Selfie

This next spot was just a short hike up from the last one. The reason why I titled this pictures 'Selfie' is because of the two people taking a selfie. When I was taking the picture, I saw them taking the selfie, but I thought they were out of the frame. It turns out that they were not, but I think that them being in the picture is a good thing. They show just how small humans are compared to everything else around them. 

River Crossing

As we continued around the Grottos, I found a spot on the river that looks directly at a bridge. I knew it would be a fascinating picture if I could capture someone walking across it. After a few minutes, these two people crossed. Unfortunately, I could not edit this because my access to Photoshop was restricted (I am hoping it will be fixed sometime within the coming days), but I figured this would be a good time to explain how I edit. 

I begin editing with a 5 step/star editing process. The first step is checking every picture for proper exposure and focus, the basics. Whether it's 7 pictures or 7,000, I look at every single one. And if it's a picture that is satisfactory, I give it a star. The second step is halving a series within a shoot. A series is a group of pictures of a single object. For instance, every time I took a group of pictures from the same location in the Grottos, that is a series. So, if the series is 10 pictures about these two people walking across this bridge, the 5 best would advance to step 3. Step 3 is like an advanced version of step 2. The difference is that in step 3, you take the best picture of the series. In step 4, I look at the best of the best pictures from the entire photoshoot and narrow them down even further. This is the first step that compares different series with each other and is the final step before I start editing them. Yes, I haven't even edited them yet. After step 4, I edit all the pictures. You never know how a picture is going to look until after you've edited it. Looking at the final, edited versions of the pictures, step 5 chooses the final pictures. 

This 5 step/star process is designed for you to look at all your pictures, evaluate them, then take only the best of the best. It takes a little bit of time and patience, but this process will help you evaluate all your pictures and chose only the absolute best ones. 

Waterfall

The next spot we visited was the Grottos. The Grottos is known for its ice caves, but I like the river that flows through better. The hike in the Grottos is simple. It's flat (relative to a Colorado hike), there is typically a lot of other hikers around, and it's wide open (not dense trees). I took this picture right at the beginning of the hike. I saw the waterfall and people and knew I wanted to capture it. I ended up taking the picture as a long-exposure to draw out the movement of the water. But, before I took the long-exposure pictures, I took a few faster shutter speed pictures to freeze the movement of the people. Then when editing, I combined the two pictures such that the people are sitting still while the water is flowing. I think it turned out really good if I say so myself. 

Top of the World

As I continued my bike on the hill, I found this bench. To access it, you had to bike off the main trail and onto a smaller one. But, the small detour was very much worth it. To the west, you could see Snowmass Village and mountain, and to the east, you could see the entire town of Aspen. This picture is facing west towards Snowmass. The mountain that you see right above the flower is Mt. Daly. It is easy to recognize because of the stripe that goes from the top left to the bottom right of it. 

Snowmass Village

The next pictures I want to share with you come from my many adventures biking around Snowmass Village and Aspen. This picture comes from Cozy Point Hill. I'm not entirely sure why they named it this, the hill is definitely not cozy or pointy, but it sure provided some great views. This first view is from the top of the hill (after a 45-minute, brutally hard bike ride) looking at Snowmass Village. I especially like this image because the leading lines lead to the vanishing point. Leading lines are lines that direct your eyes to the back and focus point of the picture. Editing wise, I did very little. I added some contrast and lightened the shadows, but for the most part, the picture you see is exactly what I saw when I took it. 

Into the Unknown

After watching the sunrise for a few hours, I decided to spend the rest of my time wandering through the wilderness. For anyone wanting to complete a solo hike, is thinking about hiking, or just likes to be out of cell coverage, let me give you a few tips. First things first, know where you are going. It seems simple and stupid, but one wrong turn could ruin the whole trip. I knew about Crater Lake and had looked at a satellite image on Google Maps about the route that led to the lake, but I never truly mapped it out. And when I began my hike up, there weren't many signs. At a major intersection, I asked another group of hikers which way to go, they said left. Long story short, the left path ended up leaving my confused, lost, and off the main trail. To avoid potentially becoming lost and ruining your trip, try creating an offline route to follow. I have found the free versions of All Trails, Map My Run, and Gaia GPS (in order from my favorite to least-favorite-but-it's-still-very-good) to be excellent at providing offline directions. Something as simple as knowing your route can save you a lot of trouble if you become lost or confused. Some other tips I would give are, bring extra food and especially water in case you spend more time than you aniticipate, know that 1.5 miles on a trail doesn't mean you're going to beat your fastest 1.5-mile run, and know the animals that are in your area. Taking just a few extra minutes before you leave to scout out your hike could save you a lot of trouble if you run into any. 

