity, vignette.

Tank | 5.25.2011 4:30 pm | f/5.6 1/100 | Pentax K-x
Sats, clarity, vignette.

Bannack | HDR

From this assignment, I mostly learned that I don't care much for HDR photos.  I don't like the way they look, and I think that's because I feel like people overdo them.  For that reason, I was specifically careful on this assignment to make my HDR images understated.  Honestly, I am ok with how they turned out.  This was a great learning experience.

One Shot HDR | 5.25.2011 1:30 pm | Bannack MT | f/5.6 1/125 | Pentax K-x
Sats, vignette, clarity.

Three-Shot HDR | 5.25.2011 1:00 pm | Bannack MT | f/8 1/800 | Pentax K-x
Vignette, tripod.

Bannack | QEA

I don't know of anyone who succeeded on this portion of the assignment, and I wish I didn't have to post these yucky shots, but here they are in all of their glory.  The light was really filtered when we were in Bannack, which made it difficult to capture a lot of difference between the three shots.  From this experience, although the difference wasn't that huge, I was able to gain a better understanding of the concept and application.

QEA Foreground | 5.25.2011 1:30 pm | f/5.6 1/1000 | Pentax K-x

QEA Horizon | 5.25.2011 1:30 pm | f/5.6 1/1600 | Pentax K-x

QEA Sky | 5.25.2011 1:30 pm | f/5.6 1/3200 | Pentax K-x

This was a lot of fun.  I didn't end up with a lot of great macros or textures, but of what I did get, these were by far my favorites.  I spotted the turned wooden balusters behind some stacks of old doors.  They were just tucked back there against a greenish-yellow wall, and with the peeling pink paint, I knew the color contrast would be interesting.  I decided not to mask out any of the texture, because I liked what was going on everywhere with the layers and layers of peeling wallpaper.

Yesterday's News | 5.25.2011 1:00 pm | Bannack MT | f/5.6 1/25 | Pentax K-x

Hidden Gems | 5.25.2011 3:00 pm | Bannack MT | f/8 1/100 | Pentax K-x
Sats, temperature, clarity, vignette.

Bannack | Reverse Shallow Depth

I wish I had put more effort into the reverse shallow depth assignment, because I am not really in love with what I got.  It fills the assignment though so I can't complain.  I took the shots in the mill. I reversed the focus by focusing first on the nearest rungs of the ladder, and then on the lowest rungs.

Near | 5.25.2011 4:30 pm | Bannack MT | f/5.6 1/100 | Pentax K-x
Sats, clarity.

Far | 5.25.2011 4:30 pm | Bannack MT | f/5.6 1/60 | Pentax K-x
Sats, clarity.

Bannack | Action Blur and Freeze

The blur shot was taken on the merry-go-round in front of the school during a stroke of genius. :) It was a challenge because it was a spur of the moment shot, and I didn't have time to change to a smaller lens.  I wasn't able to get zoomed out as far as I would have liked, but I did manage to get a fun shot.  I got the ghost shot in the big house with the help of my friend Dan.  I found that it was easier to capture a sharp image by using a timer to reduce camera shake. The action freeze shot was captured with an uber high shutter speed and a very brave classmate.

Round and Round | 5.25.2011 6:30 pm | Bannack MT | f/22 1/8 | Pentax K-x
Sharpened, vignette, saturated.

Ghostly Visitor | 5.25.2011 3:33 pm | Bannack MT | f/22 3" | Pentax K-x
Sats, vignette, sharpened.

Puddle Jumper | 5.25.2011 12:30 pm | Bannack MT | f/22 1/800 | Pentax K-x
Cropping, sats, vignette, sharpened.

Bannack | Portraits

The first portrait was taken at the top of a flight of stairs.  The location had beautiful colors and perfect natural window light.  I knew the location had potential, but I struggled getting the right angle on the model, because I wanted a long focal length which put me at the bottom of the stairs and shooting right up the model's nose.  I had to do a lot of adjusting to make it work, but I really love the end result. The second portrait was a piece of cake.  Sarah is naturally very photogenic and the set-up was just perfect and easy.  I was able to catch this in just a couple of shots.

Feather Earrings | 5.28.2011 3:30 pm | Bannack MT | f/4 1/125 | Pentax K-x
Airbrushed, vignette, saturated.

