Two of my favorite things: cotton fields and Lightroom

My wife is from north Florida and whenever we go down for a visit I love seeing the cotton fields in bloom.  I think that is about as southern a thing as there is.  I took a quick shot of this field from my brother-in-laws car as we were whizzing by at about 60 mph.  I thought I would show a quick before and after shot to demonstrate, once again, why I am such a fan of Adobe's Lightroom.  I spent literally one minute making a few adjustments to improve the photo.  It is just a quick shot out the window of a speeding car so it's not perfect... but I like it.

Before - the "fast food" shot

After - with a little help from Lightroom

That's it for me.  See you on monday!

Ryan

Just in case you missed it... yesterdays sunrise

Sunrise can make for some beautiful pictures.  Unfortunately you have to get up early to take them.  Yesterday's sunrise in Reno was at 7:02AM according to the Reno Gazette Journal, an acceptable hour, so I decided to take some shots and see what I got.  From our backyard balcony you can see planes leaving Reno Tahoe International Airport and heading south.  If you look closely you can see an early moring flight leaving just before the sun popped up from behind the mountains (no it is not sensor dust, it is a plane!).

My camera specs were: Canon 1D Mark III with EF24-70mm lens at 54mm; shutter speed 1/30 @ f/8.0; ISO 800.  I had my camera on a tripod and focused manually.  I used Lightroom to bring out the colors and artistry of the image.

Photog Buzz Library

I read a lot of photography books.  Some are really great... others are not.  I am only going to tell about the books on my bookshelf that I think are really good and would recommend to a friend.  I will be adding more books to this list as time allows.  To start things off I figured I would tell you about the most worn out book(s) on my shelf.  These are the three books and they are a best-selling series.

 
If I could only buy one book about digital photography it would be "The Digital Photography Book, Volume 1, 2, and 3," by Scott Kelby.  I know... thats actually three books, but you can buy them all together in a slip case.  If you are an amateur wanting to take better photos, or a pro looking for some good reference books, these are great!

Just Warming Up (Sunrises of Dec 2009)

These photos are a warm up for the start of my "Looking East: Sunrises of 2010" project on January 1, 2010.  I plan to take photos of the sunrise, where ever I may be at the time, for one year.  This month, however, I am taking these early morning shots all from the same spot... my back deck.  It is interesting (to me anyway) to see how many different images I can create shooting from the same exact location.

#1 December 2, 2009; 702AM; Reno, NV

#2 December 2, 2009; 702AM; Reno, NV

#3 December 4, 2009; 704AM; Reno, NV

#4 December 6, 2009; 7:23 AM; Reno, NV

#5 December 7, 2009; 7:07 AM; Reno, NV

#6 December 12, 2009; 7:28AM; Reno, NV

#7 December 13, 2009; 7:31AM; Reno, NV

Clothing tip for group photos

What your subjects wear can greatly effect the overall quality of an image.  Not everyone is going to listen to you, but strongly encourage your clients to coordinate their clothing for group shots.  It is a pretty simple thing to do and your image WILL look a lot better.  It is also more likely to endure the test of time.  Simple, solid colors are best.  Take a look at some portraits from the 1970's if you don't believe me.  Here is a picture of my wife (second from the right) with her dad and siblings.

They are all wearing the same color shirts, and because the shirts are darker your attention is immediately drawn to their faces... which is what a portrait is all about.  They all wore long sleeves which is another plus.  Your eye is naturally drawn to the brighter parts of the image.  You can see how Kelly's forearms distract a little from the faces.  If everyone was in short sleeves you can imagine how distracting it would be and that the image would lose some of it's quality.

The ground sloped to the right and it might have looked better if I had had them reverse order, so that the taller two were on the downhill side of the frame.  That's something I can place in the "maybe next time" file that I keep stored in my head.  But then again, I kind of like the way the image composition slopes from left to right.  Switching their order may have evened out their heights and made the composition a little boring.

It was a sunny day in Florida.  To get rid of the strong shadows from the sun I had them move into the shade.  Simple... but effective.

Keep shooting!

Ryan