Maroon Bells

I wanted to start this series with a sunrise because that's what starts a day. This picture started with a 4:00 am alarm to begin the day. As bad as it sounds, once I left the condo, I quickly realized why this would be the best sunrise I have ever seen. The 45-minute drive into Maroon Bells was filled with bobcats on the roads and stars in the sky. Being from a big city, light pollution makes it incredibly difficult to see stars. As much as I wanted to stop and take a few pictures of the stars, I knew I needed to keep driving to make it by sunrise. When I finally arrived, I was immediately met by Maroon Lake and Maroon Peak, and a strong, cold wind (definitely check the weather before you go and if its 46 and windy, bring a pair of pants and a jacket. I wouldn't know this from experience or anything :). Soon, the sun rose and touched the peaks of the mountains, which is when I took this picture. I chose this picture because of the emphasis it has on Maroon Peak. The mountain is lit up by the bright rays of the sun, while the rest of the landscape has yet to awake.

Nightfall

Welcome to Colorado! Over these past two weeks, I have been shooting and editing these upcoming pictures. I have decided that for here out I am going to only post on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. This will allow me to take and edit higher quality pictures. Quality over quantity.

Anyways, this is a picture I took of Downtown Aspen Colorado soon after the sun had set. I had done some research as to where the best places to take sunset pictures are, and one of the spots was on Red Mountain Road. Well, that was very vague. It said just to drive up and eventually, you will pass through some private property and continue on a dirt road, but keep going. It seemed a little sketchy at first, but this is definitely one of the best places to take sunset pictures near Aspen.

Long Walk


For the final picture in this series, I saw this hydroelectric power plant and retaining wall and wondered how a picture of them would turn out. I positioned myself low to the ground and close to the wall, then waited for someone to walk on the path. I kept the focus crisply on the walker and had the power plant out of focus in the back.

Slow Motion


As I continued my adventure around the lake, I saw the spillway again. This time I was positioned below the spillway and could see the movement of the water. I took out my neutral density filter to allow for the shutter to be open longer and took a long-exposure. Unfortunately, it was a little windy that day, which is why the trees are blurry, but the movement of the water makes up for it.

Dragonfly


Next, I found this dragonfly just resting on the concrete ground. At first, I was weary if I would scare it away, and I kept some distance away from it. I then switched to my macro lens and kept pushing closer. I have tried to take pictures of small bugs and insects, including dragonflies, but they are constantly moving and hard to capture. This dragonfly didn't seem to move at all. Even when I was about a foot away, it didn't move. Eventually, when I got too close, it did, but I believe this is the best insect picture I have taken yet.

Lift Off

When taking pictures of objects that move fast (such as these birds), your shutter speed must be as high as it can be. I normally adjust all of my settings, shutter speed, aperture, and ISO, in unison. But, when taking pictures of fast-moving objects, I prioritize shutter speed over the other two. This will allow me to freeze any movements and capture the image without any blur.

Searching


After the collage, I decided to focus on only one image at a time again. I wanted to highlight the flying bird. To achieve this, I threw the image in black and white to have the white bird be easily seen on the black background. I feel black and white is beneficial to the picture because most people don't see birds in black and white. With photography, I want to show a scene that most people don't/can't see.

Taking Flight


For most of these pictures, I would rapidly take pictures of birds flying around. I didn't think of how they would look or how I should edit them. At my computer looking over all the pictures, I wondered how a collage of pictures would look. This is what I came up with. This is a collage of nine images from the flight of a bird as it flew around White Rock Lake looking for food.

