San Diego Trip - Day 2

I'm currently in San Diego, CA for a class on Adobe Captivate. I couldn't pass the up the chance to bring my camera and take some photos while here. These are the best from Day Two.

Harbor outside out hotel

I like this one.  Simple but looks like an advertisement.  San Diego!  Go there!

Cropped photo to get rid of the dirty looking shore.

This is a good one too.  Perfect.

There was a guy who works at the hotel who saw me taking photos and brought some food out to feed to the seagulls so I could shoot them.  They were all over but I didn't get a good one.  As I was walking away I came up to this guy just sitting off by himself.  You never know where you'll get "The Shot" huh?

San Diego Trip - Day 1

I'm currently in San Diego, CA for a class on Adobe Captivate.  I couldn't pass the up the chance to bring my camera and take some photos while here.  These are the best from Day One.

The streetsign outside our hotel.  Photo edited to have a classic Cali look.

Sea World, San Diego.  Military get a free one-day pass.  Sweet!

Sunset at the marina outside our hotel.

San Diego at night.

On the 4th

I meant to post these a while back but I’ve been a slacker.  Bad me.

Anyway, these are pics from the 4^th taken from the Bossier City side of the Red River.  My first attempt at taking firework pictures.  Not too bad I guess.  Still need to work on timing a bit.  I’m glad there was a breeze though because from what I understand the hardest part, especially later in the show, is that the smoke starts getting in the way.  The wind blew most of that away so it wasn’t an issue.

***CLICK THE PHOTO FOR LARGER VIEW***

By the way, one of the boats at in the top pic and the boat with its lights off in the bottom two belongs to a coworker of mine.  I didn't know he was there, just happened to be in the pics.  Small world.

Sunflower Garden

We are participating in a community garden that's just down the street from us. We're growing various veggies but another plot has some very large, beautiful sunflowers growing. Here are some pics. I'm very happy with these and I may actually print them at some point to put on the wall.

-CLICK FOR LARAGER VIEW-

Downtown Couples Photoshoot

Part of our “final project”, if you will, was to go to downtown Shreveport and take photos of a couple. This is Chris and Sara, a soon-to-be-engaged couple who was willing to get dressed up and walk around with the paparazzi on a hot Sunday afternoon. It was my first time doing something like this so I’m really happy with they way the came out. I don’t really like people because it’s a lot of pressure to get that “One” shot. They were very open and understanding and I think Sara had done some modeling before; she definitely had the posing down.

Our Gallery

Last Sunday was our Gallery at the church. It was a culmination of both our photography class as well that of the art class and a chance for us to display our works. I don’t think anyone but Perry displayed any photos taken during the class, but everyone’s photos came out very nicely. I got a little carried away and ended up printing out 13 8x10 photos, 12 of which I mounted on foam board and one I framed, with the intention of gifting it.


Well everyone gushed over my photos as they do and I tried to play humble as I do but as a Words of Affirmation person, I soaked it all up. Everyone one encouraged me to sell them (though no one offered to buy one) but I still have no idea how to go about doing that. I was tossing the idea of setting up a booth at one of the many crustacean related festivals around with Kristy. Who knows, we’ll see.

Because of the recent craziness I’ve been neglecting both of my blogs and I have a back log of photos to share. I’ll work on doing that in the next couple of days.

The Slow Shutter Waterfall Effect

We had been talking about trying to get the cool effect in falling water in Photo Class. While on our trip to Missouri we stopped at a little roadside park that had a creek running through it. I took the chance to try out this technique. The photos aren’t anything spectacular but I did manage to get the effect. I got it by switching the camera to Shutter Priority mode and leaving the shutter open for 2 seconds. I also changed the Auto White Balance to the Cloudy setting. It got the cool cascade while maintaining the light levels and not washing everything out.

The Other Side of Me

Come see my other blog with all the thing that I can't talk about here!  Go Here  http://seekingmychazown.blogspot.com/

A Bridge to Photos

That was a terrible title but I'm sleepy. Anyway, after work last week I stopped by the Diamond Jack's casino. Not to gamble away my hard earned money, but because there is a train trellis over the Red River right next to it. I'd drive by that bridge twice a day and have always wanted to stop and photograph it but have never taken time to do so. Well I finally did go and got some great photos. I was constantly looking over my shoulder for the train to come barreling toward me at any moment, but I edged my way out.

For the ones below I actually just sat on the tracks.  I tried using my tripod but it couldn't get low enough and I just ended up holding the camera.

