Eden Farms

This past weekend I went to Marietta, SC to take some pictures for a friend from work whose son was turning two years old.  I arrived for the event about a half an hour early so I could take some pictures for my personal collection.  The party was held at a place called Eden Farms, which is one of the premier horse farms in the upstate.  Unfortunately, at the party, the only horses available for riding were for the children.  It was still a great party and a very fun place to take pictures at.

Summer Nights

Nothing is quite like sitting out on the porch in the summer in the south with an ice cold glass of homemade sweet tea.  For photography, the natural colors of the tea contrast very well against the evening sky, creating a rich mix of color between dark and light.

Beautiful Georgia Southern

This past weekend, I travelled back to Statesboro to visit my girlfriend.  While I was there, I had some free time to take pictures by Sweetheart Circle.  Since I had gotten my camera, I wanted to capture the beauty of campus and I finally had the chance to do so at least partially.  After a few more trips back down to Georgia Southern I should have some more shots of the campus.

Backyard Nature

I know it's been quite a long time since I have posted anything on here, but I have some newly found free time now that I have a break from school.  Hopefully I will be able to post entries on here at least once a week with some quality pictures.

After the Spring Semester ended, I found that I had some free time at home.  Naturally, I took the opportunity to take some photos.  All of the following pictures were taken within 100 feet of my house.  It shows that you don't have to go far away to take some amazing photographs.  It just takes a keen eye and some patience for the right moment to come along.

Jetta

Recently I have taken a few pictures of the Jetta VR6.  It was a great opportunity to experiment with my polarizer filter. By changing the way light reflects off the vehicle, I was surprisingly able to make the car look cleaner than it really was. I was able to make it look like I just put a fresh coat of wax on.

 

Fall Retreat

Last weekend I went to Talullah Gorge and Unicoi State Park with Chi Alpha and we had an amazing time!

Here are some of my favorite photos from the trip. I hope you enjoy them!

The Greer Warehouse on Old Woodruff

On Monday night, Josh and I finally got the chance to take some pictures of the old abandoned warehouse over by Taco Tuesday in Greer.

It was fast paced, exciting and interesting. I'm gonna be honest, the area was pretty sketch. But Josh said that you will oftentimes take some of the best pictures in areas just like those.

I'm dedicating these pictures to Kyle Lyons, because he spoke about doing a photoshoot there numerous times after we would go to Taco Tuesday.

CS Veir

Guess what I got last night... : )

Black and White with Color Highlights

Recently I have been learning a bit more about Photoshop (more specifically, the freeware/open-source photo editor, The GIMP) and I learned how to reclaim some color from a photograph that I made into a B&W.

It's probably one of the oldest techniques known to digital photo editing so I won't go into any details on how to do it but needless to say I'm really happy with the results it produced.


I took this picture of my parent's tomato garden this past weekend and figured that it would be a good picture to help learn how to work with a color masking layer.

Food Photography Tips

This bit of advise came to me last night from my roommate, Josh (http://joshjonesphoto.blogspot.com/.)

Photographing food isn't really that tricky, but if you don't have the settings adjusted right, then your food will look disgusting, no matter how delicious it might taste.

Start off with having your food in a well-lit area. This is probably one of the biggest problems with most photographs in general. Low light areas will produce a bunch of noise.

Depending on your personal preference, adjust your exposure to around +0.3 or +0.7. The next step is probably the most important step in the whole process. Manually set your white balance. If you don't do this, chances are your food will have a yellow or green tint, depending on whether it is under fluorescent or incandescent lighting. Manually setting your white balance will also help you avoid getting over-exposed pixels.

Set your camera to your preferred ISO setting and set your shutter speed to something that will not be affected by you holding the camera as opposed to having it on a tripod (if you do a tripod shot, of course you should set a low ISO and your shutter speed can be as fast or slow as you like.)

Try to get an interesting angle. You don't like boring photography that looks flat. Try to keep your image fairly level and take your shot. Hopefully, your food will look even better and you will be satisfied with your meal!

If I'm just bad news, then you're a liar...

It's an amazing difference using a DSLR camera after using point-and-shoot cameras for so long. There are just so many options, it really opens so many possibilities. This is a photo I took last night that has next to no editing... just straight from the camera to the computer.

ISO 200, 18-55mm lens, f/13, -0.7 exposure and manual focus.

What impressed me the most was that I didn't even have to use flash at all. It is so different compared what I have used before.