Assignment 2 submission - Hana Trees

This photo was taken on a sunny day while we were driving to Hana on Maui. The trees are beautiful with their colorful bark and they are extremely tall. I again chose my 18 - 55 mm lens because I wanted to get as much of the trees in the image as possible. I chose to use a portrait orientation to capture the height of the trees. There was a row of them and I framed them from close to one of the trees looking past toward the others so they would look a little like a row of columns. This photo has been cropped to remove elements that distracted from the look I was going for ~ a little brush from behind the first tree and another overhanging branch from the top that I felt made the photo too busy. It was processed in Lightroom.

Assignment 2 Haleakala Morning

I just returned to Alaska from 2 weeks on Maui and took 1000's of pictures. Many of them are of whales I took with my camera in continuous shooting mode, but even subtracting them I still took 1000's. Much thanks to my very patient husband for letting me take as many photos as my batteries and memory cards would allow! He also did everything in his power to get my computer fixed when I damaged my power jack by kicking the cord. Even after what we hoped was a quick fix he patiently endured my not so silent frustration and tears as my computer then started shooting sparks (the ultimate reason my assignment is late) and I inadvertently erased from my memory card the best pictures I have ever taken of a sunset.....before I had saved them to my hard drive.  This is the first of the four photos I'm submitting. There were 11 finalist that the four were selected from. I will follow this post with the semi-finalists.

This photo, Haleakala Morning, was taken early in the morning. My husband and I left our room at 3:30 am in the hopes of witnessing one of the spectacular sunrises that our seen from the summit of this volcano. Unfortunately, there were too many clouds to see the sunrise. The first choices I had to make concerning this, and all the photos I would take had to do with which lens to use. It was bitterly cold and windy and we were hiking a short distance at over 10,000 feet so I was only bringing my camera - no bag, no tripod. I choose my smallest lens, the 18-55 mm kit lens that came with my camera (I so want a good wide angle lens, but figure if I can't take a descent photo with the kit lenses, having better ones won't make that much difference.)  I chose this over my telephoto lens thinking that I could always crop my images if I wanted to, but whatever is out of the field of view in the telephoto is lost forever. The other reason I chose this lens is that I would be hand holding the camera and I have notoriously shaky hands; the telephoto is heavier and requires an even steadier hand, especially given that I would have to use even slower shutter speeds with it. The fact that this photo is in focus when I hand held the camera and used this shutter speed is a miracle. I chose to shoot with the aperture wide open to be able to use as fast a shutter speed as possible. This worked also to capture the foreground in focus. I chose this photo over others that don't include the foreground because I think foreground adds to the sense of depth the photo has. I had to punch everything up a bit  in Lightroom  because there is a lot of haze in the original image. It has not been cropped.

Environmental Portraits

I took may different versions of this photo. There are 2 sets of stairs  with an expanse of deck between them that I cropped out of the picture. I wanted to highlight the different textures and lines they included, but ultimately I was looking for the vertical element of the door and this crop gave the photo the most impact. I also took many versions from different distances. This is the farthest distance and once I framed it through the camera I knew this would be the best because of the texture and interest from the tree branch. I chose to take this in the afternoon because it is the only time we get good sunlight. I also took this photo from a shaded spot to avoid glare on the camera lens and Romeo (my mini Dachshund) is in the shade.  I chose black and white for this photo because color detracted from the simplicity and lines. Romeo gets impatient about being outside in the winter and will stand with his feet on the door looking through the window for someone to let him in and that is the pose I was hoping to capture with him, but here he looks to me as if he is at attention guarding the house and I like that he is looking off in another direction rather than at me. 

I chose color for this photo because Marcus's (our other dog)  nose got lost in the background when I tried B&W.  I was taking pictures of my husband shoveling our sidewalk from our driveway. That position gives interesting angles because I am looking up toward my husband and it includes the stairs and the long walkway.I had him call Marcus over for a few photos hoping to capture the devotion they have for each other. I chose this photo ( even though I'm not real thrilled with the focus, I wish it was much better) with him petting Marcus  because the way they are looking at each other captured it. Ultimately I cropped out the stairs and sidewalk because they detracted from the mood and my husband still holding the shovel and the little bit of sidewalk I included makes it clear what he is doing. I also had to be careful with the crop so that the photo stayed balanced and struggled with including the tree or not. In the end I included it because I like the texture.

I took hundreds of photos the afternoon I took this. The late afternoon sun casts beautiful light and shadows into the room and I was photographing my dogs and just happened to glance toward the mirror and see perfect shots and since we were encouraged to be creative I thought I would take a few shots of the mirrors reflection. Poor Marcus is never allowed on the furniture, but this is the shot I wanted. I had a hard time getting him to stay put and he kept acting like he was being punished by being made to sit there and at one point ran downstairs to hide in his kennel. This photo is also cropped. The original has family photos on each side of the mirror. I could have straightened the crop so the mirror's frame wasn't off kilter and framed the entire photo, but I think it is more obvious this way that this is photo of Marcus's reflection in a mirror. It also gives it a funky feel. Because through the mirror Marcus is pretty far off I sharpened him up a lot in LightRoom to help him stand out. I also had to lower the highlights considerably to get the what is outside the window to be easier to see.

I chose color for this photo because of the warmth  the photo has in color.  The photo was taken with the light of  a  lamp to the side of her because I like the soft light it gives the photo. I ended up cropping out the lamp in the end because I felt it detracted from the image. I had Rachel (my daughter) hold a book for the photos I was taking and this is the only one of the photos I took where you can see she what book she is reading. I chose this photo because of  Rachel's expression and the soft look of the image. I had to do some sharpening and just a little healing of  some hard shadows caused by the lamp on her forehead. I also highlighted around her eyes and sharpened her eyelashes to make her eyes pop. I used LightRoom for all the photo processing.

Need help

I need some advise. These are some of the photos I am considering for an environmental portrait assignment.    Which of these do you like and why? Is a photo too light, dark, over processed, or out of focus? Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thanks ~ Eva

Butterfly

My husband thinks this is better than the peony photo. What do you think?

Cook Inlet Sunset February 2, 2013

After seeing this my husband insisted that I admit that I was coached by him. He's right of course.....I couldn't have done this without John! :-)