Happy St. Patri .... er, Thanksgiving

Clovers and Dew

I hope everyone here in the US has had a good Thanksgiving holiday. This photograph was taken while we were at my wife's family reunion yesterday. I liked the dew drops on the one clover. Have a good weekend.

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Wofford Fun Run

Wofford Fun Run

Yesterday I mentioned that my son had another Fun Run event this week. Here is one of my favorite shots of some of the kids participating in the run. The run was held at Wofford University's soccer stadium. The kids had to run one or two laps around the track depending on their age group. Quite a few kids were there this year and the weather was much more pleasant than last year. It was just cool enough to be comfortable, and cloudy enough to keep the sun from glaring into the kids' eyes. Plus, the clouds helped to soften the light on the kids too which was good for photography.

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Red Glow

Red Glow

My son had another fun run event yesterday. This time it was held at Wofford College's soccer stadium here in town. I liked the light on this one tree as we walked past it. There are still some Autumn colors hanging on to the branches.

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Reedy River Falls at Night

Reedy River Falls at Night

This was one of the last photographs I took while at Falls Park. There is a spot light that illuminates the falls at night and I liked out it backlit the water going over the falls. This is not an HDR image, it is a simple long exposure of 30 seconds. Long exposures turns water rapids into silky white blurs.

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HDR Gone Wrong

Reedy River Falls at Night

I tried to capture quite a few different angles of the Reedy River Falls and the Liberty Bridge. After the sun had set and the light was turning that beautiful blue, I thought that I would try to get a set of images of the view you see above. Unfortunately, I made several mistakes taking the images to merge into the HDR software. This left me with an HDR image that I didn't really like at all. However, as I was playing around with the various settings I got the image you see above. Everything about it from capture to processing was "wrong", but there is something about this result that I find intriguing.

"Correct" doesn't always give the best results. "Wrong" can sometimes be more interesting. Something to think about I suppose.

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Falls Park in HDR

Falls Park and the West End

Here is another HDR image taken this past weekend. I posted a similar view earlier this year which was taken on the other side of the river. I like this one because of the reflection in the water and the people enjoying the park.

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Reedy River Falls in HDR

Liberty Bridge and Reedy River Falls

This past weekend I went back to Falls Park in Greenville, South Carolina to try to photograph the Liberty Bridge and the waterfalls again. It is one of my favorite places to photograph although I have not yet gotten "the" photograph of the bridge that I want. The bridge's unique lateral, suspension arc and position make it a difficult subject for a photograph to do justice.

This time I went to the park during the late afternoon and stayed into the early night. That was really only about an hour and a half to two hours considering how quickly the sun sets this time of year. I was hoping that would allow me to get good exposures on the sky and the surrounds. However, in actuality, the sun was close to and even sometime even in the frame due to needing a wide angle of view to encompass the entire bridge. I also had some ideas on how to get some better angles of the bridge.

Considering the bright sky and shaded areas of the park, I thought that maybe some HDR (high dynamic range) techniques might work in this situation. I took quite a few sets of bracketed exposures and later merged them using Photomatix Pro software. In the end, I still think I can get a better image. There were several problems with this set of images. I made some mistakes while shooting the brackets. I didn't pay as good attention to the compositions as I should have while shooting them. I also think I need to more practice on the HDR processing.

Still, I did get a few images that I liked even if they are not quite what I ultimately wanted. Practice, practice, practice. It is what makes hobbies fun and it gives me a reason to go back to the park again.

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Autumn Red

Autumn Red

Here is a small bush that was in it's Autumn colors. I thought it was quite a striking red at the time.

Hope that everyone has a good weekend.

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Autumn Warning

Autumn Warning

Maples. Oaks. These are two of the trees we usually look to giving us the brilliant colors of Autumn. However, other plants are hibernating as well. Ground cover. Herbs. Bushes. Autumn colors can be found in more than just the boughs of stately trees. Take the plant in today's image. Pretty isn't it? It is poison oak ... or poison ivy. I can never remember which is which, just the old saying, "Leaves of three, let it be." While it does have nice Autumn colors, I wouldn't want to pick it for a dinner table's center piece.

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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.

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