It is hard to believe a year has passed since I started this blog. To celebrate I have decided to give my blog a name, “Photography Along the Way”. I chose this name for a couple of reasons. First, most of my photography is done around my home or work, not at far away “exotic” locations. Most of the time I shoot images on my way to work, on my way home, around work or around my home. I drive ~20 miles to work each way. I can vary the route a variety of ways to pass different subject material. For the majority of people this is where their photography happens and should happen. We really do best when we shoot the things we know, are able to go back again and again, and have the time to watch the weather patterns, light shifts throughout the day, etc. We develop our skills, imagination and our ability to see there. Then when we get to go to those more distant places we are better prepared to “capture” it with trained eyes.

I had time on the weekend to visit a couple locations for shooting. One was a state park forest that I wanted hoped to catch in the fog. I had been there in the fall when a light fog was present and had wanted to get back on another foggy day. I was not disappointed. There was a nice moderately dense fog mixed in with the tall fir trees. At the base of some trees were bare vine maples with patches of moss hanging here and there. It was quite magical. Not sure I captured the magic, but I have included a small gallery of the images from that shoot (just click on the blog image).

A couple of reminders about photographing fog:

1) You will generally want to adjust your exposure to +1 to +1.5 EVs to keep your fog more on the lighter side (unless you want a dark moody look). It is like shooting snow, it can end up more gray than white if you aren’t careful

2) Finding the color in the fog (reflected from grass, water, sky, sunrise, etc) or adding some with a filter (on camera or in post-processing) is usually a good idea. You can also bring out existing color during the post processing.

3) Fog images are typically lower contrast than you might want so adding some contrast during post processing is usually necessary to get what you thought you saw .

Blog image: This is a forest fog impression created using a vertical camera swipe. I added contrast and brought out the color using Photoshop curves and Nik’s ColorEfxPro Color Contrast filter. I just love the natural colors in the fog and trees.

In looking back through my images from the past couple of years I noticed that there were some nice abstract images taken in the Palouse area of Washington state. If you have ever been there you know that one could create countless abstracts. I have included three images here taken at sunrise and sunset. The first image has the Orton filter effect applied to add to its abstraction. The second image is purely about shape, shadow and texture. The final image is an abstract impression using a side to side pan.

We are in the usual winter rain pattern here again in the Oregon Willamette Valley. It can start to get you down sometimes, but it can also present opportunities for unique images. Here are a couple I have shot on rainy days like this through the car windshield. The first image is of a store at the Oregon coast with some additional Photomatix and NikSoft processing. The second image is a swipe shot of a forest edge (near my home).The last image is of bushes changing color in the late fall (where I parked my car at work) – nice jewel tone colors and effect.

I once had a photography instructor ask me if I hung my own images in my own home? At that point I had a few hanging in my office for evaluation and maybe a couple smaller ones in table top frames, but no really nice ones on the walls? How about you? At first this might seem a bit egotistical, but there is more to it. It makes you ask yourself, is this image one I would really hang on my wall? This can be a invaluable question when editing down a set of images.

Another benefit is that you get to really contemplate and examine the images over a long period of time. Do they stand up after months of scrutiny? Do you still like them? What could you do better (if anything)? I personally find that too many images don’t make it out of their electronic form and on to paper. Creating large prints lets you see your images in a whole new way – it is exciting, refreshing and ofter very encouraging.

Why do I bring this up? I just finished printing, matting and framing two new prints to hang in our home. Color and subject matter were of primary concern in their selection. The room has a European flavor with warm gold paint on the walls. These prints join a growing number of my prints hanging on our walls.

The first snow has finally come. I didn’t wait for it to finish but got right out there and starting shooting while it was coming down – it is suppose to melt overnight. I used a rain jacket to minimize the snow getting on the camera, gloves with the finger tips cut off and a polarizer to shield the lens. In addition, I generally had to shoot at a down angle to keep the snow off the lens. I didn’t get a lot of great shots, but it was fun anyway. I was also limited to 30min due to an previous appointment. The blog image is my favorite. It best captures the magic of that first snow. One last note, as with most of my work, I shot the images near my home.

On this Christmas Eve I thought I would share a couple more HDR images I have shot to capture the season. I have been seeking out scenes or objects I associate with Christmas:

a nicely decorated window,

a town center Christmas tree,

a well lit outdoor shopping center.

Happy holidays to all!

In addition to shooting Christmas lights outside in HDR, I have been shooting some HDR images inside the house taking advantage of all the wonderful Christmas vignettes my wife creates. I expect these images will be used for Christmas cards in future years. I have included a couple samples here in the blog. As usual they have not only been processed in Photomatrix, but they have gone through Photoshop adjustments plus some Nik Soft filters.