Graffiti

As you may recall from a few days ago, I posted a picture of this same pipe with graffiti in it. After taking the pictures of the waterfall, I decided I wanted to mess around with the pipe. I was taking long-exposures, and I walked a few steps into the pipe to give the appearance of a 'ghost' figure (or something like that). Like adding the flower, I wanted to add a random/mysterious element to the picture that you can look at.

Time Flies

After taking a few pictures of this flower in front of the waterfall, I wanted to move the flower much closer to the water. I put my camera on an angle (similar to the picture of the flower on the bridge a few days ago) to capture both the flower and the moving water in the background. Unlike yesterday's picture, for this picture, I used the f2.8 aperture to create a strong focus on the flower and to have the water as an interesting background.

Slow Motion

After taking a few pictures with only the waterfall, I added a flower into the picture. I wanted to give the picture another element and your eye something else to look at. With this picture, the idea was to have the flower be the main focus, but I had to decrease the aperture to f22 to capture the long-exposure aspect. This made most of the image in focus, or just slightly out of focus.

Waterfall

When I first saw this, I was surprised that in urban Dallas, there was a waterfall as interesting as this one. I have seen some that were only a few feet tall, this one was about 5 feet tall, but this waterfall had more structure than many I have seen before. Using the same tactics as the last picture, I was able to capture a long-exposure shot of it.

Urban Nature

Next, I traveled about seven miles south to multiple parks. At this first one, there were three big, circular pipes. Using my new neutral density filter, I set it to 6x (maximum darkness), and a higher aperture of f22, I was able to slow the shutter speed enough to capture a long-exposure during the day. I also wanted to highlight the graffiti inside the pipe. You can barely see it in this picture, but in the coming pictures, you will be able to see it more clearly. It was intriguing to see how these pipes had now turned into graffiti hotspots.

Resting

Following the pictures of the flowers in the tree bark, I moved the flowers to lay on this bridge. Like the bark picture, I kept the aperture at f2.8 to only have the focus on the flowers. I wanted to keep the walls of the bridge recognizable, but clearly out of focus.

Hanging

After seeing the flowers in the water, I wanted to experiment and place some flowers into some bark hanging off a tree. Originally, I tried taking pictures of the flowers standing straight up but found that it was simple and boring.  I then positioned myself underneath the flowers with an aperture of f2.8. This allows me to keep a sharp focus on the flowers and to have the rest of the tree and sky out of focus.

Urban Canal

As I kept biking, I found this canal with a little bit of water in it. Above the water was a bridge that was used as a connector from a house to the alley. Like the flower pictures, I wanted to capture this bridge with a reflection. Originally, I took the pictures with just the bridge and its reflection but soon realized that it looked plain. I then sat on the bridge to add another element but kept my head behind a pole to also make it seem a little mysterious.

Reflection

After taking a few pictures of the dandelion, I continued my bike ride. At the next puddle, I found this white flower. Using the new feature on the lens, specifically the 24-70mm zoom range and the f2.8 aperture, I was able to take this picture closer and in greater focus. I wanted to highlight the flower close, and in the center of the picture, while keeping the background well out of focus.

Floating

While I was biking in an alley, I found this dandelion floating in the water. At first, I was taking pictures from directly above. They weren't very interesting, and you could see me reflecting in the water. I then moved to a much lower vantage point, which is how I shot this picture. I positioned my camera inches above the water, hoping to capture the reflection of both the dandelion and the dirt/grass wall behind it. 

World Chaos

I like this picture mostly because it is a simple representation of our world right now, but also because it gives me a chance to talk about my new equipment! As I said earlier, I purchased a 24-70mm f2.8 lens. This will likely become my main lens as it has a large capacity for taking pictures. It will work well with landscape, long-exposure, and night photography. I also purchased a 1x to 6x neutral density filter. What this filter does is it either keeps the picture as the camera would see it (on 1x) or darkens the image (on 6x). It is a little hard to explain, but it will help me take long-exposure pictures during the day because it will allow me to have the shutter speed lower for longer shots.

