Barn

I had it in mind to get an image of one of the many barns we were passing as we drove across West Virginia. I did not quite get what I wanted. No matter, I got something. Shooting from a moving car is a bit of a challenge because of the speed of the car. The fast shutter speed in midday will compensate and the image is generally sharp. Composition is hard. The scene passes in the blink of an eye. Not quite. Almost. I would have liked to have shot the red barns I saw but we had passed them by a while ago. No backs.

Speaking of

Great shot?!

It was better to get this shot going home than coming. Colleen missed the shot coming. We were too slow to pull up the camera. And there were multiple cow silos! We missed them all. My bad.

Going home – I saw one. Where were the others?? I was waiting – in vain. One cow silo. I settled. No going back. Ha ha.

We were headed (going) to dinner. … there was definitely no going back!!

Fork in the road

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost.

“When you come a fork in the road, take it.” by Yogi Berra.

I was struck by possibility with this scene. There was not much more I could do to work the scene. This was the shot. Not quite there and not quite a discard. Sometimes my effort is wanting. I was lacking on this day.

There were possibilities.

One

Clouds. No two pics are the same. Dramatic. I go for the dramatic formations. It was pre-storm. When you travel with a companion no matter how tolerant and loving, she will eventually object to stopping every minute or every ten feet. So, I have learned to shoot on the run, or, in the car while it’s running. Zoom a little to crop out extraneous road stuff and let “auto” do its exposure. Not bad, eh? No question, I got dramatic. The only problem? Pick just one image.

Gloucester, Perfect Storm

Technical: Nikon D90, 1/200 sec, f14, focal length 200

I believe this is the lighthouse from the movie of the same name. Susan got out of the box and racked out to 200mm on the zoom. Still too far away, huh? The image at this distance is a challenge to compose. This is where you crop and take your chances. I would play with contrast and saturation. And then it looks like a good shot to make panoramic. The waves in the foreground are not strong enough to keep. Get a little more punch in the sky and pull in the lighthouse and the boats more. Thanks for sending me this shot. You know I have a soft spot for lighthouses.

 

9/11 Memorial II

Technical: Canon EOS 7D, 1/200 sec, f 22, focal length 10

Perspective and wide angle are once again in play in this image Cousin David shot. The crane is the object of interest because it’s different from the surrounding buildings. It leads you to the center of the image. The surrounding buildings support this concept. The image works. David was obviously struck by this graphical play of converging lines. It’s good.

9/11 Memorial I

Technical: Canon EOS 7D, 1/125 sec, f 14, focal length 10

Cousin David shot a series at the 9/11 Memorial. This photo ties in with his shot of the UN. It is another wide angle shot. Notice that the perspective lines are dealt with in a different fashion. He has used the foreground to great advantage. The diverging lines are pleasing. The low camera angle keeps the distortion at the edges and curved perspective lines to a minimum. Looking at the edges you can see the buildings leaning inward. But this is not really disturbing. And the diverging lines from the center as well as the reflection of the buildings, makes this a very pleasing image.

 

Fossil Rock

12/17/11

Technical: Canon EOS 7D, 1/320 sec, f11, ISO 200, focal length 18mm, no flash

Oh, I like this. Yup, it looks like a dog. The cropping is great. He looks like he is guarding the path up the mountain. Exposure is good. Depth of field is good. The brightness of the dog draws your eye right there. I might have played with the saturation a little in post process to see if it would pop the hills a little. You could also try a polarizing filter to pop the sky. I usually don’t have one on the camera, but it’s something to think about.

Bench and Vista

Technical: Canon EOS 7D, 1/125 sec, f13, ISO 200, focal length 18mm, no flash

This is not too interesting because it’s been done many times. Generic. We see isolated subjects – this could be a tree or another inanimate object. Sue sitting on the bench looking over the vista, that’s another picture all together. I could visualize her there sitting in the middle of the bench. Here’s where a person would have added interest. The sky is overexposed and the haze takes away the houses and landscape in the valley. The brown foreground is dull. I have been looking back to the 1970’s among my old slides. I have a lot of these same pictures. Boy, was I terribly bad! Overexposed, bad composition and so many other mistakes I made. Today, I would not have shot this image without making some adjustments. I inwardly and silently comment to myself, “It’s not a picture, yet.” I go about seeking what it was that caught my eye in the first place. And then I try to capture that moment. One last thing, I want to comment on horizon. Level? Yes. But it is said that your horizon line in the center of the frame is static. That said, move the horizon line accordingly – up or down – depending on the interest in the image. If the sky is not interesting, show less sky.