October 8, 2009 - Football practice under stormy skies

1/60

f5.0

ISO 400

18mm

RAW

I am not too thrilled about today's photo, but here it is. I was short on time and didn't know what to do, but as I was driving home from work (after staying late again) I saw the lights on at the local park. So I stopped for about 10 minutes to see if I could get a shot of a game.

I was disappointed, however, to find out there wasn't a game — just a practice. And it hadn't even started yet. I waited for as long as I felt I could, and grabbed a few snapshots as they moved out to the field for warmups. I purposefully put the ground along the bottom of the frame to bring in the overcast, stormy looking sky.

I wish I had been able to get closer to the players. Maybe catch them in some kind of pre-practice huddle, or lined up on the grass as they stretch. But I had two things going against me. First, I didn't have any time. And second, only the players and the coaches were allowed onto the field. Everyone (and I mean everyone) was to stay on the other side of the gates. The coach seemed like a no nonsense kind of guy, and I wasn't going to push him.

October 7, 2009 - Gorgeous sunset photo

2 sec

f11

ISO 100

18mm

RAW

We just had a strong front go pushing through today and it turned into a beautiful, clear day. From past experience, I knew this would produce some strong colors at sunset, so I planned out this shot in advance.

My son and I hiked through a field with waist high grass in order to get on the other side of this massive, old oak tree. We set the camera up on a tripod to insure stability, and took a bunch of photos.

Each shot was done on 'M' so we could alter each shot slightly from the previous one. We mostly experimented in longer or shorter shutter speeds, but we also changed angles and orientations.

Sunset photos are the best when you include something in the sunset. It doesn't matter much what it is (like a silhouetted tree, your best friend, or reflections off of a surface), but its inclusion is vital.

For this shot, I put the silhouetted oak down in the lower corner to also use the rule of thirds. As for the other settings, I wanted a good, deep depth of field, so I went with f11. ISO 100 insured the photo would be smooth and grain-free, and the tripod prevented any blurriness on such a long exposure.

I liked this one the best. There was still enough light so the field wasn't thrown into complete darkness, and the clouds had a little hint of pink in them at the top of the frame. But when I loaded it up into Photoshop Elements, however, I couldn't quite get the color that I wanted. Either the sky wasn't blue enough at the top, the clouds weren't bright enough, or the horizon wasn't yellow enough. And I totally couldn't see any pink in the clouds.

So what did I do? I pulled out The Photoshop Elements 6 Book for Digital Photograhers (here's a link to the same book for the latest version of Photoshop Elements). I reviewed the book for ideas on getting the missing colors, and found the solution &mdash the 'Adjust Color Curves' tool. It's amazing! I'm going to need to use this one more. Not only did it bring out all of the color that was missing, but it also helped me keep the field from going completely black. It completely saved me from going into depression (because I was so frustrated with the lackluster look of the photo).

What do you guys think? Did I go to far? Is the color unreal? Or did I get it right?

September 22, 2009 - Damage from the lightning?

1/60

f5.6

ISO 400

18mm

RAW

My neighbor, whose lightning strike I told you about in yesterday's post, had a bunch of electronics blow out in his house. How? The water pipe from the city supply ran through the roots of the tree. The lightning's charge traveled down the pipe and into their house.

Thankfully, we were more lucky. We didn't get any lightning strikes. But for some reason the DVD player was dead when we tried to use it today. Today's photo is of Joshua trying to get Tannah's favorite movie out of the player.

I used my dedicated flash pointed up into the ceiling, as I described in the third paragraph of Sunday's post about making some muffins. I composed the photo with Joshua off to one side and the player at the bottom to kind of frame the image a little.

I just wish I had left the armoire door so you could see the TV inside. That would really help set the photo properly. I also wish I had put a little white card behind the head of the flash so it would have bounced a little light into Joshua's face.