Sunset Colors

With the threat of becoming sick to COVID-19, I found myself biking around the neighborhood. I found these flowers on the front lawn of a neighbors house. The flowers had bright colors such as oranges and reds. For most of these pictures, I switched my new wide-angle lens for the micro lens. I wanted to capture the flowers closer up and in sharper focus.

Night Time Lights

After I took this picture, I looked at it from the little LED screen on my camera. I noticed the lights above downtown and wanted to continue shooting them. I went down to the banks of the lake, where I found this branch sticking (pun intended) out of the water. I wanted to give the picture a green tint to make the picture look a little eerier and to highlight the downtown lights.

Dallas

Like the last White Rock Lake series, I took another picture of downtown Dallas. When I was taking this picture, I did not expect the lighting to turn out like this. With my eye, I could only see grey clouds, but the camera picked up some lights just above downtown. I believe that these lights do add to the picture because they make the background look better. Also, I wanted to include the trees and lake to add another element to the picture.

Docked

This image is one where you can see the difference between the old lens and the new one. With this lens, the dock is in crisp focus, while with the other lens, the focus wouldn't be as strong. Also, with the f2.8 aperture, this new lens allows for better night pictures. The wider aperture allows more light to enter the camera lens, thus brightening the image.

Watching

Like yesterday's picture, this is also a self-portrait. Recently, I bought the Tamron 24-70mm f2.8, a wide-angle lens. I bought it to replace the kit lens that came with the camera body. Even after taking the lens out once, I have noticed that it is much sharper in focus. Objects look much better, and there is a greater difference in the depth of field.

With the Flowers

There was a change in the plans regarding Colorado. Due to the COVID-19 virus, I ended up not going to Colorado. Yes, this was a major disappointment, but I am making do with places in Dallas. For instance, this first mini-series is back at White Rock Lake. I am only here for about a week's worth of posts then I am traveling to Ennis, Texas to take pictures of bluebonnets.

Rocking

This is my final picture from White Rock Lake. After this, I am going to take a short break until Monday. Starting on Monday, I will be posting pictures from Colorado!! It has been hot recently, but snow is in the forecast. I am greatly looking forward to pictures of mountains, obviously snow, and I am hoping to take some long exposure pictures as well.

Solitary

This is my favorite picture not only of this series but also one of my favorite recent pictures. I love how the light casts down directly on the man fishing. How the pier is on one side, and there is water on the other. One of the things that still confuses me is that if you look at the first picture I took of this man, the light was off. Now, it is on. I don't know if it was just the angle of the pictures or the light was off then turned on, but I still love this picture.

Distant Night

I then proceeded to walk onto the pier and photograph different objects from there. This first picture is of a light shining down on the walkway. I like the simplicity of that the objects create. It has a rectangular platform continuing to the back of the picture, cylinders on either side of the platform, and another cylinder with a light on it towards the back. Also, if you look closely, there are the sailboats again in the back right of the picture. I thought it was cool that they were in the picture, but didn't feel they were important enough to highlight.

Waiting

This next angle is lower and almost equal in height to the pier. I wanted to include the wood columns on top of the walking surface because I like the way that they look. On the right, the columns look new, but on the left, the columns are split and broken. I like the cylindrical shapes in this picture and how most objects have round edges.

Alone

I then continued my bike ride and found a pier with a guy fishing on it. I took the same general picture of this man fishing from multiple angles. The first was this wide-angle picture. I wanted to include the landscape around him, the water, pier, and land behind him. What I like the most in this picture is his flashlight reflecting on the water. The two lights are from his fishing, and the reflection leads your eyes right to him.

Blowing Reeds

After the last picture, I shifted about 50 feet to the right to capture this image. I wanted to focus on the Dallas skyline and how the lights can be seen from miles upon miles away. You can tell this picture is a long exposure because you can see the reeds blowing in the wind. This picture had an exposure of 10 seconds, ISO of 100, and an aperture of 3.6.

Dallas's Other Side

After taking pictures at the first spot, I started to bike around the lake. I wanted to find different angles around the lake that I have never seen before. After about two minutes, I found the perfect spot. It was complete with sailboats, reeds blowing in the wind, and the lights of downtown Dallas. 

