Hope

This homeless person was sitting outside near a busy sidewalk and street. Her sign said she had just beat stage 3 cancer and was now homeless. Like me, there were probably hundreds if not thousands of people that walked by her in just one day. She just battled for her life then has to face another battle of finding where to live.

Homelessness

While walking throughout the city, I saw many people sitting or laying on the streets. I assume that most of these people are homeless. It felt as if every block or so someone would be asking for food or money. Some people wanted money or food for good reasons, others wanted money for drugs or other nonessential items.

Rockefeller Center

As the sunset faded into night, I visited Rockefeller Center. The area was full of thousands of tourists looking at the Sach's light display on the east side and the Christmas tree on the west side. I did not take pictures of the light display, but the Christmas tree was incredible. It was by far the biggest Christmas tree that I have seen.

Evening Shopping

As night began to fall on the city, more lights from stores and cars started to shine. I wanted to capture the light and the shadows it created on the people walking. With this picture, I stayed behind a group of people, and I took it when they walked in front of a store. This way, there would be long shadows along with the lights of the city.

Sunset Walk

Here is my first official picture of New York City. I took this as I was walking down the streets and facing the sunset. I wanted to capture the people on the streets, the tall buildings that surrounded the people and streets, and the sunset. The buildings and the read lead to the sunset, which helps showcase the fact that there is a sunset during a busy evening rush hour.

Skyline Sunset

I took this picture the night before the previous one, but still think it can be a quality picture. I wanted to capture people looking up at the skyline with the sunset also hinted at. It is dark, you can't see the subjects, and the sunset isn't all that visible. Even though this picture might not seem like much now, I think with some edits it could be great.

New York City

Welcome to New York City! This picture and tomorrow's picture are going to be unedited and as I took them. These first two are to introduce you to what New York City is. This picture is from the 86th floor of the Empire State Building. I went up to observe pre, during, and post, sunset. I wanted to capture the sunset, downtown, and the bars that held us back.

Spray

I was outside cleaning my bike one day and I that about how interesting it would be to capture a long exposure of the water going around the wheel. It was challenging to capture this because a camera and water do not mix. I positioned my camera just slightly out of the spray zone and captured the motion. 

Waiting

Out of the Photoshoping to redo picture and into long exposures at a pond. I decided I wanted to show the fall environment, but also the objects around the park. Using a park bench, I set up leaves on top of it for the fall feel, then started taking pictures. I wanted to showcase the bright colors of the leaves and trees.

Looking Off

This picture was one of the most fun to take for this photoshoot. I set up the settings (shutter speed, aperture, ISO), started a two-second timer, ran to this bench, then took the picture. I wanted to capture the fall colors and bench. I liked the last picture but felt it was lacking something. I wanted to add something more to the picture, something that would give the viewer something else to look at.

Split

Even taking this picture 4 months ago, I still remember how much fun it was to take it. I had the earlier pictures (which I posted), but they were from the shore and on the sand. For this picture, I wanted to have the sunset go all the way to the camera. I wanted to be standing in water and have the reflection of the sunset go all the way to the camera. I walked out 100 yards into the water and was able to capture the ripples of the water and the reflection of the sunset.

Oranges

While there are many variations of the color red, primarily the only two colors are orange and black. Looking at the original picture, there is not much color, you can barely see the seagull, and the sun resembles a dot in the sky. Like many of the other pictures, I brightened this one up and increased the contrast. I then darkened just the sky to showcase the rich colors.

Rainbow of Colors

Originally, this picture was incredibly dark with little colors. First, I brightened up the whole image. I wanted to make sure the sunset colors were visible and you could see the oyster farm in the bottom right. After the picture was bright, I wanted to brighten the sunset even more. By increasing the brightness and contrast all of the colors started to show. What used to be a dull pink now turned into a bright pink.

 

Watching

This sunset picture is one of my favorites. The bright colors in the sky and reflecting on the water, and the people standing on the sand watching it. I wanted to brighten up the original pictures and make the sunset colors and people stand out. I had a slight problem brightening the entire picture, because of the highlights in the sunset. It wasn't a hard fix, and now the picture looks colorful and bright.  

Miles Upon Miles

Welcome back to Boston! If you remember, I was posting these pictures just a few months ago. These sunset pictures were some of my favorites, this was before the editing. After finishing the Chama pictures, I wondered which I should do next. I decided on the Boston sunsets. This picture is one that wasn't too hard to fix. I just increased the contrast, saturation, and vibrance, among other small edits.