I thought that the pictures were very cool until I got home and realized one glaring problem; no subject.  If I had thought about it at the time I would have found a flower or at least a weed growing between the tracks to focus on.  Right now they are just kind of cool photos with nothing in particular to pull your eye to.

Church Photos

One of the eventual goals of our Photography class is have a pool of "trained" photographers to take pictures of events at church as well as provide "stock" typed photography for various advertisments and such.  Well for a couple of weeks now I've been grabbed at the last minute (literally) to take photos of things we had.  The first week was when we had Darrel Evans (the creator of the song "I'm trading my sorrows", among others).  The service was already started when Anna Joy, the paster's wife, asked me to take photos.  I've started getting in the habit of taking my camera everywhere I go so I went out to the car to get it and tried to get a few good ones.  This was my first experience taking concert-style photos so it was a great learning experience.  Here's some of the good ones:

The next week Anna Joy snagged me as I was coming through the door and asked if I would take some photos of the kids Palm Sunday skit.  There wasn't anything too great with that but I took the opertunity to also take some stock photos.  Here are those:

Stock Report 11 Apr 10

Ok, long time, no update. My bad. I think the initial surge of excitement surrounding the class, getting new gear, and the prospect of selling online has worn off a little, especially now that I realize this semi-pro photographer thing is going to be some work and I can't just take photos of what ever I find interesting and sell them by the hundreds. But I still love the camera and am still enjoying what I do. I may never become a famous photographer and change my name to Claude, but I'm learning and we'll see what God has for me down the road.
"So how is selling stock photography working out for you?" you may ask. Well here are my current stats at the companies I've submitted to.

123RF.com
Accepted = 0
Pending = 24
Rejected = 0
Sold = 0

Crestock.com
Accepted = 0
Pending = 37
Rejected = 0
Sold = 0
This site is annoying me. It was the first site I submitted to over a month ago and they still haven’t approved/disapproved my photos.

BigStockPhoto.com
Accepted = 15
Pending = 19
Rejected = 28
Sold = 0

Dreamstime.com
Accepted = 9
Pending = 0
Rejected = 26
Sold = 1!
I like the upload form on this site. It's fast and I can do multiple ones at the same time.

So I'm officially published! Don't worry; I won't let my $.35 go to my head.

Tricks of the Trade - Episode 1: A "Catch" to the Eye

I thought I'd pretend that there was a large following of interested photographic people who are following my blog, because I'm egotistical like that, and post some tips from time to time of things I've learned from other people or from playing around myself.  This is one from a site I found detailing how to shoot children (with the camera, that is all) and how to edit photos.  I found it very helpful, especially the area discussing adding a "catch" to the eyes.  Take a read and give it a try.  Here's one I did of Lorelei:

Before:

After:

A Trip to the Nursery

Our gardening class (yes, I'm in a gardening class too 'cause I'm a girl) went to Akin's Nursery this past weekend.  We picked up a tomato and a couple other things.  I also snapped some pics (because I'm the weird guy who always has his camera on him).  I got several nice ones and plan on posting them for stock.  Here they are:

The Learning Curve

The problem with having an awesome new camera with all the bells and whistles is that you have to KNOW how to ring the bell and blow the proverbial whistle. My previous experience was more or less point and click with a few adjustments on the fly. Now, I have to decide do I want my wide-angle or telephoto lenses? Use the on-board flash (the ugly maker), the mounted flash, or no flash? And if I use a flash should I use the diffuser and/or angle the mount away? Do I go with the prescribed settings for different scenarios or do I mess with the aperture and shutter speed to get what I want? It's all well and good when I have the time to figure it out but when my subject is running away, or setting (in the case of the Sun), or burning (in the case of the food on my grill!) I don't have the time to figure all of that out and I'm usually not happy with what I get.


Everything I've been reading the last couple of weeks tells me that I just need to practice and get to know my camera (duh). I just wish they had sent a operating manual. All they sent was this 1/2 inch cu...... oh, well this should help.

Oh So Pretty

Isn't it lovely?  And the pictures are amazing!  The things I used to have to work for with my old camera happen automaticlly now.  It's AWESOME!

These photos were of course taken with my old camera, and is poo.  By the way, since I got the camera on Friday last week, I've take 692 photos.  Most of those were just practice but if I keep it up my cost/photo will go down.  Currently I'm at about $2.29/photo.  Need to keep shooting.