Jer & Min Photography

Today’s challenge is to shoot landscapes.  Weather wise it has been an odd day, it is the middle of winter here and it rained.  I can’t remember many times this has happened.  It did however, provide very dark clouds which was an interesting contrast to the white snow.  This is the photo I chose for my entry:

I initially went out with the goal in mind to shoot some landscape in color using my cokin filters.  I had limited time, so I hustled out with Brinci and started shooting.  After each shot I glanced at the result but didn’t pay much attention to them.  When I got back I noticed that I had my Tobacco filter set too strong for these images.  As a result, they looked a bit off color wise.  My only option was to convert to black and white.  Lesson, keep any eye on the colors and realize that they are more saturated then the viewfinder portrays.  Here are the other shots:

I’ve heard photography described as painting with light.  I sometimes think (incorrectly) that to paint with light you have to have a lot of it around you.  As a result, it has been a struggle for me lately to photograph anything I consider interesting.

Today it is December 20, the second shortest day of the year.  Over the past few weeks, it has been dark when I’ve left for work, it has been dark when I’ve come home leaving me with what I have considered very little time to photograph anything.  I feel that I’ve been missing an opportunity to possibly stretch myself by forcing me to look for new ways to capture subjects.  As a result, I’m going to attempt to capture at least three night photos this week.  I’d really like to commit to doing one per day, but with Christmas coming up this week, I don’t want anything to take precedence over spending time with my family.

The photos I’m publishing today don’t fit the theme of this post, but having nostalgia for warmer brighter days, I was reviewing some of my fall photographs and chose to include these two:

It has been absolutely crazy at work lately.  I’m not complaining, we have been busy during what has been a tough time for a lot of people and I’m very thankful for it.  I have however noticed that something that helps keep my sanity during the day is if I’m able to do something during lunch to help me recharge my batteries so to speak.  Yesterday I took a drive and captured a few photographs of the valley.

It was a beautiful day, not too great for photography due to the completely blue sky, but the entire valley was blanketed in a fresh layer of snow.  Here are my photographs.

This morning I made this photograph on my way to work.  I was so excited that I found a place that framed the moon so well, I took a couple shots of it and got in to work and noticed a massive fail.  In my joy of the composition, I neglected to focus on my subject!  You’ll notice the moon is very soft.

Anyway, I was tempted not to publish this shot, but it serves as a good reminder for me to stop and think a bit more before taking the shot.

Fall has officially made its presence felt in the Kamas Valley.  We’ve had our first snow, leaves are falling off trees, the harvest is done, and everything seems to be settling in for winter.

Last night on my way home I made the following three photographs of the landscape.

This weekend I’m going to shoot with only one lens, my 50mm f/1.8.  This is quite a sharp fast lens especially for the price (<$100).  I’m pretty excited about doing so and will post my photos.

Last night I had high aspirations of shooting some B&W landscape photography, but the weather didn’t cooperate at all.  We had low clouds with no contrast whatsoever.  I only kept the shot below.

Having not met my goal, I moved on to a different type of subject: neon signs.  We have exactly one of neon sign in our little valley.  It belongs to a new roadside diner that moved in called the Road Island Diner.  Here are the shots I made.

Although I didn’t accomplish what I set out to do, I had an enjoyable time and especially like the last shot of the lights reflecting off of the car.

The past few days we’ve had quite a bit of stormy weather.  Unfortunately, the storm clouds were slow and unfeatured which made for very uninteresting skies.  Tonight the storm broke and the sky got much more interesting.  This shot is the last of the storm as it passed on to the Uintas to the East of our house.

EXIF: Canon PowerShot s410, 1/640 sec, f/3.5

I received a tip from Wouter Brandsma who knows a thing or two about black and white landscape photography about keeping the aperture higher with compact cameras, this is my attempt at following that.  Seriously, check out his site.

Min and I live in a very beautiful area near the Uinta mountains.  Currently, in Kamas, the fall colors are out in full glory.  To add to the beauty we have had some very nice thunderstorms over the past few days.  Yesterday in a slight break in the storms, some light splashed upon the mountain East of our house.  The mountain with it’s colored leaves lit up in an amazing way.  I stepped out the front door, leaned against the side of the house to steady my shot and made this photograph.

EXIF: Canon PowerShot S410, 1/125 sec, f/11

This past Saturday, my wife, kids, and I climbed to the top of Bald Mountain near Mirror Lake in the Uintas East of Kamas, UT.  Bald Mountain is just under 12,000 feet in elevation.  When we began at the trail head, there were a number of other peaks higher than us.  As we climbed up, we slowly passed each one until we were at the top.

EXIF: Canon PowerShot S410, 1/640 sec, f7.1