Night Shots

Night photography is not one of my best suits, but I really want it to be.

There is just a mystique about shooting after most people pack up their gear and head home. The colors aren't washed out and the darkness of night just gives a special feeling to the entire scene. 

On the flip side, it takes more work to shoot at night. A tripod is a necessity, along with a release cable, a flashlight, and on and on. Plus, you need some time to just, well, stand there.

There is, I think, a compromise. The two shots in this post were taken by putting my camera down on a concrete dock, laying down behind it to frame the shot, and then letting the camera do the work.

I like these two, but they, admittedly, need to be a lot better. I left the aperture too wide and didn't get the sharpness that I would have liked from front to back. 

Sunset over the Potomac

Gaylord National Hotel National Harbor, MD

But then again, all the more reason to shoot more. The theory goes that you get better...

Flowers

They are amazing things, aren't they? I'm pretty sure there isn't a color on earth that you can't find in a flower.

My friend Roni over at the My Life at 50mm blog does an AMAZING job with flowers and so at  a recent outing I tried my hand and shooting them. I'm no Roni, but it's also tough to flip a 70-200 lens backwards!

Shooting flowers really requires only a couple of things, at least as far as I can tell. First, a different perspective (standing over a flower and taking it's pictures is well...done already). The second is trying to capture what it is about the flower that makes it worth taking a picture of.

Is it a great blending of different colors?

Does it have a really cool shape that allows for some creativity just in shooting it?

Or, does it give you a chance to capture just the flower and isolate it from the rest of the world?

Just my thoughts.

Mitch

It's been awhile

So it's been awhile since I posted anything on this blog. I have said over and over that I want to keep up with this, and I've failed every time! :)

So, now I'm going to try again.

I got a new lens that I got to test drive at Walt Disney World during a business trip to Orlando in June.

Here are a few pics with the new Canon 70-200 f2.8 IS II lens.

It really is an awesome lens.

I am a huge fan of manipulating DOF and the ability to have a tack sharp lens that will give me really good results all the way back to f2.8 is invaluable.

My previous primary lens, a Canon 17-40 f4 is a great lens, but the extra stops down to 2.8 really do make a difference.

Disney in June is ghastly hot. I grew up not far from Disney World, but I  had forgotten how bad it was. It was still a great trip and a wonderful opportunity to test the new toy!

Happy Shooting

Work in Progress

This is a shot of the ferris wheel that is in the lobby at the Grand Floridian Resort & Spa at Walt Disney World. I shoot this thing every time we go to Disney, which happens quite often. This is my favorite so far, but I'm still working on it.

Disney's Cinderella's Castle

I saw some pictures today of Cinderella's Castle at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom. They're doing renovations to the castle, as they frequently do, but this one is apparently pretty serious. They've covered up quite a bit of it and have drained the moat and reflection pools. So in honor of the beauty and majesty of the castle, I'm posting my first picture.

Somewhat appropriate for a photography blog, dontcha think?

First Post

So this is my first post on my brand spanking new photography blog. How this blog will evolve I don't know. Hopefully I will start with some of my frustrations and them move to how I've overcome them.

Photography is a passion of mine that I don't get to work on anywhere near often enough, but hopefully this blog will push me to shoot more, so I can blog about it!

I don't know if anybody will read this, but maybe when I get the guts to tell people about it...

Mitch