Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Landscape’ Category

Backlit cattails

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Landscape, Nature, Photography, tagged , , , , , , on September 24, 2012| 4 Comments »

As the sun dropped lower and lower in the sky yesterday, I was struck by the way in which the light caused the cattails to glow. Many of the cattails had already burst into masses of cottony fibers and the backlighting showed them in wonderful detail and texture.

I tried to capture this beauty, but it was difficult shooting directly into the sun and I ended up with all kinds of light artifacts. Because I was mostly interested in the effects of the light, I decided to experiment this morning and converted one of the photos into black and white and played around with it (probably too much).

I think I need to read up some more on how to convert images to black and white and how to tweak them, but for now I’ll continue to enjoy the process of experimentation. I might stumble onto something really good.

Backlit cattails in the marsh

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

Read Full Post »

Beautiful Building in Brussels

Posted in Landscape, Photography, Travel, tagged , , , , on September 5, 2012| 5 Comments »

The Grand-Place in Brussels, the central square of the city, is a wonderful location, full of ornate buildings and teeming with people at almost all hours of the day. UNESCO considers it a World Heritage Site and it was voted the most beautiful square in Europe in one survey, according to Wikipedia.

I find the buildings in the Grand-Place, though, to be a little too ornate and overly decorated. As I stood in the center of the square and looked diagonally toward one of the side streets, though, I caught a glimpse of this building. It is simple and elegant and much more to my taste.

Building in Brussels

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

Read Full Post »

Reflections of a city park

Posted in Landscape, Nature, Photography, tagged , , , , , on September 4, 2012| Leave a Comment »

I am still away from home with my point-and-shoot camera and decided to play a little with reflections. Usually I end up trying to show both the object and its reflection, which makes for an image that is centered in the frame. This, of course, violates the usual photographic best practice of not having center of attention in the center. Feeling exceptionally bold, I decided to show just the reflection and only a minimum of the scene itself in a city park. I like the effect that I achieved, although it is probably too busy. Nonetheless, I hope to experiment some more with landscapes (or cityscapes) and other subjects that draw me out of my normal focus on small objects and their details. Sometimes it is undoubtedly good to see the literal “big picture.”

Reflections of a city park

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

Read Full Post »

Trying out landscape mode

Posted in Landscape, Nature, Photography, tagged , , , , , , on August 19, 2012| 7 Comments »

During the last few months I have tried to get more serious about expressing myself in photos. I started out by photographing small things like insects and flowers and eventually got a macro lens. More recently I have been taking photos of larger things, like turtles, frogs, and wading birds. Yesterday I decided to try a landscape picture, without really knowing how to do it.

I’ve read enough to know that I wanted maximum depth of field and saturated colors. So I set my camera up on my tripod with these settings, f22, 1/50 sec, ISO 100, and 21mm on my 18-55mm zoom lens. I also used exposure compensation to underexpose by one f stop, figuring that reflections off the water might cause the image to be overexposed.

My subject was Cameron Run, a stream that runs into the Potomac River. There are concrete slabs at intervals that run across the stream, presumably to help the water flow as it moves downstream. I was standing on one of them with my camera on my tripod when I took this shot, looking east toward Old Town Alexandria, VA.

I’m pretty happy with the result. What you see if pretty much what came out of the camera—I am not sure what adjustments I should do in Photoshop. Perhaps I’ll try more like this, especially if I travel outside of the suburban area where I do most of my shooting.

Cameron Run looking east toward Old Town Alexandria, VA

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts