Jumping Over the Moon
This past weekend we went down to visit my parents again. The reason was to go out to Shaw Air Force Base in Sumter, South Carolina for their ShawFest airshow. I have been wanting to photograph an airshow for quite a while now. However, the couple of bases in the state have been sending so many people overseas that they have had to cancel the airshows. As a matter of fact, the Charleston Air Force Base canceled their airshow just a couple of weeks ago. Luckily Shaw AFB was able to have their show this year.
More after the jump.
The airshow itself got started off with the Army's Golden Knights. The picture above shows two of the Golden Knights connected to each other. They are so high up that they appear to be one jumper and one parachute. But, when I zoom in I can make out the second parachute and jumper. A crescent moon was just barely visible through the daylight haze, and I'm glad that I was able to get at least one shot of the Knights in the frame with it.
Here are a few other photographs from the Golden Knights' demonstration:Opening Event
Golden Knight Overhead
Two Golden Knights Connected Together
More to come from ShawFest 2010 throughout the week.
Keep shooting.
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Tuesday, May 11, 2010
ShawFest 2010
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Spooky Moon
Spooky Moon
I visited my parents for a few days and took some photographs around the area. Kind of like this one. It is sort of moody.
Keep shooting.
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Friday, March 26, 2010
Spring Moon
Spring Moon
Spring is finally here. Dogwoods and other trees are blooming. Remember those blooming trees I photographed from my son's school a couple of weeks ago? There are several of those trees all around the campus. When we went out to the school the other day, I spent some time photographing some that were near the playground. I noticed that the Moon was clearly visible in the afternoon sky. So, I played around with it and the flowering trees. This image is my favorite. If you zoom in on the Moon, you can clearly see the craters and texture of the Lunar surface. I thought that the blurred flowers around it made a nice frame.
Keep shooting.
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Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Contrasts
Contrasts
During the Cub Scout Camporee, I was able to take some photographs of the Autumn colors that I liked. This image was captured when all of us parents were relaxing outside of our tents. I happened to look up and noticed the moon clearly visible between two trees. The tree on the right is an evergreen. The tree on the left had turned yellow for the season. I didn't even have to leave my camp chair to get it. I just had to look around to notice something that I had not expected to see.
I call the image contrasts for a couple of reasons. First, it shows the contrasts between evergreen and deciduous trees in Autumn. Second, it shows the Moon out during the middle of the day which contrasts against when we would expect to observed it this clearly. Together the trees and the moon illustrate the contrasts that we do not notice most of the time that are around us throughout the year.
I suppose that might sound a bit artsy, but I actually was thinking along those lines while photographing this scene. There were nearly a dozen frames taken of it with different compositions. This is the one that best captured what I was thinking at the time.
Moral of this story is look around and you could find something unexpected that makes a good image. Try not to look around with blinders. There might be a great image just above you, at your feet, or right behind you.
Keep shooting.
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Friday, August 28, 2009
Moon over Lights
Reflected Lights
Two sources of reflected light in this photograph. The sunlight reflecting off of the light pole, and the sunlight reflecting off of the Moon. Even from so far away, we can see the Moon's reflected light during the daytime. I guess the blue sky might count as one too. The blue color comes from sunlight bouncing around the atmosphere and being filtered to the blue end of the spectrum ... sort of anyway. It's more complex than I believe. This photograph was taken out at Wofford College when we went to watch the Carolina Panthers' training camp.
Keep shooting.
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Thursday, July 16, 2009
To the moon!
Lunar Eclipse (Feb. 2008)
Forty years ago today, the three astronauts of Apollo 11 blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center. Their destination was the Moon. Their mission to land on, walk on, collect samples from and finally to return safely home. NASA has a commemorative website that I recommend.
Keep shooting. Keep reaching. Keep dreaming.
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Monday, March 9, 2009
Playing around
Moon Painting
I've been playing around with Photoshop CS4 some more. I took a picture of the moon this weekend, but it seemed kind of bland with all of the black sky around it. I had watched a tutorial over on Planet Photoshop and thought I might try to apply some of that to this photo.
I might have overdone the lights a bit, but so what. It was really more of a practice thing than anything. Now, to figure out how to do some nebulae.
Keep shooting.
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Thursday, May 22, 2008
Lunar Eclipse
Back in Febuary, 2008 there was a lunar eclipse. Like a lot of people I spent the night photographing it. My gallery of the entire night's shoot is linked here. The picture you see here is a composite of the best shots I got throughout the night chronicling the eclipse's progression. It is also the first composite that I've been able to make with Photoshop Elements. The plain, black background really helped with selecting the various moon images and blending them together. More after the jump about how I photographed the eclipse.
To capture the shots, I had my camera mounted on a tripod. I used my 70-300mm VR lens zoomed out to 300mm and turned the VR off. VR wasn't needed since I was using a tripod. Spot exposure was used throughout the evening. The full moon exposure was f/8 at 1/250 and ISO 100. You can actually get a shot of the full moon hand-held with the 70-300mm VR. I did that the night before and the VR kept the lens steady enough for the exposure.
The remaining shots throughout the night were simply taken by spot metering off of the moon. As the exposure times grew longer, I used my IR remote to trigger the camera and the exposure delay feature to further reduce camera shake in order to maintain image sharpness. At the mid-point of the eclipse the exposure was f/8 and 1/60. Just before the totality period, when the moon was just a dim, sliver visible to the naked eye the exposure was f/8 at 1/20. During totality, or the total eclipse period, the exposure was f/8 and 3 seconds. I also opened the aperture a stop to f/5.6 to get exposures at 1.3 seconds and 1.6 seconds. The 1.6 second exposure was when the moon started re-entering the sun's light.The shot that you see to the left was one my favorites of the night. It is enlarged from its' original size to show more detail. What I like about it is the slight blue fringe on the right edge. It is my understanding that the blue color comes from the faint amount of sunlight that has traveled through the Earth's atmosphere. So, I suppose you could call it Earthlight.
This shot is a wider view that shows some of the stars that were visible at the time. You might need to click to see the larger version as the stars are fairly dim even when compared to the eclipsed moon. I believe that one of the stars is Saturn.
Hope you enjoyed these. It was a fun, evening and we had wonderfully clear skies after a threat of rain.
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