September 21, 2009 - Lightning strike too close to home

1/30

f5.6

ISO 400

18mm

RAW

Today's photo is more of a fun snapshot. Last night we got a ton of rain — officially seven inches. And the worst of it came down during a horrible lightning storm.

Near the end of the storm (around 5 a.m.) I heard a loud SNAP, followed immediately by a massive thunderclap. It clearly came from somewhere in front of the house. I thought for sure one of our trees had been struck.

In the morning we found out it was the massive poplar tree across the street in our neighbor's yard. In the photo you can see the strike went clear down to the ground, shattering off bark and wood as it went. Tannah is holding one of the pieces (which we had found in our yard) that had splintered off from the strike.

This is a straight-forward shot. I used my wide-angle lens to get as much of the 80-foot tree as I could, but I didn't want to step much further back so you could still make out the streak down the tree. I included Tannah to help give some relevance to how big the tree really is.

In hindsight, I should have shot it at ISO 800 or open up the aperture to f4. This would have increased the shutter speed to 1/60. I could have also had Tannah hold the piece of wood more to the side so you could make it out clearly. The way she is holding it in the photo makes it hard to visually separate it from her torso.

PS — this rain was the start of the great Atlanta flood of 2009. Luckily, we didn't get much more during the day. But some parts of the Atlanta area got two to three more inches as the day went on. I don't have any photos of actual flooding, but I will have some more rain- and storm-related photos coming up.

September 20, 2009 - Making pumpkin muffins

1/60

f5.6

ISO 400

20mm

RAW

Tonight we made a treat — chocolate chip pumpkin muffins!

I used my dedicated flash to light up the kitchen. I pointed it straight up so it would bounce off the ceiling and create a brighter, broader light. It did a good job.

I set the camera on manual, with the shutter at 1/60, aperture at f5.6, and ISO at 400. For indoor shots with a flash, these are my favorite settings. The camera does a great job of figuring out how much flash to use, and my Sigma EF500 Super flash has plenty of power.

The 1/60 shutter speed does a good job of stopping action, while the f5.6 aperture usually creates a good depth of field for indoors. With the film speed set at ISO 400, it's fast enough to light up most of the room and have a slight (yet pleasant) light falloff towards the back.

I composed this shot specifically. I got in close to Tannah and down on her level so you could easily see her. I arranged the simple ingredients so you could see what they were. Because I focused in close, the depth of field in this shot was fairly shallow which helped put the messy counter behind her out of focus (which helps reduce its distraction yet convey enough to easily convey that this is a kitchen).

I like this photo. It really captures the idea well of making something with my kids. Leigh Ann was helping a little, too. And when she wasn't helping, she took my camera and took some photos of Tannah and I working side by side.

By the way, the recipe is really simple. One box of spice cake mix, one bag of mini chocolate chips, and one regular-sized can of pumpkin. Mix it all up (no water needed) with a teaspoon of nutmeg and put it in muffin tins. Cook them at 325° for 10 minutes (for miniature muffins, longer for regular ones) and enjoy!

September 16, 2009 - What a mess

1/40

f4

ISO 800

20mm

RAW

Between cutting down four trees yesterday and this morning, we must have had around three inches of rain fall. And it was still raining. So I went to work, thinking surely there was nothing that would happen today with the tree cutting.

Oh, how I was wrong.

My wife, Rachel, called me around 11 a.m. and said the logger truck showed up and they hauled away the tree trunks that had been felled from the day before. She was busy upstairs when they must have arrived because she didn't realize they were there until the last log was being dragged through the mud to their truck down on the street.

When I got home, this photo shows what greeted me.

I called up the tree cutting service, and the owner apologized. Profusely. He said the logger truck (which is run by a sub-contractor) had permission to pick up the logs yesterday (before the rain started coming down) but he shouldn't have come today. Not after all the rain. And he was especially wondering why in the world the guy tried to do it while it was still raining.

