Signing off for now

I've been neglecting this blog more and more lately. As a result, for now, I am transitioning to just posting new images on my FLICKR page. That's actually been the trend for a while now, though I always intended to get the images up here as well. Going forward, when I have time for photography, I plan to just post over there. Thank you for the comments over the past few years.

Shenandoah National Park

From a hike in Shenandoah National Park, about 75 miles west of Washington, DC.

More from Duke Gardens

I went back to Duke Gardens today for another hour of photography. I think these were probably the best shots of the day.

Lotus at Duke Gardens

I celebrated the successful completion of my board examinations today by heading over to Duke Gardens for about an hour of photography. Shooting this lotus was a treat. Larger versions are available on my FLICKR site.

Great Smoky Mountain National Park

View from an overlook in Great Smoky Mountain National Park in western North Carolina. This picture was taken a few miles below Klingman's Dome. We had just enough time to drive in and out of the park, so photography took a low priority.

Mountain stream along NC 276

A mountain stream along scenic NC Highway 276, not far from Brevard.

The image is best viewed on my FLICKR page, where you can see a larger version.

As a final note, I'm realizing that my color balance looks very different on Steph's laptop versus my own. I hope that the images are appearing as intended when others view this site, but I can't be sure.

Triple Falls

Though probably not one of the best subjects for photography, Triple Falls (half of which is shown here) is certainly one of the two or three most impressive waterfalls in North Carolina. It's tough to settle on an exposure that works for both the powerful fall itself as well as the spill way in the foreground. The solution is probably a technique called high dynamic range processing, but that's not yet part of my repertoire.

Orchid, alternative view

Another view of our orchid.

Orchid

The orchid from our mantle. Taken mid-afternoon when I really should've been studying.

As always, a larger version is available on my FLICKR page.

Riley in black and white

Pictures of Riley helping us plant a tree

Yates Mill Pond

I spent an hour this morning taking pictures at Yates' Mill Pond in Raleigh. The light was fairly harsh on the mill itself, so I tried to salvage the trip with some images of the water coming over the old dam. The third shot should've been the best, but I overexposed it, causing the water to get bleached out. As it is, I prefer the second shot, and a larger size of it is available on my FLICKR page.

24 hours in the mountains

Steph and I spent Saturday in the NC mountains, and I took advantage of the chance to take a few shots. The images above are from the Blue Ridge Parkway south of Asheville, Whitewater Falls near the South Carolina border, and the Blue Ridge Parkway near below Grandfather Mountain. A larger version of the first image is now up on my FLICKR page. I think it's best viewed large.

Irises at Raulston Arboretum

On Sunday morning, Stephanie and I went to a plant sale at J.C. Raulston Arboretum in Raleigh. I couldn't skip the chance to take a few pictures of the brilliant irises in bloom. I expect to get larger versions of these up on my FLICKR site later this week.

Barn on Old US Highway 1

Yesterday, my Saturday bike ride took me south into Wake and Chatham Counties, just beyond the reach of the inevitable march of development spreading out from Cary, NC. Between old farms and views of Jordan Lake, it's a pretty wonderful area (at least for now). I'd noticed this barn on a ride perhaps two weeks ago, and when I saw it again yesterday, I decided that I needed to get back to take a picture.

The main virtue of this shot is that it reflects exactly what you see as you come down Old US Highway 1 towards Bonsal. With the winter wheat in the foreground and this nicely maintained barn in the distance, it's a nice view. Today, we had overcast skies, but when low rays of morning light are illuminating the barn, it can be really pretty.

Steph and I stopped along the road to take this shot, before heading to a plant sale at J.C. Raulston Arboretum. I'll post a few shots from there later this week.

Nice primer on shooting waterfalls

Came across a decent article earlier today. It's got several basic but important points to consider when shooting waterfalls.

Caterpillar Reprocessed

I reworked the processing on my favorite shot from yesterday. With a little extra "light", I think it's a much better image now.