Lost At Night

One color that I thought would pair well with this group of pictures is green. Green represents a weirdness and subtle darkness. I took these pictures from 7 to 9 at night. I want to highlight the weird/creepy mood of when I was taking these pictures with the color green. Due to this, in this and future pictures there will likely be a green tint. No, it's not your eyes seeing colors or a misclick when editing, it's intended.

Nature's Eyes

For this picture, I wanted to capture the sunset with a branch in the picture. I wanted to showcase the simpleness of a tree, but also the beauty it can show. I was too lazy to change my lens, so I ended up using my wide-angle lens, but I still like the aperture on the picture. I wanted to keep it sharp (closer to 0, I was at 3.6) to have the background fade and have the branch in sharp focus.

Path to Tomorrow

For this picture, I walked onto a pedestrian bridge and tried to capture the sunset between the rails of the bridge. I wanted to get the lights leading to the back and sunset in the same picture. I also like the reflection the light has on the median line. Everything is straight and linear, all pointing to a vanishing point somewhere in the back of the picture.

Watery Sunset

I'm back! These next few weeks will contain some of my favorite pictures. This first theme is about the sunset and night at White Rock Lake in Dallas. I went to the lake to capture the sunset then some long exposures after the sunset. Then, after the next 20ish pictures I am going to Colorado! Hopefully, there will be some falling snow, and incredible sunrises and sunsets.

Nightlights

This is the final picture of downtown Dallas at night. For this final picture, I wanted to showcase the downtown lights, some of the landscape around where I took this picture, and the architecture of the city. I wanted to focus on the bridge while also including many of the other buildings. The one that I missed because it was too far to the south to be in the frame, was Reunion Tower.

Hidden Nature

One of the things that I like about these pictures is that it shows that even in a big city like Dallas, there are still spots of nature. Sure they might have been altered for a purpose, but they're still are spots that aren't as industrialized. I found a puddle in the middle of a grass field and wanted to highlight the reflection of the city off of the puddle.

Backroads

This picture is very similar and near to where I took pictures of the trains moving. I like the lights from the city and the reflection it makes on the rails. I used a flashlight to brighten up the rails and to make them more visible. I like the repetitiveness of the wood pieces perpendicular to the rails, both of which lead your eye to the city.

Fast Motion

All of the pictures that I am taking are long exposures so I can increase the amount of light for the picture, but this is one of the few pictures where I wanted a long exposure to capture the movement of something. I wanted to capture the movement of cars into and out of Dallas, along with the bridge and buildings.

Night Walks

This is another example of a long exposure picture. For this picture, I had my shutter speed around 15 seconds. To counteract this, I decreased the hole allowing light into my camera, the aperture. My aperture was at F22. Lastly, I kept my ISO extremely low (around 100) to help prevent any grains from coming into the picture. I wanted a clean, long exposure of the environment with the background of the Dallas skyline.

A Night City

The sun continued to lower, causing the colors on the buildings to remain the bright sunset colors while the rest of the sky turned dark blue. Like the bridge, I like the contrast in colors in this picture. The colors highlight the buildings and showcase downtown Dallas. I also wanted to capture the bridge because it gives a contrast to all the square buildings.

Sunset Shipment

I have been trying to take pictures that are longer in an exposure. I want to give more motion to the picture and movement. For this picture, the train is the object that is moving. I wanted to showcase the movement of the train during sunset as it traveled to or through Dallas.

Dallas's Reflection

Next, I continued down a grassy hill and found some large puddles. I wanted to capture downtown from two angles, one from a regular picture, and one from the reflection of water. I also wanted to keep the train tracks in the picture, because I like the architecture of the bridge. Also, the tracks help lead your eyes from the reflection of downtown to the actual buildings.

Sun Streaks

As the sun started to lower and set, it created some interesting colors on the bridges and buildings. The sun caused the top of the bridge to turn yellow and orange, while the background was a dark blue. I like the contrast of colors, as the brighter colors are on the subject, the bridge, and the darker colors are on the sky, the background.

