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.