Rising

The spot where this house was, was perfect for sunrises and sunsets. There were mountains to the east, more to the west, and low hills to the south (the front porch faced south). For this picture, I wanted to eliminate the distractions like the bush in the bottom left and outline of a second mountain in the middle right. Once again, I increased the colors to make them brighter and more visible. I wanted to keep the mountains in silhouette, because I like the outline and feel that the mountain would distract from the sunset.

Morning Drink

When I first opened this picture, I didn't know what definition I had of the sunrise. After dramatically increasing the contrast, vibrance, and saturation, I was able to showcase the colors in the background. I had another picture of a hummingbird flapping its wings on the feeder, but the sunset wasn't as strong. It would have been a better picture, but I couldn't make the colors seem as incredible.

Looking Off

This picture comes from the 2019 Summer and Chama, New Mexico. I took this when we were driving back to the place we were staying after fly fishing in New Mexico. After retouching this, I think it might be one of my best pictures. I love the vibrant colors in the trees and sky, the shadow of the first mountain casing onto the others, and the valley with the stream and everything else in it. This definitely is a top 5 of my greatest pictures. 

Vibrant Colors

This is the first picture of this new series. I am taking pictures I took a while ago, and editing them in Photoshop, then reposting them. I think it will be interesting to see the things I can do with editing both the pictures and how much better Photoshop can make a picture.

Optimism

This homeowner decided to have a little sign outside their damaged house. It reads, "House Sale to blow you away! New ventilation. Open sky views. May need landscaping." First, when I biked by I just stopped and stared. I thought it funny how this homeowner, whose house was just destroyed, made this sign. I thought it showed that she was both optimistic and humored at what happened. And that even though there was a tornado, she still could have some fun.

Dirt Road

For this picture, I wanted the focus to be on the dirt road. I wanted to show how many vehicles have been on this road trying to clean up and rebuild. This was a paved road, but now it looks more like a dirt road. Also, many of the roofs have been covered by white or blue tarps. From these four houses in the picture, three are completely covered, and one had only sections covered.

Clear Skies

From this picture, it is much easier to see the loss of trees. I wanted to showcase the 'Road Closed' sign and show what this neighborhood has been through. For about a week after the tornado, police were stationed at every entrance to the areas where the tornado hit. They were there to ward off looters and people trying to take advantage of those the tornado hit.

Ripped Apart

The winds from the tornado just ripped everything. The main problem was because there were a lot of trees in the area, once those trees broke their branches were just flying around damaging houses. While this house wasn't damaged that much, I believe it's yard was the most destroyed. There were multiple trees either already cut down or laying down from being broken. For these pictures, I don't want to edit or change anything about them. Unfortunately, this also means that any bad shot that I take I can't change. So, the dark spot in the bottom left, I can't change.

Trees

The first thing I noticed when biking through the neighborhood was the lack of trees. All of the trees either had their leaves ripped off, or the whole tree itself had been removed. You can clearly see from this picture that there is a tree leaning down and trees in the background have no leaves on them. I continued to have a higher aperture to make sure the objects in the back were in focus. This is why you can see the trees in the back and they are not out of focus.

Leaning

This next theme is not going to be about fall (that's next!), but about the tornado. On October 21st, nearly one month ago, an EF-3 tornado damaged structures in Dallas. Two weeks after the tornado hit, I decided to take some pictures of it. This first picture is a simple one. It is just of a fence leaning. I wanted to contrast it against the wall of the other houses around it and how it is not perpendicular to the concrete floor.

Fall's Foliage 

I'm back! After taking a few weeks off to take more pictures and to focus on schoolwork, I'm back to posting. This picture is looking out the tree trunk for a fall colored tree. I think it is one of the best fall pictures I have taken. I love the colors of the leaves, the different colors of the leaves (green/yellow fading into red), and the focus. The focus is sharp with an aperture of 11. I could have made it sharper by using a 3.8 but wanted to also be able to see the leaves in the background.

Waste

This is the same object as yesterday's picture, but I lowered the angle of the picture. I like this picture better, because of the angle. I think it showcases the water bottle and leaves more. It provides for a better reflection of the background and brings out more color in the leaves. I also moved a little closer, which also makes the picture better.

