Before... and after...

The BEFORE

 The AFTER

I processed this photo in Lightroom 4. I adjusted the shadows, highlights, whites, and blacks before using a preset to change it to high contrast black and white. 

The BEFORE

 The AFTER

In Lightroom 4 I adjusted the shadows, highlights, whites, and blacks. Then I brightened the blues and greens. I also darkened the photo a bit.

The BEFORE 

The AFTER

In Lightroom 4 I adjusted the shadows, highlights, whites, and blacks. I brightened the blues and greens. I also removed the green wood and warmed it up to a more wood-like color. My favorite part of this photo is the moon which is visible near the mast on the far right. 

First attempt at Adobe Lightroom

I put a question out to my G+ community asking if anyone knew of photoshop tutorials that I could use to improve my quite bad processing abilities. I was referred to some Youtube videos created by a French photographer named Serge Ramelli. The first video I watched was a basic introduction to Adobe's Lightroom photography program. 


I do not have Lightroom. I have a program I downloaded from Apple for $3. I downloaded a trial of Lightroom to try this tutorial out and see how I liked it before I invested any money into it.


Serge starts off with a sunset photo, so I went into my photos and grabbed the first sunset picture I came across that I hadn't attempted to process yet. I hadn't processed it because it was bad. It was blurry and washed out and all around blah. I figured, what's the worst that can happen? I find out this picture is unusable and I go search for a new photo or wait until tonight and take a new one to use. 


So here is what I started off with:

I then watched Serge's tutorial (which can be found on Youtube here) and edited my photo along with him, pausing frequently to play around.

After about an hour of playing around I ended up with this:

It came out much better than I expected! I am actually pretty pleased with this picture. Of course, I would be happier if it wasn't blurry, but I softened the image and made it all a little fuzzy so that the blurriness was not so bad. All in all I am satisfied that I have saved this picture!

I think I may end up buying Lightroom. I am going to try a few more tutorials first before I make my final decision.

From the Reservoir

A while back my friend Deana showed me a great place to take photos, the Reservoir over our city.
After a recent rainstorm I decided to take some pictures up at the Reservoir.

As I drove through the center I saw this little guy discover a chip bag and shove his head inside to find food. It was adorable. I snapped this while stopped at a light, but it changed as I was taking the picture and I got honked at!

Creepy spider and a HUGE web! EEP!

I think this was my favorite photo of the day

The path I made in the tall grass. I debated making my very own crop sign...

Photo Detour!

On my way home from work today I took an unplanned detour.

In other words, I got lost. Well, not LOST lost, just wrong turn lost. I knew where I was, I had just never been where I was before...

You see, on my way home from picking up some takeout for dinner I got blocked in by traffic and was forced to miss my turn. This then forced me to drive over a bridge.

I hate bridges. Like, really. They freak me out. I get visions of earthquakes (unlikely but not impossible for Massachusetts!) that destroy the bridge and send me and my car plummeting into the water below. Being on a bridge without a car is slightly better, depending on the height of the bridge, but I still prefer to be on the banks and beaches of any body of water.

Anyway, getting off topic! I was forced to drive over a bridge! And, to make it worse, the traffic continued onto the bridge so I had to stay on it for longer than strictly necessary.

When I made it to the other side safe and sound I breathed a sigh of relief and looked around. It was so pretty! There was a little park off to the side, so I pulled off of the road and walked around a bit with my camera. My dinner was not completely forgotten, I grabbed a piece of cornbread to munch on while I wandered.

I was pleasantly surprised to see a large number of ducks floating along in the river!

The bridge I was forced to traverse and many ducks!

More duckies!

My next goal was to take pictures of these little quackers!

It took me a while to get all my ducks in a row... (ah hahaha, I am SO funny, right? ...right? ::sigh::)

The ducks are almost in a row... but not quite!

One, two, three! Three ducks in a row ah-ah-ah!

I was able to get pretty close to one little girl duck. Her beak was messed up. I felt bad for her, I don't think it was impacting her much though. After I got a few pictures of her she flew off back to the group.

There was something wrong with her beak

There were other birds around as well. There were many pigeons, a couple seagulls, and a few other birds here and there.

Seagull flying overhead

One little boy, all dressed up like a hunter- complete with a plastic gun in his belt and a foam sword, ran around chasing pigeons. I think he was intending to slay them. It was pretty adorable.