Soaring


After taking the long-exposure, I repositioned myself to face to the south. I had seen some birds flying in the corner of my eye, but I hadn't yet focussed on them. I swapped my wide-angle lens for my telephoto lens and started taking pictures of the birds. From taking pictures of the birds, I learned a valuable lesson, patience. The birds, like many things in life, are uncontrollable. You can't tell a bird where to be and when. As a photographer, you have to be patient, and eventually, the perfect shot will line up. I should remember this for the next time that something doesn't go as I had planned it

Spillway


A few miles later, I came upon this spillway. Once I saw this, I instantly knew I wanted to take a long-exposure picture. When I look back at this picture, the long-exposure makes the water look like icicles. There is no movement in the water (I mean there is, but the picture makes it almost look still), and the colors mimic those in icicles.

Engulfed By Nature


After a blistering hot run around White Rock Lake, I decided to bike around the lake and take a few pictures. Five minutes into my ride, I found this older looking structure that wasn't occupied. And, right next to it was a patch of tall flowers. I positioned myself in the flowers, then took this picture. When editing, I put it in black and white because I wanted to make the picture appear older. Like this was an abanded building that was engulfed by nature.

Hanging


Towards the end of the adventure, the rain subsided, but the clouds remained. I was beginning to walk away, preparing to leave, when I saw these plants dangling over the water. I positioned myself as low to the water as I could and took a few pictures. There was very little color, but I feel the black and white aspect only adds to the picture.

Lily Pad


As the rain continued to fall, more and more leaves were becoming covered in water droplets. What caught my attention to this leaf was the number of droplets on the leaf. I have never seen so many droplets on a single leaf. I positioned myself such that the front of the leaf was facing the camera, and the background was composed of green plants, and I took the picture.

Urban Nature

White Rock Lake, as a public park, probably has some of the most trash out of any park in Dallas. It is hard to walk 50 feet without seeing a piece of plastic or trash. Even in this picture, you can see an aluminum can in the back of the picture, but I have seen pieces of trash ranging from the size of dimes to a shopping cart dumped into the lake. 

Floating


The rain continued to fall as I looked back at the lake. When I finally did look back, I saw this other duck just floating as the family of ducks ate. I am not sure what that other duck was doing. If it was the father, or if it was just protecting, or if it too was hungry. When editing the picture, I added some blue and green tones to it. I added to make it feel as if the water created a blue scene (the water was a very pale and dark blue, almost black) to accompany the rain.

Ducks in a Row


This reminded me of the statue in Boston about the mother duck and her ducklings following behind her. Although the mother duck is not leading her ducklings in a stroll, as she is looking in the wrong direction, I am still reminded of that statue.

Baby Duck


I think this is the best picture of this series. It is close to the subject, the subject is in focus, and the exposure is correct. The background has an interesting circular pattern in it. I believe that it is the leaves, and that's just the shape of the openings, either way, the mosaic of circles affixes to the appearance of the picture.

Food


As I said in yesterday's post, the ducklings ran around searching for food. It was a fun challenge taking pictures of them. Not only did I have to shield my camera from the rain, but I also had to keep an eye on the ducks as they were running all over the place. One second, they were eating in a grassy area, the next, they moved 20 feet away. But, it still was fun to be surrounded by the ducks.

Observing


As I switched my lenses out and started observing the ducks again, the mother duck kept a constant eye on me. Most likely trying to protect her young, the mother duck stood her ground on this log while her little ducklings ate. I think that this is quite a unique image, not many times do you see a duck, standing on a log.

Little Nature


Next, I found this even smaller lily pad. I believe that the trick to taking pictures of water droplets is to show a perspective that most people don't see. When most people see water on a leaf, they see it from above, since they are likely standing over it. I have taken these types of pictures before, and they are not that interesting. I like to get almost level with the leaf. I want to show the three-dimensional shape of the water and a different perspective of the leaf.

Nature's Droplets

After taking a few pictures of the ducks, I turned my focus to the nature around them. Most of the time, when I take pictures of water droplets, I have flicked water on them. But, because of the rain, these droplets were entirely natural. I'm not sure what it is about water on leaves, but they have always fascinated me. I'm not sure why, but those little, clear droplets are very interesting.