Entrance into Town

For these pictures, I wanted to capture downtown Dallas in ways many people do not. If you travel south on the Dallas North Tollway into downtown, you will eventually arrive at I35. If you continue south, you will likely travel underneath a pair of train tracks. These tracks are those tracks. This is the railroad that leads into Dallas. I wanted to take pictures close to the railroad so that there might be a reflection of downtown, and there was.

A Distant Sunset

First, I want to say that when taking this picture and future pictures, I was extremely careful and aware of my surroundings. I took out my headphones to listen for trains and looked numerous times both ways for them. I was well aware of where I was and the dangers it had. Now, this picture is one that I enjoy because of the simplicity. It is just a sunset over some train tracks and trees. The colors are beautiful, the reflections from the tracks, and the hints of nature.

Small Man, Big Town

This picture came together by chance, and I did not intend to take this picture. I was taking pictures on a grassy hill when I noticed this man walking in front of the Dallas skyline. I wanted to capture how small this man is compared to these huge buildings that make up downtown Dallas. It is a little hard to see him, but he is wearing a bright red shirt and is in the middle of the picture.

Evening Walk

For this picture, I wanted to capture people walking on the pedestrian bridge. I set my camera on a chair and waited for some people to walk in front. I wanted to showcase the motion of people walking in a silhouette with the sun setting in the background.

Downtown Dallas

Welcome back to Dallas. For this next week or two, I will be showcasing Trinity Groves in southwestern Dallas through sunset and night pictures, and long exposure pictures. This first picture was the first picture I took when I arrived. I wanted to highlight the bridge connecting Dallas and roads to Fort Worth, while also having downtown Dallas in the background.

Fast Motion

Here is my final picture from New York City. I wanted to capture the movement of people walking and cars on the street. To capture this, I set my camera on a tripod and decreased the shutter speed. The shutter speed allowed me to capture the movement. One of the downsides is anything highlights in the picture will be magnified since the shutter is being opened longer. This is why the background/sky is so bright.

Evening Rush Hour

This is a picture that I took on my last night as we walked out of Central Park and back into the craziness of New York City. We were crossing a street, so I didn't have time to position myself correctly, but I still like this picture. I like how it is crooked, there is a taxi in front, and the road, and buildings and trees lead to the back of the picture where there is a slight sunset.

Reflections

This picture is made entirely of reflections of the sunset off of different objects. The most obvious is the reflection of the sun off the rock below. Some others include the two buildings to the left of the sun and the ring it creates on the people standing. I wanted to include the boulder for this picture for some more depth of field. I wanted to create a pathway to the sun and a focus point besides the people or the sunset.

Central Park

As we wrap up the New York City adventure, here are a few final pictures. This first picture is of my sister, and she is standing on a boulder in Central Park in front of some New York City buildings. I wanted to turn this picture black and white mostly because there wasn't already many colors in the picture. Also, I wanted to show the similarity in color between my sister and the buildings.

Constant Motion

This is a long exposure picture from inside Grand Central Station. I wanted to capture the movement of people going around the station. I set my camera at the highest aperture and lowest ISO to maximize the length of the picture. The shutter speed was only 1.6 seconds, which is not the fastest, but also not the slowest. The perfect speed for this type of picture.

Grand Central Station

Welcome to Grand Central Station! This was one of my most favorite places to take pictures because of the opportunities. You could take a long exposure, a picture from a high vantage point or a low one, with a fast shutter speed, you name a variation of a photo, and you could take it here. For this first picture, I kept a low vantage point and took it with a fast shutter speed.

Watching

This is similar to a picture before, except the subject is different. This is a picture of my brother looking out at the New York City skyline while the sunset. For pictures like these, when there are a subject and the sun, you want to place a subject or object to block the sun. This will reduce highlights and pull the viewer's eyes back to your subject and not the sun.

Setting Sun

Before I continue with pictures of downtown New York City, I wanted to showcase the sun. It set on facing south and west, which is normal for the winter as the sun sets more south in the winter, then more north in the summer because of the way the Earth revolves around the sun. I liked the way the sun created some streaks in the hazing air and the shadows it created from the buildings.