Cassius

This is a shot I took of my roommate's dog.  He's an American Staffordshire Terrier and his name is Cassius.  Cassius hates old people and small children.  If you even look at him wrong, he'll chew your face off.  Cassius diet consists of raw steaks and the neighborhood kids.  If your paths should cross on good day, he might just decide to let you keep one of your legs.  Beware of dog... 

ISO 400, 105mm, f/5.6 at 1/50sec

New Website Coming

Hi all.  I've been looking around at some good web hosting companies to get an actual site up and running.  If I end up getting one of the jobs I have lined up, they wouldn't start until April 1st, so that leaves me with over a month with nothing to do.  I figured I could devote the time to setting up a website and some better galleries to showcase more pictures.

Like I mentioned in an older post, I've been using Apple's MobileMe for my web gallery and the trial period is almost up.  Not worth it for me to keep using it so I'm going to get rid of the account in a couple days, before they start charging me for it.  I figured I can pay for a few months of hosting service and see how that goes rather than cough up 100 bucks for a MobileMe service which I wont really use.  Personally, I think they're online galleries suck anyways.

The picture above was taken on a walk at Kingman Farm.  I really like the sense of drama the clouds add to the photo.  100 ISO, 18mm,  f/18 at 1/10 sec.

Cheers

Zack Arias Video

On Wednesday's guest blogger post over at Scott Kelby's Photoshop Insider blog, Zack Arias chose to post a video instead of writing something.  I was absolutely blown away by this.  Check it out if you have the time.  It's one of the most inspirational things I've seen in a while.

Click here for a link to the post with the vid.  Enjoy and share it!

High Dynamic Range (HDR)

Time to talk about one of my new favorite things in photography. High Dynamic Range or HDR. This shot I just took a couple hours ago came out pretty cool, but would you believe that it's actually 3 of the same photo merged together? That is pretty much what HDR is.

I took three pictures of the same scene, with each one exposing the detail in a different part of the landscape. First, I took a shot that brought the details out in the sky, then another to pick up the detail in the mid-tone areas, and finally a shot to grab the details in the shadows and trees. Using an application called Photomatix, I merged all three files together and defined the contrast strength for the three pictures. The software pretty much does the rest for me. Once I export the final image, I load it into Lightroom and then to Photoshop to fine tune some details.

I should have waited till dusk to grab this shot. I'm sure it would have lookwd a lot better, but I dont have a job right now so I honestly don't have much to do in my free time. Maybe I'll go out again tomorrow to try and get a better one.

Stay classy.

Discin' at Dusk

Met up with my buddy Ryan over at Bellamy Park for a little disc golf action late this afternoon.  The sun was just going down and the light was perfect so I got some nice shots of Ryan and the course.  Haven't finished processing the pictures of Ryan yet, but this shot was taken at the end of the day and I think it might be one of my favorites.  Probably gonna head back there tomorrow before class, and try to get a couple more shots of the river that runs through the course.

If you've checked out my gallery using the link provided at the right, you've noticed I've been using the gallery provided with my Apple MobileMe account.  It's not bad, but I think I can do better myself with a separate web host and save some money too.  I'm nearing the end of the 60 day trial for the MobileMe service and to be honest with you, I don't find myself using the other features aside from the gallery.  Doesn't make much sense to keep it, so I'll be doing away with my current web gallery and starting over.  So enjoy the photos while they're still posted.

Well it's bedtime for me.  Night all.

One More Before Bed

I took this shot about a month and a half ago but I never got around to posting it.  I was just lying in bed going through some older shots when I came across this.  It's the view from my bedroom window.  I took it through the screen so if you look close enough, you can see the grid going across the picture.  I think it gives it kind of a neat effect though.  Looks almost like a painting.  Anyways.  Thought you might enjoy.

Thompson Hall

This weather we've been having recently has been wonderful.  Granted, it was a little colder today, but I certainly will not complain.  It's all a big tease though.  Those of you who actually live up here know that we can get our worst snow in February and March.  Hopefully we can ride this next month or so out without anymore snow though.  I'm getting sick of it.

Managed to take a stroll through the UNH campus today to try my skills at some architectural photography.  It was a lot harder than I thought...especially at around 1:30 in the afternoon.  I didn't have a whole lot of angles to work with at that time due to the sun so my shots were quite limited.  Can't wait till the summer when I can get up early and have it be above 10 degrees.  This shot of Thompson Hall came out okay though.

Cheers