Baby Duck

These pictures were pretty fun to take. The first major hurdle was the moving ducks. The ducks were very scared of me and kept running away whenever I tried to get close to them. To overcome this, I moved slowly and patiently and made sure to keep my distance from the ducks (but I still can take close up pictures with the 300mm zoom on my telephoto lens). Another, more serious, obstacle, was the rain. I went out taking pictures knowing it was going to rain, so I brought my raincoat and a cover for my camera. When I got to the lake, it started pouring. But that only made it more fun!

Sitting Duck


Welcome back to White Rock Lake! I ended up going back to the lake a few weeks later, but of course, it was still raining. When I first arrived at the lake, I drove around for a bit, looking for interesting picture opportunities. I have taken pictures at the lake multiple times, but I haven't taken many pictures of the wildlife around it. For these next 14 pictures, I will mostly focus on a group of ducks and some of the nature that surrounded the ducks.

Mother Duck

Lastly, for this White Rock Lake series, I found this duck family swimming near the banks of the lake, looking for food. I positioned my camera as low to the water as I could and took pictures of them as they swam by. I achieve the focus on the mother duck, I used my wide-angle lens, and it's f2.8 aperture. This made only the mother duck in focus, and the rest of the picture blurry.

Water's Edge

Next, I moved to another part of the lake, where I found this pier jutting out into the lake. The main reason why I took this picture as a long exposure was that birds were flying around, and I wanted to capture their movements. They ended up being too fast to be captured in a long exposure, but the picture still turned out pretty decent.

Fisherman's Walk

I soon found a puddle, but it didn't create any interesting reflections. But, it was on the walking path and could create reflections of those who walked by. I decided to position myself near this puddle with my neutral density filter (the filter that makes the image darker to allow for the shutter to be open longer) and tripod to capture a long-exposure. I waited for some people to walk by, then these two fishermen walked by.

Fish

I then walked a few steps to my right, where I found this family of three fishing. I hoped to find a collection of water that I could use as a mirror to create a reflection of the family, but all the water had already been absorbed into the ground. I decided to position myself in line with the center line and capture the guardrails of the bridge.

Lone Stick

After taking many pictures of the flowers, I walked over to the lake's edge. That is where I found this bird resting on the one log sticking out of the water. I have taken many pictures that are very similar to this one. What makes this picture different is how I edited it. I added some blue and green tones to make the overall picture have an interesting color. I also made it such that the bird was almost completely black. I wanted to create an interesting contrast between the bird and the water.

Nature Walk

As I said a few posts ago, the path was surrounded by flowers that were a few feet tall. I wanted to capture this scene in a picture. I had to wait before someone came walking on the path, but once they came, I tried to capture them from a decent ways away. I moved the focus from the center of the picture to where the person was and lowered the angle of the camera from pointing directly at the walker to lower on the path.

Standing Tall

Most of the flowers were a few feet tall, but this bunch was as tall as I am. I kept my macro lens but took a few steps back to create a background of flowers surrounding this one. Then, using the f2.8 of the lens, I took the picture with these flowers as the main object. I really like how this picture turned out. I love how there is just a sea of flowers and the focus is on just one of them. Overall, I feel the sharp focus makes the picture. If the focus was weaker or not on this bunch, the picture wouldn't be the same.

Sea of Green

Most of the flowers were either white or pink with green stems, but this flower had bright red and yellow colors on it. For most flower pictures, I like to capture the flower from as close as possible with the macro lens. But for this picture, I wanted to include the surrounding flowers with it. These flowers help show the depth of field. They show that the red flower is not the only flower there and that it is a bright light in a sea of green.

Miniature World

I found these flowers right below the scene of the last picture. Some of the buds had bloomed into white and pink flowers, while some others had died. On these dead flowers, the rain formed little water droplets. Then, using my macro lens, I focussed on the single water droplet that was just barely hanging onto the flower. I was trying to capture the miniature reflecting world formed inside the droplet, but it was just too small for my camera to capture it.