Plastic Waste

I turned the camera from facing up to near the water level where I found this plastic water bottle surrounded with leaves. I like the picture because we can see above and below the water. Also, the bright colors of the leaves stand out in the picture. They show the true fall colors, that none of the trees seem to have! It's weird, not many trees are turning yellow and red, but most of the leaves I see on the ground are those colors.

Fall's Falling

For this picture, I tried something new. I grabbed a handful of leaves the had fallen off a tree, threw them up in front of the camera, then took pictures while they were falling. This is supposed to mimic leaves falling, without the uncertainty of where the leaves will fall or how many will fall. This isn't my best one, because you can see the water still dripping off the leaves, but I like the water. I give another aspect to the picture.

Quack Quack

After the flowers, I biked a little way down to this stream. It's nothing big, just a 5-foot wide little area where sometimes ducks like to congregate. I like this picture because of the water in the background. It provides a soft reflection for the green trees and blue sky behind it. Also, I like the leaves and other two ducks on the water.

Spheres

This picture is decently similar to the last one in the sense that both are of water droplets on plants. Both are unique in different ways. The last one was of a colorful, red flower that had tens of droplets on it. This is a darker red, with last droplets, but a different angle. I wanted to take an angle from the side to capture the droplets in more a height perspective. I wanted to showcase that they were not two dimensional, rather each individually rose off the leaf.

Glistening

After the first flower, I looked around and saw this flat, open flower. It was like it was asking to have its picture taken. The water rested on its many petals in spherical form. I kept the focus on the front part of the flower because I knew this is where the most water droplets would be. I wanted to mostly capture the water, and the flower was an object that the water congregated on.

Morning Shower

I was biking around when I saw some sprinklers spraying flowers in a home garden. At first, I didn't think much of it because I would have to walk through the water to get to the flowers. Then I thought about some macro pictures, which I haven't been taken many of lately. I walked through the sprinklers, then used a bush to block the water from hitting me.

Green and Red

This picture is just of a simple green and red flower. There is nothing too special about it, I just liked the colors and the light, but also the softness of the color. After this picture, I started to experiment with the macro lens and flowers. Sometimes I sprayed water droplets on flowers and other times I captured leaves falling as fall is approaching.

Sunshine

This picture uses the same concept I have used in the past, just different. I pointed the camera directly up at the sun but blocked it using these leaves. I don't take this type of picture much, but I really like it. There is a nice, natural silhouette of the leaf. I also adjusted the settings to allow for more light to enter giving some color to the leaves.

Roses

Welcome back to Texas! I took a few days off to find some ideas for pictures and to take more. This is just a classic picture of a flower, but the ones to come are pretty good! There is finally some fall colors, which is making all of the pictures better. I found this flower and thought I hadn't done a micro shot in a while, so I started again here.

Walking Home

After the second brother called the first home I took pictures of him walking. He didn't walk like an adult, he walked like a kid. Arms flopping side to side, walking like he was on a tight rope, and trying to avoid stepping on things in the water. This picture is another favorite because of the sunset and silhouette reflection of the boy.

At Play

All of these pictures are some of my best ever. I said the last one was my favorite, but they all are and they all are for different reasons. This one is because of the kids playing. The kids are two brothers. One was playing in the sand, and the other was sent by his mother to retrieve the first brother. No acting, no script, nothing was by design, the kids just happened to be playing and happened to be in front of a spectacular sunset.

Sunset Blockade

These clouds acted as a blockade for the sunset. The blocked most of the sunset on the left but left a small opening for this picture. My two favorite parts of this picture are the bright colors from the main sunset and the reflection of the orange across the beach. The reflection showcases the footprints and impurities on the beach and it helps to increase the vibrancy of the sunset.

Evening Flight

I was standing behind a puddle taking pictures of the reflection of the sun off it when this seagull flew right past me. It was incredibly close to me, which allowed for an easier picture. Most of the time I don't have birds close to the camera, but this day I was lucky. The bird acted like it wanted to be in the picture, flying mid-frame with my camera's settings already prepared for this shot.

Oyster Crates

These oyster crates are placed about 100 yards offshore and remain underwater until low tide. To catch the oysters, the crates have to be underwater, which is why they are so far out, but they can't be so far out that low tide doesn't expose them. I combined the crates with the sunset and created this stunning picture. Bright pinks and night blues reflecting and silhouetting the crates.