Quick post to show what I saw when looking out the window this morning. These two began on the porch railing but by the time I grabbed the camera and made it back they were gone. At that point I went around the corner to another window and there they were. Snap.
Mindy and I have been wondering where the hummingbirds have been this year. Usually we see these small creatures coming and going all summer long, but this year we've seen them a total of maybe five times between us. Until today. They've been giving a real show of constant activity at the feeders today and have been fun to watch.
Thought I'd do a little more B&W this time around. I posted some black and white photos in April but haven't done any more until recently.
Just before noon on this overcast and dreary day I looked out our second story bedroom window and saw a fawn with its mother at the edge of the woods on our property.
I've been out the last couple days with the Nikon 300mm f/4 I wrote about before practicing on some small creatures such as birds, butterflies, dragonflies and such. Gotta say, it's been a challenge - between the wind blowing, fast moving subjects, the lens seeking focus and no VR my hit ratio is somewhere between one half and one third keepers to shots taken. And by keepers I mean the subject is in sharp focus.
Yesterday I wrote of making images pop with LR5. As are all of my articles thus far, it is just high level information. Meaning, I don't go very deep into all the particulars because there is a ton of information on the Web already. I use quite a few more tools in LR than what I mentioned yesterday. I may change my way of thinking in the future but for now I'm keeping the content such that it may raise questions or simply pique something in you. I'm more than willing to try to help anyone that may have questions, so if that's you, just ask in the comments section below or email me at davehowell123@gmail.com. I'm a firm believer in sharing knowledge - you learn from me and I learn from you. Don't remain in the dark - and don't hoard knowledge either.
I've been using Lightroom (LR) for a couple years now and recently upgraded to LR5 when it became available. I don't think I'll ever stop learning the different things about it and how to incorporate them into my images (at least I hope not). But I have found certain settings I use repeatedly enough that I created a filter for them when importing images from the camera. One thing that struck me recently, though, was that I'm still manipulating the different sliders quite a bit and have been wondering if another filter needs to be created or tweaked. Why? Well, I think it's because I'm constantly trying to make the images be the best they can be to the best of my ability and that's a good thing, right? And hopefully, it's a sign of growth. But this realization brought more to light, namely, there are more sliders and functions in LR and especially LR5 that I haven't learned and used yet.
The storms have been pretty constant for the last week here in Ohio and have dumped a lot of rain. Now that it's the weekend I really wanted to get out of the house and do some shooting. I choose the Chippewa Trail, having been on it one time before, thinking it might prove interesting. This trail links up with Buckeye Woods which I frequent quite a bit so I was on somewhat familiar ground. Little did I know what was in store. The entire trail was more or less flooded. I had parked at the South entrance just off Chippewa Rd and began walking North. Before walking even 30 yards I was in water on the trail and there was a lot of splashing all around - carp everywhere.
We had some storms blow through Ohio this week and I was able capture a small portion of their fierceness. I stayed in the house for safety reasons but this limited what I was able to photograph with the camera mounted on a tripod and shooting through an open window. This was my first attempt at photographing a storm, much less lightening. I look forward to the next time when I'll do things a bit different and will post the results here.
I take a lot of walks at the various nature areas around home and always do so with a camera to capture wildlife, vegetation and landscapes. Not having the luxury to pick and choose what I might happen upon I figure to at least be ready to capture it before running the other way so I have a picture to back up my story. : ) Seriously though, this snake did not pose a problem, fortunately. I've read there are only three kinds of venomous snakes in Ohio and this isn't one of them. What surprised me when I checked it out at home is that this is a Blue Racer and are said to be extremely nervous and become very aggressive when an attempt is made to capture them. They will strike viciously and do so numerous times inflicting pain with their many teeth. They will even rapidly vibrate their tail amongst the leaves to simulate a rattle. Had this one done that I'd have run for sure because even though I was sure it wasn't venomous the rattle would have had me all confused. But, there was no problem here as I had no desire to capture it except with the lens. I was fishing at a pond in an area that looked like it hasn't seen a human in quite some time and spotted this creature about 4 feet away from where I stood. We were both right at the edge of the water keeping an eye on each other but minding our own business. I had the feeling this snake was just relaxing and soaking up the sun as it very loosely coiled itself around the reeds and moved just a little from time to time over the hour and half I fished that spot catching and releasing six bass and not quite landing three others before they got off the hook.
