Melton Dam, Early Evening

I took this shot on a whim this evening on the way to dinner.  I was really surprised with the pinkish hue of the sky!  It's not something that I really saw just looking out at the dam, it really only showed up during the long (30 seconds!) exposure.  Photo very lightly edited in Lightroom.  I like how it turned out, especially considering how little prep work I did.  I may try to get back there in a week or two and see what I can produce with some actual forethought.

Obligatory post-Turkey post

So, I cooked this year.  Very sleepy now.  But here's what the food looked like, and links to recipes:

Almost done...



Assembled, yet blurry:



Forgot the cranberry sauce until after eating everything else!!!

Recipes:

Stuffing: http://www.rachaelrayshow.com/food/recipes/hungry-girl-apple-onion-stuffing/
Squash soup: http://www.foxnews.com/imag/Food/Healthy+Fall+Recipe%3A+Roasted+Squash+Soup (with roasting instructions via http://couponingincriticaltimes.blogspot.com/2009/09/what-to-do-with-butternut-squash.html)

Turkey via America's Test Kitchen.

View from my hotel

Ducks 2: Electric Duckaloo

This photo does a reasonable job capturing the iridescence on the male ducks head:


Missus duck is still not amused.  Notice how you can see her little feet under the water.  For some reason I think that's so cool.



Flashin' a little blue-and-purple flair:


Dinnertime:


And now she's finally spotted me.  I love how the females are drab (relative to the males), but then they have that fantastic splotch of color on their wings.

Watch out, Duck!

Well, actually just ducks, like the bird-y kind.

Mister duck, after emerging from underwater:


This is what he looked like just a second before:


These photos were pretty hard to take anywhere close to decently - the light at the dam was getting pretty low, and I didn't have the good birding lens on my camera.  Even so, some were nifty.  Like this one - look at how the duck's head is still covered in a film of water!



"Oooh look, a people!"


Missus duck wanted some camera love too:

Up at the waterfall

From behind Tremont - I wish I could remember the name of the waterfall!

Anyway:



I think I like these better.  I prefer the black-and-white version myself:



I may revisit this and try to pull out a little of the detail that's apparently lost in the conversion...

New bird...

Not a great picture, but this bird is pretty neat.  Saw it up at the UT Arboretum.  It's a Northern Flicker.  I haven't seen one before, although they're apparently pretty common.

A little bird told me...

to take pictures of it!  Most of these are heavily cropped, I have no been too sneaky lately.

Woodpecker at the aboretum.  I like how the leaves and branches frame him:


A different woodpecker at the arboretum.  I think I like the second photo better - the little guy looks like he's got a purpose.





This is a neat little bird that startled me at Ijams when I was there.  It was right by the path just flying around the bushes.  Sadly, this was the best picture I was able to get.  As you can see, it was in the middle of feeding on some berries.



Run of the mill mockingbird:

Outside my balcony this afternoon....

I thought it was some kids repeatedly banging sticks on the ground or something....

Evening at Norris Dam

Some more evening shots from up at the dam:

Upon looking more at this one, I think I'm going to reframe it and cut off a lot of the black area at the bottom.  I don't think it adds anything to the photo at all.




Purdy clouds over the tree line:


Too much HDR playing:


The natural feel, overlooking the Weir Dam below Norris Dam:

RUN FROM THE DEVIL SQUIRREL!!!!11!eleventy!1!!

They look so innocent, don't they?



Awww, lookit his little foot!


Caught in the act.


Those are the nice squirrels at the UT Arboretum.  Now, compare them to the squirrels at Ijams:





What the hell??

Ok, so you photo-aware folks might blame it on my flash.  But just look at them.  Do they look innocent to you? DO THEY?

Back to playing catch up

So when I sat at the computer this evening, there were something like 800+ photos I hadn't gotten around to looking at.  That number is closer to 300 now.  Which is still too many!

Some shot from the UT Arboretum a week or so ago:

Random log in the pond:


What I consider to be a pretty nice picture of the afternoon light shining through a fall leaf:


Wildlife!

Leaves everywhere

Watery Doom

Not really, just another shot from Tremont.



I am mildly happy with this photo.  I wish I could figure out what I dislike about it.

Waterfall!

So, break from HDR, here's a normal picture from Tremont:



I need to calibrate my laptop monitor... this picture looks pretty terrible on it.

HDR from Norris Dam

Like any kid with a new toy, here's some more HDR from Norris Dam.  These two are composed from the exact same photo, just way different parameters applied during the HDR processing.  The first is at least a little realistic, while the second delves waymuch into the surreal.

It was actually right around sundown when I took these, so the light is probably a stop or two brighter in the photos than it really was outside.

Anyway, PHOTOS!

Hike at Tremont, and picture!

I managed  to get off my lazy behind again today, and went up for a short hike to the waterfall behind the Tremont Institute.  It's my favorite quick and easy hike in the area - very easy to get to, and only a 2mi roundtrip.  I really wanted to get some decent shots of the foliage, but I mostly failed in that endeavor.  However, I did emerge with quite a few good long-exposure shots of the falls and stream.

I probably spent 90 minutes hunched over the camera in various uncomfortable positions, tripod legs splayed out into the water or on rocks.  But, I really enjoyed myself, and that's kinda what matters, right?

But, before the good shots, here's another fairly overdone HDR image!



HDR is in general hard to do with something moving, like, you know, a waterfall.  This one could be framed a bit better, as well.

More HDR playing

Here's another example of HDR from Norris Dam.  First, the normal "properly" exposed image. 

As you can see, the trees on the left are pretty well-lit and you can see what's going on.  However, the stuff on the right is very shadowy, and it's hard to pick out any detail.  What HDR let's me do it use multiple exposure, some where the stuff on the right is just the right brightness, and combine them into an image where you can see everything.  That's the simple explanation, at least.

Anyway, this is the HDR image.  It's a bit overdone (looks a bit surreal) but I'm just playing around with the new software.  

Notice how there's a ton more detail on the right-hand shoreline now, as well as the clouds in the sky.  

These will look better in the future - these sets were handheld, so there's going to be some inconsistencies in between shots.  The software can compensate for a lot of that, but it's never going to be as good as just getting it right in-camera.

A flower. And some sunlight.

Here's another favorite photo from the trip to the UT Gardens.



It might not be the best photo ever, but I like how I was starting to think about looking at things in a different way.

Norris Dam walk

I needed to get out today, so I decided to take a trip up to Norris Dam and do some photography.  I was trying to get down there for a good sunset, but it was a little less than impressive.  I also seem to have arrived after a lot of the nice light was gone from the other surroundings.  Still, I gave it a shot.

I did take a few sets of bracketed photos so I could play with some HDR again.  This one is just a tree.  I don't think it's too overdone.  Do you?

White balance!

Because I'm a technical dork, here's the same photo, but with the "white balance" setting modified in Lightroom.  The first is mostly how it looked out in the field, the second is me pretending it was really sunny out.  This is another study in what light looks like passing through things.





Which one do you like better?

Photo class field trip 2: UT Gardens

This one is merely OK.  Not sure what I was going for here....



In addition to looking at light coming through objects, I played around a little bit with silhouettes...