Welcome to November.

S'mores with Jessica, and my brother-from-another-mother, Justin. Halloween night.

Here we go. Two more months and another years past. This years been a crazy one thus far. First year with a DSLR! I hit some pretty low lows, but I'm reaching higher than I ever have. 

I can definitely see a new light shining through, and I'm excited to see what all this light has unveiled! I've been exposed to things new to me and I'm really enjoying this new chapter. I'm trying hard to put back money, but I'm not restricting myself from some great weekends every now and again.

I'm excited that I am ACTUALLY close to getting something from these past few years in college. I never knew I'd be the type to go to college at all, and now I open my eyes and I'm almost done with an associates in behavioral science. 

I have NO IDEA where I'm going after this, but at least when I'm ready I can move forward from HERE... Instead of starting my associates 3 years from now with a house payment and whatever else life will ladle all over my mashed potatoes with a big grin on it's face.

     That girl. I'm not sure where she thought she was going, but she's right back where she belongs.

Right there, in one of my many passenger seats to come.

I'm so excited to live my life with her by my side. I'm finding ME, she's finding HER, and we're moving forward in parallel lines.

I could in no way be the person I am striving to be without THIS GIRL. I owe my expanding education, my drive to better myself in every aspect, my ability to even TAKE these pictures, and share them on this blog to her. She's the best girl there can be.

                     


          I love you Jessica!











These most awesome, equally aspiring, equally lost, friends of mine are exactly
who I want to surround myself with.

I'm more than satisfied where this year has led me, and I'm more than excited to share the future years with this same small group of amazing people.

I can't wait to hurry up and become independent and have them over for a cool autumn cook-out to catch up and wish it all would have slowed down.

Happy Halloween!!!

I am so happy it's finally Halloween. Fall is easily (in my opinion) the BEST time of the year! I love the weather, the colors (even though it's not as drastic in Texas as it is further north) :(

I'll still take what I can get! My kind of music even SOUNDS BETTER... The windows down, with that cool breeze ruining my girlfriends hair as we blast some Type O Negative (until about mid March) hahaha.

I just wanted to wish everyone a Happy Halloween with a picture I took yesterday.


This picture makes for an awesome seasonal background (IT'S MY CURRENT DESKTOP!)

If you're bored enough....

CLICK HERE TO SEE!!! !!!

REMINDER!!!!

Don't forget you can click on the images to view their FULL SIZE!!!

The wonders of White Balance.

     

      These were taken the day I discovered I could get full use out of the older manual lenses.

         I was so excited to see that I now had 4 more lenses in my arsenal, that I forgot how much I was in need of setting my White Balance!!!!!
   
        I was popping of shots of everything in range, while getting used to having to adjust my aperture and shutter speed frequently. Figuring out what aperture is generally best in different lighting situations, just some good ol' "hands on" learning.

      So I set my WB by snapping off a shot of something neutral, took a picture of the same set of knickknacks, and BAM! I was almost in shock that THAT --->
 picture was taken by me.



A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE
with one very simple change.

       Since this mermaid figure was in another room, the lighting situation is different. The cupcake, ice cream, etc. was in a bedroom which was lit with the light from the ceiling fan. This mermaid was right next to 3 floor to ceiling windows, so the white balance needed to be re-calibrated.
       I love this example. The mermaid in her true colors is just beautiful.

WHITE BALANCE  IS YOUR BEST FRIEND!!! It's one of the easiest things to really make a picture show what you actually see.

Cloudy day for HDR

It's finally a cloudy day in Texas! I'm not too excited to possibly work in some rain tomorrow, but the clouds really help out with HDR. After a short day at work, I busted out the tripod and set it up in Jessicas backyard!

I'm not too fond of the way the sky looks really dark. The clouds earlier had more definition, but I didn't get set up in time. I just got some washed out, flat, singular cloud color to work with. I still like it enough to post it up though!

Single frame HDR

Long exposure night photography is a type of photography I plan to master. Here is a shot I took (probably the first night I had my D7000!) This is just one exposure edited in Photomatix!

I am so excited to get some more experience with HDR, as well as night photography. I LOVE light trails, star trails may be something I'll work towards soon.

In this particular shot, the blue of the sky seems to suffer with some blending of the different shades. My guess is that HDR post-processing with a single frame is harsh on certain things, like large areas of solid colors, or subtle shade changes. I could be wrong, but hey... It's a guess!

Since we've been getting some cooler weather, you can expect some more night photography in the near future!

A little HDR upload before bed time.

I took some pictures at the Botanic Gardens in Fort Worth a while back, and never got around to merging them. This is the entrance of the Japanese Garden.