So for my photo today, you get something more like a snapshot. I took a bunch of photos to show what kind of damage was done in case I wasn't going to get any relief from the tree service. This was taken as I was standing in the street where the truck had been, showing how all the logs would've been pulled towards down the slope in front of my house.

They promised to come back out tomorrow, rain or shine, to get this cleaned up.

September 8, 2009 - Another self portrait

0.6 sec

f5.6

ISO 200

18mm

RAW

I almost didn't get a photo today. Back on Labor Day, I fixed a broken pipe under the sink. After dinner tonight, I checked to see if there was any water under the sink.

Sure enough, there was.

So while I was digging around under the sink trying to figure out where the water was coming from, I remembered I still hadn't gotten a photo yet. So I pulled out my tripod, set the camera on it, and adjusted it to where the camera was at head level. This way the photo would have the same perspective as if you had walked in the kitchen and found me there.

I also set the camera on f5.6 to make sure everything was in focus and put it on the widest zoom possible. I adjusted the white balance to match the light bulbs in the kitchen. Finally, I put it on the 10-second timer so I would have enough time to get under the sink before the picture was snapped.

I wish I had a wider lens for a shot like this. It would have helped. I think the perspective could have been better if it had included more of the kitchen.

What do you think? Did I do a good job?

August 21, 2009 – High-rise condominium

1/320

f8

ISO 100

18mm

JPEG

A couple of days ago I mentioned how the part of Buckhead I work in has done a good job of keeping green space amidst all of the high-rises. Here is a good photo showing that. At the base of this condominium is a little half-acre park, complete with bronze statues of kids playing (one of which you can see in the bottom left corner) and two water fountains.

I had to shoot with my lens set as wide as possible in order to get all of the building. There was quite of bit of building lean, which resulted in a tall, skinny pyramid look. Thank goodness for computers and Photoshop Elements camera distortion tool.

Another way to avoid the building lean is to get inside an adjacent building, go halfway up, and shoot your intended building through a window.

August 20, 2009 – Party on the deck

1/125

f11

ISO 200

18mm

JPEG

Our company (HowStuffWorks.com) just launched the first portion of our social networking platform, so we had a party out on the deck (15 floors up) to celebrate. The weather was nice, but really overcast.

I wanted to get a photo that would capture how beautiful the view of the other buildings can be, but also capture the fun everyone was having. That was hard, and here is what I thought was my bast effort.

I shot this at a small aperture (f11) in order to get the people in front (who were about 18 feet away) in focus along with all of the buildings in the back. I might have been able to use a wider aperture, but they were laughing and I didn't have much time to react. So I went with an aperture I knew would do the job.

I used Photoshop Elements to correct most of the distortion from the wide angle shot. I also cropped the photo in a way to leave out the large trash can that was by the table of food on the right.

There were a couple of things I think that could have made this photo better. First, I should have shot it in RAW mode for more post-processing control over the exposure, contrast, and color. But alas, I had left it in JPEG mode after shooting the bees the day before. Second, I wish there were another couple of people talking in the empty space where you can see the tower crane. Ideally, I would have liked them to have been 15-20 feet from the camera.

Car repairs

1/100

f4.5

ISO 400

21mm

RAW

A friend came over yesterday to fix my air conditioner. By the time I thought of taking some photos, he was wrapping up and putting everything back together.

It was a cloudy morning, so I shot this without a flash because the diffused light was doing a great job to evenly illumniate the shot. I wanted the photo to instantly convey "engine repair," so I got in real close and shot at a wide angle. This left only the engine compartment and the mechanic in the photo.

This would make a good stock photo, except for possibly one thing. The dip stick shaft is laying across the top of the engine in the top right corner of the photo. It's something that most people wouldn't notice, but once seen it might have the tendency for the viewer to wonder why it's there. I should have removed it before taking the photo.

And in case you are now wondering, here's what happened. In order to pull out my broken air compressor, he had to squeeze it past the dip stick shaft. The shaft snapped under the pressure.