Favorite Shots from January 2005

Between school and all these weddings I haven't found myself with a lot of free time to go out and shoot as much as I want to. I found myself looking though some of the pictures I took the very first month I got seriously into photography. These pictures are about 4 years old, and at the time I thought they were really great! Just shows you how much you can improve if you stick with something.

At the time I was shooting with a 3.1mp Kodak CX7330. I was just beginning to learn what a shutter speed was! If your just starting off and your pictures aren't coming out the way you like, stick with it. Remember I sucked back in the beginning too!

Its a good day

Well I won my first large cash prize from a photography contest! I just got the $1,000 check from a recent automotive photography contest.

Speaking of automotive photography, I took some pictures of my new car the other night. After seeing some of the amazing automotive photography posted on some other people's sites, I figured I better brush up on mine. I cannot wait for it to warm up, although the snow does make for a cool background! Now I just need to find a BMW photography contest...

Winter's Beauty

I went out to some local parks with my cousin the other day because it was one of the few days where there is fresh snow and clear skys. What a perfect day for photography! I love days like this. We stopped at a field in Spencerport because the sky was just stunning, then continued on to black creek park. Here are some of the results!

New workflow

After a lengthy discussion on a forum I am on, I decided to look through my workflow that I use to post images to the web. Before I would do a three step method of doing touchup work in photoshop CS3, then batch resizing the images in MS Picture Manager to 640x480, saving them, and then opening them in my watermarking tool. This was secretly creating a lot of artifacting and compression in the image. That maked my images appear less sharp and detailed than they really are. 

JPG files are a Lossy format, meaning everytime you modify them and save them, compression is applied to the image and some of the data is lost. I was saving them three times and never really output sharpening them for the web. 

Well I fixed these issues this morning by adapting a much simplier and faster way to output images for this website and the many forums I am apart of. Now after photoshop I simply just open them in my watermarking tool, do the watermarking, sharpening, and resize all in one shot. This means less compression and sharper images. I also upped my standard size from 640x480 to maximum of 660px on each edge. This means that from now on my images will be slightly bigger on your screen, as well as showing more detail. The file sizes should also be kept around the same size as well, which means no increase in loading times. 

Here's an example of what I'm talking about! 

Before:



New:


Look closely and you will see the extra detail and slight increase in size. It's like more branches just appeared on the trees! I encourage all of you photographers out to there come up with an effecient way to put your images on the web so they look the best. 

Moonlight over frozen tundra

I was debating whether or not to go out and take pictures last night. Just about a full moon, beautifully clear air, partially cloudy, perfect recipe for night pictures. I also felt bad because I haven't taken a single picture all year! On the other hand, I've been sick lately, and it was totally freezing out. Well as you can imagine I ended up going out anyways. Here are some of my favorites, not a bad start to photography in the new year if you ask me!

What a difference 6 months makes!

Have you ever gone back and visited the same place in a totally different time of year? I recently visited this same spot in Churchville Park where there is an abandoned door. Instead of being surrounded by plants, this time it was covered in a few inches of snow. Seasons are a great tool for a photographer. They provide them a chance to visit the same place twice and come home with drastically different results.

100 Posts!

I just realized I have already hit 100 posts on here! Thank you everyone!

Lisa and Alan are married!

Lisa and Alan's wedding was probably one of the most unique weddings I've ever shot. It all started off with pictures of them getting ready. With Christmas right around the corner the colors were spot on. Red, white, and black filled they day. They are both firefighters and themed their wedding off of it! We even stopped at their firehouse to get some pictures! It was a fun day filled with laughter, love, and happiness. Thanks for having us!