Christmas Day and Hence

Another Christmas has come and gone, with few consequences thereof. The world didn't end, the economy didn't fix itself with holiday shopping, and my hair is still ridiculously short.

On Christmas Day my family and I drove 3 1/2 hours south east to Fowler Colorado to see some family. I realized that it has been a long time since I have been down there when it was actually green, and the crops in the fields were tall. (It is a big farming community, if you hadn't already guessed.)

While we were down there, there is a tradition called the "Cousins Walk" where all of the cousins (obviously) go on a walk around the farm trails. It was ridiculously cold (probably around 9 degrees Fahrenheit) so I decided to bring along my D600, to see how it handled the extreme cold.

I couldn't be happier, as it handled it like a champ! No slowing down of the card, no super fast battery drain, the back LCD even worked great!

Here are a few of my pictures from that very cold walk:

 I like how you can see all of the snow sort of shimmering in these two images (though it is harder to see in the upper one). I used a Tiffen 0.9 (3 stop) Neutral Density filter for the whole walk, to that I could have a bit slower shutter speeds than 1/2000.

 Two more sort of random pictures. There is a small stream running through my families farm, with quite a bramble in it, which is the backdrop for most of these pictures.



And here is my brother looking like a boss without a hat at what I could guess was about a 0 degree windchill. Also he is wearing his 3d glasses that we got from seeing "The Hobbit, an Unexpected Journey."

Now that is enough from a few days ago, now I'll say something from today. I went out for a half hour or so walk with my D600 and my tripod, hoping to try some more stuff with my ND filter. So I went back over to the place with the little bridge that I posted pictures of a couple posts again just to see what I could get.

I could pull about a 1/3rd of a second shutter speed through my ND filter, so still not super slow, but enough to get the water flow. It would help if I went back later in the day when there was less light.

I'll leave you with this last picture is one of the behemoth trees in our neighborhood, as we are off to see Les Miserables.

Preow,

Kevin

TV: NCIS
Movie: Les Mis
Game: Castle Crashers on PC
Music: The Heist by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis
Food: Panda Express

Christmas Eve

Well, its that time of year again. The time when many people dread going back home and seeing their families.

That's right, Christmas!

First order of business I would like to compare my Christmas eve/day post from last year (2011) to this post that I am writing. this is mostly academic for myself, as I want to see how far my photography has come since then. I will probably do a side-by-side comparison of similar pictures that I took this year (which I did on purpose should I chose to do a comparison).

However, from looking over what I posted last year, it seems to be fairly similar at least in feel. The technical aspects, however, are quite different. First off, this year I have a FULL FRAME DSLR with high quality glass, as opposed to an APS-C crop-sensor entry level camera with a kit lens. I am pretty much where I wanted to end off, with a Full Frame sensor, so I couldn't be happier.

All of these pictures, then, were taken with my lovely D600.

 So we had our traditional Christmas Eve service, like usual. I focused more on the details with my camera, so an not to be to distracting to others.

Let's start off with our Christmas Tree. This picture below is my parents tree, which because of the High Park Fire, they finally broke down and got an artificial tree. 

 Here are a few detail shots in the sanctuary, and a few that I took during hte candle-lit portion of the service. Always one of my favorite parts.

As I said before, I really like the candle-lit portion of the service, as it is just relaxing and very nice. It also afforded a good opportunity to snag a couple good pictures before they turned the lights back on.














Once we got home, but before dinner, my brother felt like doing his "firewire" thing again, so I got one good shot of that.

Then we had a nice steak dinner, very similar to last year, and now I am sitting here writing this, so I should end this pretty soon.

Now, to end things off, this may be one of the best pictures that I have taken since I started getting more serious about photography. My personal opinion, yes, but I really like the composition and lighting.

Preow,

Kevin

TV: Iron Chef America
Movie: LotR
Music: The National, Macklemore
Game: Castle Crashers on PC
Food: Steak!

Light is everything

Well, I haven't really been up to updating this blog lately, but since I'm on break now I can spend some time doing a good post.

Now, instead of doing a post just saying what I have been doing since my last post, I'll do one about how lighting really influences the look and feel of a picture. While it seems to be self-explanatory, I feel like it is something that I have been learning in the past year that I have been really into photography.

These two pictures were taken at pretty much the same place, in my parents neighborhood, but the one on the left side was taken this morning when it was foggy and still snowing a bit, and the one on the right was taken right before sundown, when the sky was clear.

While you can see more details in the one on the left, the whole feel of the one on the right is better, in my opinion. The one on the left isn't quite framed by the trees as I would have wanted, but the wind was bitter cold, and seriously painful to be out in, and I was sort of in a hurry. Now I was still in a hurry for the second shot, as I was rushing to get the picture before the sun went down, and my friend was waiting in the car. when I took it I didn't notice the random power pole on the left side, so that is distracting to me.
 However, I do like the distribution of the tree branches in the right frame, as well as being able to actually see detail in the sky, instead of a plain slate grey sheet. While the whole tone of the left frame is fairly stark and bright, which in some cases can be a good thing, there isn't enough contrast in the frame to make it very interesting.
That being said, the right frame isn't super interesting, but in my opinion it is better. My eyes are drawn towards the sun, but then there is also the reflection in the water that add a bit of depth, and even though the bridge is a bit dark, it is still a fairly good point of interest. Most of the frame is blue, which can be a soothing color, which is offset by the yellow of the sun.

So that's pretty much my opinion on the pictures that I took today. Take it as you will.

Random picture:

Thanks for reading,

Kevin

Tv: Big Bang Theory
Movie: Hanna
Game: Minecraft, Forge on Halo 4
Music: The National
Food: Cheap Chinese food, lovely.