Photo Editing - Wedding

For my next photo editing experiment I decided to play with a photo that I took at my friend's wedding. The aisle that she walked down was covered with red and pink flower petals, so I decided to take advantage of that burst of color.

Original photo in color

b/w + red, Lomo-ish

b/w + red, boost, vignette

Photo Editing - Flower

Another photo editing experiment. This is just a photo of a flower that I took while on a hike. The original is good, but I wanted to "warm" it up a bit and I also created a blurred effect around the flower.

Photo Editing - Sunset

Here is another photo editing experiment with a tree and sunset. It's a little more subtle and not as dramatic a change as my edited photos of the Flatirons, but I still think it has a cool look to it. The edited photo has an interesting effect where it looks like sunbeams are shooting out of the clouds.

Photo Editing - Flatirons

Because of car problems I was stuck at home yesterday, so I decided to spend my day playing around with a new photo editor. I found something online called Picnik and you upload your photo to their site and you edit it online. All of the basic editing features—and there are several of them—are free, but you can also upgrade your features by paying a small monthly fee. So far I've just been playing with the basic features, and I really like them. I'm holding off on upgrading to the premium edition until I decide that I really want it, and, more importantly, decided that I will use it enough to justify the cost. Here are a few of my photos that I've edited.

Sunset

A few of my friends like to make fun of me because I'm obsessed with clouds and sunsets. I will be the first to admit that I take a lot of photos of sunsets. How can you not? The light, the glow, the colors, the silhouettes. It's all so beautiful. It's peaceful. It's romantic. People might make fun of me, but I always question and wonder about the people who don't notice those things. How can you not stop and look up at it? How can you not take ten or twenty seconds—or even better several minutes—to enjoy it? People need to get out of their heads and their body, so to speak, and take more time to enjoy the world around them. Fortunately many of my friends appreciate my little obsession with clouds and sunsets. These photos are for them. And I'll be posting several more sunset photos in the days and weeks and probably months to come.

Morning Dew

Squirrel

Moon

So, any kind of nighttime or indoor or low-light photography is something I'm still trying to get the hang of. These types of photos often come out a little blurry or a little grainy. Even when I play around my settings or when I'm able to use a tripod, things still aren't quite as crisp as I'd like them. I think I just need to experiment more with these types of shots, and eventually I'll figure out what works best.

I tried to take a photo of the moon in this shot and adjusted the exposure and all those technical things, but it turned out grainy. But, for whatever reason, I kind of like it. It's not a crisp, clean shot of the moon, but I think that there is a different emotion and a mood created by the graininess. At least that's what I'm telling myself...

Agamemnon

This was one of my first attempts at something artistic. I was playing around with my camera features and found a sepia setting. Sepia gives a photo that old-fashioned feel. And with this old-fashioned feature, I thought I should take a picture of an old thing. This a copy of one of my favorite Greek tragedies, Agamemnon by Aeschylus, along with an old pair of glasses.

Birds and Blizzards

I took this photo in March 2009 when we were having a late winter/early spring blizzard. The weather was so bad that eventually some roads and freeways were shut down, schools were closed, and our office was even closed. While watching the nonstop news coverage about the weather, I noticed that a small bird flew into my balcony and landed on the ledge. He looked quite confused and petrified, and it seems like he was not very eager to fly in that kind of weather.

Hello, Birdie

One afternoon I went to the top of a parking garage here in Boulder to take photos of clouds that were rolling over the mountains. When I got to the top of the parking garage, I met this cute bird. The bird didn't seem to mind me all that much and didn't fly away, but instead took the time to pose for a photo.

Flatirons

When you live in Boulder, Colorado, you are blessed to be surrounded by mountains and open space. Hiking is a popular activity here, and you will almost always see people out on the trails. I love to go on hikes, especially when I need a day off from work—I call them my mental health days. When I'm on the trails, everything seems to disappear from my mind. I don't think about work. I don't think about money or finances. Being out in nature and on the trails is a chance for me to get away from everything and everyone. At the end of the hike, I feel physically cleansed—and occasionally very tired and exhausted. But in addition to the physical benefits, I feel mentally and emotionally recharged. There is nothing better than that feeling.

Cognac

I have many loves, but here I thought I would combine three of my more favorite loves—Cognac, books, and candlelight. The Cognac is a Remy Martin VSOP. The books you see here are from the Loeb Classical Library. These are great little books for anyone who might have a passing interest in reading ancient Greek or Latin. On the left page—or verso, as they say in the publishing world—the text is in Greek or Latin. On the right page—or recto—is an English translation. It might be the elitist in me talking, but I like to think that there is something sophisticated about reading Greek or Latin and drinking a snifter of Cognac while surrounded by candles.

Ideas and Execution

Well, I thought this blog would be a great idea. I've seen many photography blogs on the web, and I always thought they were great and beautiful. Now, I'm just an amateur photographer. I would never claim to be great; after all, I'm still learning and still experimenting. I set up this blog ages ago in 2007 to share photos with my family and friends. My original plan was to post my photos here, but I haven't exactly followed through on that plan. Because of this and because I've posted only about four things over the past four years, I haven't really shared or "publicized" this blog to my family and friends. There really wasn't much to see. But, on a morning when I've been browsing the web and looking at other blogs for inspiration, I thought that maybe now is the time to revisit this blog and to start uploading some photos. The photos will be uploaded occasionally and randomly. And we'll see how successful I am this time around.