To start off this blog I wanted to post some of my past photographs that I have taken which happen to be my favorite. So here they are. Some of them date back all the way to 2008. With all my posts I am going to try and give some explanation to each photo, like how it was taken, as well as an explanation on any edits that I have done.

Photographics Society has really been a great learning experience. One of the societies meetings we went to downtown Rexburg and made some photographs. This guy was one of the society’s members and I like how this turned out to look like a GQ cover or something like that. What I really think makes this photo is the edit that I used with it. The edit is actually a preset from Adobe Lightroom. That is a great program that helps with work flow, but that topic is another blog post. This preset really modifies colors and adds a vignette.

Silhouette; October 26, 2009; 10:44 am; Oakdale CA; f 2.2; 1/200; Canon Rebel XS; 50 mm

This is one of my all time favorites, and it happened to be one of the first photography sessions that I did down in California. We were living at the time in Oakdale California which is near the longest covered bridge in Cali. It was about 11 am when we took this and the silhouette turned out great. We shot it in black and white and we adjusted the sharpness of the photo as well as the contrast after. I think the reason why this picture captures me is because of the way the little girl is standing.

Lighting Up;October 5, 2009; 11:32 pm; My apartment; f 1.8, 1/400; Canon Rebel XS; 85 mm

During my time here at BYU-Idaho I have participated in the photographics society. Three times a semester they have photography contests and this was my entry for the Light category. I actually won first place with this photo, which surprised me. It was fun taking this photograph because I was really messing with shutter speed. We took this in the middle of my kitchen with all the lights on, but because the shutter speed was so high it darkened everything but the light of the match. It was a really great learning experience. I did do some color adjustments with this photo as well as some boosting of contrast and clarity.

Monkey Rock November 7, 2009; 9:44 am; Monkey Rock ID; f 1.8; 1/200; Canon Rebel XS; 85 mm

Here is a swimming hole that is out here in eastern Idaho. It is called monkey rock, and I think I hear about a person dieing here once a year. This is a panoramic that was stitched through Photoshop and it comprises of about 5 different pictures. I took this just to see how it would work with the water and I think it did swimmingly (like the water pun.) Other than that this image is completely SOOC (shot out of camera.)

Smile; October 12, 2009; 10:45 pm; The Gardens; f 1.8; 1/800; Canon Rebel XS; 85 mm

One of my favorite things is to photograph children. I just think that the pictures tend to have so much more feeling and emotion in them. I was also trying hard to use a little more artistic bokeh with this image. This image had some color adjustments added to it to give it a little more of a golden look to it. That particular day was very blue because of the time of year.

Odd one out October 20, 2009; 5:30 pm; Downtown Rexburg; f 2.5; 1/200; Canon Rebel XS; 85 mm

So that same day that the photographics society went out to take photos I saw these power meters on the wall. I took my camera and adjusted the contrast and exposure to get a even higher contrast. After a couple of weeks we printed a large version of this and it is now hanging above my desk at home. After a few months I was looking at it one day and I finally realized that the one meter down on the bottom right was different than all of the others. It added more dimension to it for me and I think its funny that I didn’t even plan it. That is what I call a happy mistake. This image is SOOC.

Hands down; October 19, 2009; 1:33 pm; My apartment; f 1.8; 1/100; Canon Rebel XS; 85 mm

I saw someone else do something kinda like this so I wanted to try it out. I was able to do it with the first baby that I have tried it with, but I haven’t been able to replicate it sense. I think babies are so cute and can be really fun to photograph, you do need a lot of patience though. After we finally got this shot (I think it only took about 20 tries) I wanted to bring out the flower on her head. So I increase the colors to bring out that orange in photoshop.

Hey You Guys; April 14, 2009; 1:53 pm; Canon Beach OR; f7.1; 1/1,000; Canon Rebel XS; 85 mm

So I am originally from Oregon and back in April of 2009 we went there to visit my parents and go photograph a wedding. One day we went to Canon beach on the coast and had some fun. While we were there I took this panoramic (of 5 photos) and merged them in photoshop. The image was also pretty drab and I wanted the blues to show off a little more, so I edited it a little more in photoshop. I would love to print this some day but I think I would have a little bit of a time finding a frame for it.

I think like most people I have a ton more photos to share, but I think these pictures are really showing my diversity that I have been trying to work on. I first started out mainly doing portraits and people, but I have been really trying hard to learn how to photograph other things as well. I hope to be able to learn more this semester and increase my abilities.