Caterpillar on a lily

Today, I had fun spending about 45 minutes taking some shots of this caterpillar on an Easter lily in our backyard. The first two of these may eventually make their way to FLICKR, depending on whether I still like them a day or two from now. The second one is probably better at this size, but blown up a bit more, the first one really shines. The third shot was taken without a tripod, and isn't sharp enough to be much bigger than this.

Spring Flowers

Today, I took a few hours on a day off to take pictures of flowers on the Chapel Hill campus of the University of North Carolina. These were the best shots of the morning. I'll probably put them onto my FLICKR page soon.

Kudzu shed

A shed about 3 miles from our house.

Easter Lilies

As always, you can find larger versions of these files on my FLICKR site.

Spring Pine

If you had to pick one thing that defines one's visual experience of central North Carolina, it might be the pine. From the scrub pines that congest every new growth forest to the giant tall pines in old cities and towns, you will find plenty of green needles in this state. So, feeling a little burnt out this afternoon but frustrated by a late NC spring that hasn't given me much to photograph, I took this shot earlier maybe 100 yards from our place.

Daffodils at Duke Gardens

Today marked the last day of a one week vacation, during which I had hoped to take a lot of photographs. In the end, I was far less prolific than I'd hoped. However, this morning, we did get over to Duke Gardens for about an hour. These daffodil images were probably the days best images.

Larger versions of these images will soon be posted on my flickr page, which increasingly I am using as my primary site for posting photographs.

Barn at sunset

It's a been a good long while since I got out to shoot. For the past few days, I've been visiting my parents in central Illinois, the land of much better sunsets than we get in North Carolina. I took this shot just outside of Macomb, IL on the way home from a visit to see my grandparents.

All in the eye of the beholder

I recently entered four of my pictures from my trip this summer to India for consideration into an international photo exhibit. Two of them were selected, which doesn't mean much as the flyer advertising the exhibit promised that they would try to include at least one image from each submitter.

What's intersting to me is that the two images that got selected were not the two I expected. Here are the shots that got in:



And here are the shots that got rejected:


Originally, I just submitted the latter two (which got rejected), and I only submitted the first two (which got accepted) as an afterthought. In terms of image quality, I'd rate the images on opposite ends of the spectrum. The image of the doors is probably the best or second best image (although not a great fit for the theme of the exhibit), but I've never thought much of the image of the young girl. On the other hand, I really like both images that got rejected.

It's a common theme for me with pictuers I take. Other people often prefer images that I don't.

Finally, to digress, it's a very late Spring in North Carolina this year, which has delayed my anticipated return to picture taking. Hopefully I'll be able to get something posted in the next week.

Time for photography on the horizon

It's been seven very hectic weeks here, as evidenced by the unusual quiet on this blog. However, a much needed lull is in sight, and I'm hopeful that I'll be able to get some decent images taken, beginning next weekend. Stay tuned...

From the Picture Album- Another look at the Yate's Pond Mill

Last month, I posted a black and white image of Raleigh's Yates Pond Mill, a beautiful structured restored by North Carolina State University and maintained by the Wake County park service. Right now, I'm buried by the beginning of yet another semester, so I've not had a chance to get out to take pictures. In the interest of keeping this blog from getting stale, here's my second favorite image from the day at the mill.

Introducing My Flickr Album

One of this blog's visitors, a friend and fellow photographer, has been bugging me to get a Flickr page for a while now, presumably so that the many flaws in my 360-pixels-across images can finally be revealed (just kidding, Barrett). I've long posted 550ish x 400ish images on my website but the resolution still has been lacking- not to mention that I don't update it too often.

So... I am going to begin posting some shots at my newly revealed flickr page. For now, it's just five of my better images. I'll try to get a few more of my favorites posted this week. After that, I'll update it with new shots that I am especially pleased with, and I'll make links from here to there.

Cheers.

Coming Christmas 2009

Stephanie and I haven't sent out Christmas cards in probably six years, but in about 340 days or so from now, I think we're going to do so. Why? Truth be told, I don't know. Yestrday morning, as I was taking the pine needle pictures Stephanie recommended, she came over and said, "There's also a really nice holly tree on the bike path. I think it would make a nice Christmas card." And so, I finished up shooting pine needles and started taking pictures for the 2009 Montgomery family Christmas card. Here's what you can expect in your mailboxes (or at least your inboxes) next December.