Little Reflectors

Next, I moved over a few flowers to this one. I liked the flower for two reasons. First, the flowers that are on it were incredibly small, which allows you to look at more than one flower in a single picture. Second, there were many water droplets were hanging onto the flowers. The droplets reflect the objects around them (which was the flowers), but in a  morphed and different way.

Little Yellow

After taking some wide-angle pictures of the flowers, I decided to focus on individual flowers. So, I took out my macro lens and took some close-ups. For this flower, I centered the picture around the middle of the flower. I wanted to capture the flower while also having some of the rain droplets in focus.

Rain Walk

Between the flowers was a path to walk/run/bike on. My goal for this picture was to create a reflection of the walker as they moved on the path. While the reflection was not as great as I would have liked, I feel the way the path looks makes it up. I like how the flowers surround the path, and the gray sky highlights the walker.

Summer Flowers

A few weeks after taking pictures of the moon, I adventured to White Rock Lake. It had rained that morning and afternoon, and I hoped to capture some macro flower/water droplet pictures and reflections from the water. When I first arrived, I was shocked by the number of wildflowers. Not only were the flowers as far as the eye could see, but some flowers were five feet tall.

Moon Light

I think this is my best picture for a long time. I first started taking pictures of the moon, then thought of adding a lightbulb. This final picture is two pictures that I Photoshopped together. The first was a picture of the moon. The second was a picture of the lightbulb with a strong flashlight lighting up the lightbulb from the top. I then merged these two pictures and made blended the moon so that it didn't look too Photoshopped.

Supermoon

As I was looking online, I saw something that stated that the last supermoon of 2020 would be on May 7. I then looked at the weather forecast and saw that May 7 would be rainy, but May 6, it would be clear. So on May 6, I went outside to take pictures of the supermoon. This picture was okay, but I had a great idea to take a picture of the moon inside a light bulb.

Stillness

These butterflies constantly move from flower to flower and flower patch to flower patch. For a few seconds, they stay on a flower drinking the nectar and reenergizing themselves. Maybe you can see it, maybe you can't, but I took this picture with my telephoto lens. Can you tell a difference between this picture and the last few? I like the others better because the focus is sharper and due to this sharp focus, I feel the picture looks better.

Flying In

Eventually, I was able to partly achieve this goal of freezing a bee in the air. Unfortunately, I believe my shutter speed wasn't fast enough to completely stop the bee's wings. I took this picture with a shutter speed of 1/2,500, which is the second-fastest shutter speed for my Nikon D5500. And after a quick Google, most cameras stop at a shutter speed of 1/4,000 (my camera does), but some can achieve speeds of 1/8,000 and the fastest is 1/32,000.

Honey

For all of these pictures, there was a lot of hope. Yes, you could set yourself up for success by choosing the correct camera settings and lenses, but you cannot tell the bee what to do and when. Taking pictures of bees is very much a waiting game. I had the camera constantly taking pictures because I didn't know when the perfect shot would line up. That perfect shot would be the wings of a bee frozen in the air as it flew to or from a flower.

Glistening

After the short bluebonnet session, I turned to face the bees again. I took pictures of bees before and wanted to make sure that these pictures were different than the older ones. To achieve this, I used a combination of the telephoto and macro lenses. The telephoto lens is good for taking pictures of bees because of its zoom. But, it struggles in keeping a crisp focus with the lowest aperture of f5.6 at 300mm. The macro lens is good because it allows for a constant f2.8, but it's set 90mm zoom means I have to be closer to the bees.

Tall

As I said in the class post, this flower patch featured some bluebonnets. Between taking pictures of bees, I decided to snag this shot. What I like about this picture is the out of focus bluebonnets you can see in the background. When I take pictures of flowers, most of the time, I keep a sharp focus on one part. For this picture, I also wanted to capture other bluebonnets in the background.

Hanging Around

After leaving the stream, I biked a few miles north to a flower patch. In this flower patch were bluebonnets which bees landed on, and purple flowers where the butterflies landed. It was interesting to see how the bees and butterflies interacted. They didn't bother each other, and they stayed on their specific flowers. I ended up biking past a few weeks later, and the flowers were gone. I am glad I took these pictures when I did!