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...

Correction: rose

I must correct my post from Tuesday.  This is actually a rose.  I think.



Apologies.

Photo class field trip 2: UT Gardens

This photo would have been helped greatly by a tripod.  I had to keep the aperture relatively open so that there was enough light coming in to handhold it.  I should mention that all of the photos from this trip are handheld.  Cause I'm that awesome.  Yeh.

Anyway, I dig the pattern and texture in the center of the flower.  I actually do sorta like how the rest of the flower is out of focus, it really draws your eye to the pokey bits.

Photo class field trip 2: UT Gardens

JAPF (Just Another Pretty Flower)

A rose is just a rose...

And I think this is a rose too.

Photo class field trip 2: UT Gardens

This past Saturday we had our second field trip for the UT Non-Credit Photography Class.  I had to be at the UT Gardens at the unseemly hour of 08:00.  On a Saturday!

Now, granted, the best photos generally come early in the day or late in the evening.  But.  08:00!  I survived, though.  In general it was a good experience; however, I was a little disappointed that we only did portraiture for the last 15-20 minutes or so.  Most of the morning was wandering around the gardens taking photos of whatever sparked our interest.  Which is cool and all, but it's the sort of place I have been before.

However, I actually ended up with quite a few pictures that I was pleased with!  Which, if you know me, is pretty odd.  Even weirder, I think in the 90 or so minutes of wandering around, I only snapped off about 90 shots.  Way below my average, which is good.  I really tried to take some time, slow down, and think more about what I was doing, and I think it paid off.  One thing I decided to focus on, rather than just "oooooh-pretty-flower-take-a-picture-oooohooooh!" was to see what sorts of neat things I could do with light.  In particular, I tried to think a lot about what light was coming through things, rather than just the normal reflected light we normally see.

One other thing that was different than normal is that I didn't spend a lot of time post-processing these.  Tom's emphasis on getting the exposure right while you're out in the field is starting to sink in, I think!

As usual, I'm going to stretch out the photos across so it seems like I'm doing more than I really have ;)

We'll start today with one of my favorite pictures from that trip.  I think maybe some of the other students thought I was a bit weird, laying down on my side in the wet grass with my lens pointed at a dandelion, of all things.  I like it though.  It's not perfect - the light was changing even as I was trying to get the shot, and it was really hard to get a steady grip from that angle.



I might post another version of this one later - it looks quite different on this laptop monitor.

Photos from the Sink

And this is just the waterfall.  Not a lot of flow this day.  Also really weird lighting, very inconsistent across the scene.



This leaf is kind of cool,  all backlit and stuff.  I nearly lost my retina though - it's amazing hard to hold a leaf in front of your lens while pointing it at the sun and trying not to let the leaf rotate!

Photos from the Sink

For some reason, I was compelled to shoot this mushroom.  It was just sitting all by itself, no mushroom friends to be seen, all alone in the leafy wilderness of the forest floor.

Flower from the Sink

Too lazy to ID this.  Sorry.

Photos from the Sink

First, a sort of standard, sort of overexposed shot:


Now, doing something creative in a different shot of the same place:

Hike: White Oak Sink

The weather Monday was fantastic, and pretty much required a hike, despite being exhausted from a trip out to Kansas.  So rather than spend a bunch of time planning, I decided to revisit a previous hike to White Oak Sink and try to get some sunset shots.

This led to a couple of problems.  Firstly, I totally misremembered both the length and difficulty of the hike.  So, it ended up being about twice as long as I thought it was going to be to get into the Sink.

I also misremembered how much sun the area gets.  In my defense, last time it was spring, and the trees in the sink weren't nearly as full of leaves as they were Monday.  Either way, it didn't really make for any nice sunset shots, so that was sad.

I did get a few neat photos, but nothing spectacular.  By the time I got to a stopping spot, I was already pretty worn out, so I didn't take too many.  Will post a few here and over the next days.

Trail to the Sink:


Bright blue sky (looking up):

HFIR

Photo class field trip: set 5

Today's theme is portraits.

Tom took a few opportunities and "encouraged" some folks to model for the rest of the class.  It was  pretty hard  to get good photos out of these, because there were like 40 of us or something, and Tom was often in the frame showing the models what to do.  I did have a few turn out ok though.

First up, we had to practice freezing motion.  Tom contrived to get one of his helpers to jump into the air while we all took the 1 allowed picture.  A few of mine actually turned out ok, despite cruddy lighting.





Tom spent 3 or 4 minutes contorting her into this position.  The rock did look comfortable at all.


Before that, Tom convinced this model to remove her shoes, and get down almost in the fountain, and to kick up water with her toes.  I didn't get a good picture of that, though.



I think that's it for my first field trip.

Photo class field trip: set 4

Today's theme is art and architecture.

Playing with exposure of the First Tennessee Building (I think).  I kind of like how it turns out all gold-ish in this photo.  It could stand to be straightened and cropped a bit, though.



A mask, in profile.


The same mask, at nearly the same angle, but taken with a much different exposure, and a wide-angle lens.


The statue of Charles Krutch in, oddly, Krutch Park.  This is a tough photo, because the sky was really bright, and the statue is extremely dark.  I opted to get some detail on the statue and allow the sky to get pretty blown out.  If I'd had my tripod, I could have tried some fancy HDR stuff, but, alas, I didn't.

Photo class field trip: set 3

Today's theme is Tom.

Tom is our instructor, and owner of Tom Geisler Photography.  He's a funny dude.

Tom instructing one of my classmates on how to stand in the good light.


Tom demonstrating how to do a classic "laying on a rock in World's Fair Park" pose.

Photo class field trip, set 2

Today's theme is abstract-ish thingies.

This, I believe, is a table in Market Square.



Fence decorations.




Finally, the lonely remnants of a concert poster in Market Square.  For some reason, I thought this would be a good photo.  I'm not sure *why* I like it, but I do.




So, these aren't really abstract, but, well, whatever.

Photo class field trip

I'm going to post some photos from my class field trip over the next few days.  All photos will be the actual JPEGs straight from the camera, as is the intent of the class.

Today's theme is plants.

Some leaves, apparently a little show on the shutter speed.


Water droplet.



I really should know what this is, but my brain is teh broked.



Water droplets on a rose-like thing.

Practicing my skills

As you may or may not know, I'm taking a intro photography class at UT for a couple of months.  To hone my skills, I offered to take some shots at a soccer game for a friend whose son was playing.  These are some of the more reasonable results.  All were shot in manual exposure mode - we took an oath not to shoot in anything else until the instructor releases us!  They're also pretty much straight out of the camera - if you pixel-peep, you'll notice I didn't do any sharpening or noise reduction....

Anyway, here's some kids.  Playing football.  Because that's what the rest of the world calls it.















The little blonde kid (#7) was pretty amazing for a 7-8 year old!

Ten mile creek greenway