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.