Land of the Long Leaf Pine

This morning, Steph took our dog for his morning walk before I'd awaken. When she got back, she woke me, saying "I think I have a good idea for a picture." There aren't many wives so on board with their husband's photography hobby that they're coming up with ideas for shots while the lazy bum sleeps, but what can I say, I'm a lucky guy.

I hopped out of bed in my pajamas and made my way to the pine trees shown below. Steph was rightfully impressed with the beads of water on the end of their long needles. I was excited because North Carolina calls itself "the Land of the Long Leaf Pine", and I've been wanting to take up that theme for a while now.





I don't think that I nailed either shot, but I'm also not discouraged with either. Technically, it's a tough photograph to take, as the many beads of water are inevitably in different focal planes. Even so, it was a fun exercise.

Sunflowers

Today, I found more cheap flowers. This time at the our local grocery store. It goes without saying, but I love photographing flowers... especially in the snow-less North Carolina winter, which doesn't offer a whole lot of compelling subjects. For three or four bucks, you can pick up something that will entertain you for the better part of a morning.

The technical details of these images are pretty similar to those for yesterday's daisies. Small aperture openings to maximize depth of field, 28-105 lens, manual focus, etc. However, it was a cloudy day in North Carolina, so I had to supplement the natural lighting coming through our kitchen windows by keeping the room lights on.


This first shot is standard fare for me. Basically, I'm just offsetting the flower to the 1/3 mark on either side of a horizontal image. I've used this formula for several other shots, such as this yellow flower at Raulston Arboretum or even this Stokes' Aster. (As an aside, I'd just comment that I really don't like that yellow flower, but it tends to be one of my most popular pictures). As with all of my images, I did sharpen this image, but otherwise, the only manipulation is some light cropping to get it to 11x14 scale.


For the second shot, I pulled out a kitchen spray bottle and gave the sunflowers a light mist. Then, I took basically the same shot as above, only this time, I cropped liberally, keeping the image at a 5x7 scale. I think the composition here is interesting and looks a bit like a sunrise.

Sadly, I'm headed back to reality on Monday, so my opportunities for photography are about to become a whole lot less frequent. I'll try to pick up some more flowers on MLK weekend, and then, the North Carolina spring should arrive 2 or 3 weeks after that. My big project for the spring will be revisiting Chapel Hill's Old Well to try to capture some nice images with better equipment. But those flowers won't come until later in the spring, so that endeavor will have to wait until March. Cheers.

Daisies (Updated)

For my first shots of the new year, I bought six daisies from a local market. I then spent about an hour in our kitchen taking pictures, using natural lighting coming through the blinds. For all of these images, I've used a borrowed Canon 28-105 mm lens, shooting perhaps 12 inches from the flower and maxing out the zoom.


The key to this first shot is the depth of field. I shot the image at F14, and it really paid off, as I was able to capture a lot of detail in the flowers. I've cropped this picture to 11x14 format for printing purposes. I actually shot this image on the horizontal but rotated it in Photoshop onto the vertical (feel free to turn your monitor to see how it changes the image). Originally, I was partial to the latter, as I've been told by Jack Graham that vertical images outsell horizontals about 5 to 1.


However, it's always important to take some time away from an image before settling on what to do with it. 24 hours removed from taking the shot, I decided that this really is the best version of the image.


For the third image, I tried to take a more complete look at the flower, although this composition doesn't get the entire bloom (just to keep things interesting). A more liberal cropping of this shot serves as the new banner for the site.


I've decided to go black and white with this last image, though the color version is perhaps equally interesting (and can be seen here by those who dislike black-and-white). The aperture was a bit more open here (F11), which I think gives the petals a soft quality. However, I tried to keep the sepals (the part on the back of the petals that would be green if this were in color) pretty sharp.