Sarah Luke | 5.28.2011 6:00 pm | f/5.6 1/400 | Bannack MT | Pentax K-x
Vignette, bokeh, saturated.

Weekly Post | Portraits

Once again, a project that was incredibly challenging and endlessly rewarding.  All of my pictures were taken hand-held and with only available and natural light.  I found that some of my pictures that were taken on a whim in a shutter-clicking frenzy turned out to be my favorites.  I took each of the photos into camera raw for some basic editing, and then moved the ones that required a little extra help into photoshop.  I found that by processing ALL of the photos in raw before taking them into photoshop gave my eyes a break and I decided on several that they didn't need more help.

Please click each photo and view it larger.  The optimizing that my blog seems to do to each one of my photos makes them all look pretty terrible in this view.

Jenn | 5.20.2011 | 6:30 pm | Idaho Falls ID | f/4.5 1/50 | Pentax K-x
Vignette added, sats on eyes, subtle airbrushing.

Keauna | 5.17.2011 2:00 pm | Rexburg ID | f/4.5 1/50 | Pentax K-x
Vignette added.

Sam | 5.23.11 7:00 pm | Rigby ID | f/4 1/3200 | Pentax K-x
Vignette Added. Sats on eyes, subtle airbrushing.

Sammus | 5.23.2011 6:00 pm | Rigby ID | f/4 1/1250 | Pentax K-x
Vignette added, blur enhanced, sats on eyes.

Sisters | 5.23.2011 6:30 pm | Rigby ID | f/4 1/6000 | Pentax K-x
Color removed except cyans, magentas, vignette added.

The Crazies | 5.23.2011 7:00 pm | Rigby, ID | f/9 1/500 | Pentax - K-x
Vignette added, sats on setting.

The Director | 5.17.2011 8:20 pm | Rexburg ID | f/4.5 1/100 | Pentax K-x
Exposed, vignette added.

Weekly Edit | Camera Raw

Come and Get It | 5.14.2011 10:00 am | f/10 1/800 | Pentax K-x



The Mann | 5.13.2011 9:00 pm | f/5.6 1/200 | Pentax K-x



This project was a lot of fun!  I really enjoyed bringing these photos to life.  I am learning a lot about using raw.  The top photo had some issues with out of balance exposure, so I corrected that and did some fun things with saturation.  The second set was trickier, because as I exposed and saturated it, the colors went all wrong.  I did some adjusting with the temperature and the hue to make it look right.

Weekly Post | Panorama

Sky Mountain | 5.14.2011 7:30 am | f/29 1/40 | Pentax K-x
Tripod used. Saturation +, Exposure +/-, Hue +

 

This caused a lot of stress for me.  If I had to do it again, I would reduce the file size significantly on the images when shooting for a pano.  I had trouple making the computer merge the photos, and then there was a lot of stair-stepping, and the computer didn't seem to have enough ram to process the CA for that many pixels all at once.  In the end, I broke the CA fill selections into about five smaller chunks.  Overall, I am very happy with the end product.  I did very little cropping to the end panorama.

Weekly Edit | Adjustment Layers

I used three adjustment layers for this editing process.  First, I exposed everything but the snow and the sky.  I then bumped up the brightness and contrast on the snow.  I then saturated the sky, the buffalo, and the water.  I really like how this turned out.  I have been familiar with using adjustment layers for a while now, but watching the demo in class gave me some good ideas for how to deal with snow.

Grazing Buffalo | 4.22.2011 4:00 pm | f/11 1/800 | Pentax K-x

Weekly Post | Flora and Fauna

I really got lucky on this assignment.  I already had the buffalo picture from a previous week.  It was literally snapped in program mode as we drove by.  The flower picture was acquired by laying on my stomach in the dirt.  I am finding that I spend a lot of extra time in the dirt since I started taking this class.  The duck was just a lucky spot in the gardens.  He seemed a little offended that people were taking pictures, but I managed to get a few good shots.

Westward Ho | 4.22.2011 8:00 pm | f/4 1/100 | Pentax K-x
Saturation +, Exposure +, Curves -, Brightness/contrast +

Early Bloomer | 5.4.2011 6:00 pm | f/5.6 1/1000 | Pentax K-x
Clarity +, Saturation +, Vignette added.

Garden Duck | 5.4.2011 6:30 pm | f/5.6 1/320 | Pentax K-x
Saturation +, Vignette Added.