We had just finished eating and my wife asked if I would go to some of the local craft stores with her to purchase some of the items for our daughters wedding. She had some half off coupons, but there was a limit of one per customer. This wedding is getting to be more and more money. So I went with her. Within a few minutes we had save close to $30 and were on our way home. As we drove up our street this was the scene we saw in the Southwestern part of the valley. I quickly ran into the house grabbed the camera and drove to the end of our street. I was literally thirty seconds late in photographing Maple Mountain in full color. By the time I arrived it had darkened dramatically.

I didn’t have time to set up a tripod so I set the camera to f/7.1, and the iso to 400. This allowed the shutter to be between 1/200 and 1/250 of a second. The left image is 1/200 the right is 1/250.

Thank you for taking the time to visit my site today. Please let me know what you think by clicking on the contact link.

~wr~

About five years ago we were in Durango, Colorado for a family reunion. This photo is the perfect example of using the equipment you have available. I had just started to take digital photos. This photo was taken with a Cannon Powershot point and shoot camera. The camera is 4 megapixels. So even if you don’t have professional equipment use what you have and go out and have some fun taking photos.

The specs.
7.81 mm
f/4
1/500sec

I like the curve of the train.
I like the people looking out in anticipation of the destination.
I like the smoke of the old engine on the train.

Thank you for visiting.

~wr~

Tonight I went to Brighton with my boy to take some pictures of him and some friends doing the tricks. This is one of the photos of him riding the rail. The conditions were not the best for this type of photography. The action was fast and the light was poor. The sun had gone behind the mountains and it was overcast. The night lights were coming on which with the cloudy, shady, and artificial light the sensor was mixed up. In order to get good pictures in the darker conditions and fast action I opened the lens up, set the photo to a higher aperture, and cranked up the iso.

F/4.2
iso 500
shutter speed 1/750 sec
32 mm

Thank you for visiting this site today.

~wr~

Two years ago we took our daughter to BYUI in Rexburg, Idaho. We let her stay on campus for a few days with friends while we went to Yellowstone. On our first day in Yellowstone we were heading back to the hotel in West Yellowstone as the sun was setting. There were several photographers lined up to take this photo. I found a post and braced my camera against it while I took the photo. I had not yet learned how to do HDR so this is from a single exposure. It was quite dark by this time so I had to raise the iso to get a clear picture.

The specs:
Iso 640
24 mm
f/11
1/50 sec
RAW

This was one of my first attempts at RAW. I am glad I took this photo in raw.

I like the silhouettes of the trees and river bank.
I love the reflection in the river.
I like the rich colors of the sky.

Thank you for visiting today.

~wr~

Last year I was working on a project to make an alphabet book. Here is an example of what you can do with common objects. In the office where this project was being made there sat a nice bowl full of M & M’s. It had great color, shapes and interest. Everyone likes M & M’s. I took this photo and then in the final edit I processed it using Topaz adjust. Next time you want a new subject to photograph, but you are unable to get out of the house try taking close up photos of common objects around your house. Use a program like Topaz (download the trial version) and show your kids. It can be a fun and entertaining evening.

Thank you for visiting.

~wr~

This is one more view from the other night at Utah Lake. For this photo I would like to share the steps I took to bring this photo to the finalized product.

First I started out by transporting the 5 raw images into Photomatix Pro. I made a few adjustments and then saved the results. I then imported the original Raw Photos into Lightroom 3 beta and processed them again. I added elements of sharpening, contrast, saturation, and I added an increase of a half stop. At this point I ran the sync so that all photos had the same edits, and then exported this batch to Photomatix Pro and re-ran another HDR. Both of the images had good and bad. In the second batch the noise in the sky was dramatically increased. The rocks had much more detail and color. I took both photos into CS4. I wanted the sky and reflection from the first with the rocks of the second. Once I had taken the dark rocks out of the photo one more problem was present. On the edges of the rocks and ice where the bright orange and yellow touched there was a bright red line. At this point I again used CS4 and painted the color of the water where this line was present.

I like the dark background with the bright yellows and oranges. It offers a nice contrast to the foreground.
I like the texture of the rocks.
I like the color of the rocks and how bright they are.
I like the small patch of ice it brings interest into the photo and breaks the color of the reflection and rocks.

Let me know what you think, and thank you for visiting my site.

~wr~