Bad Lands, Bad Lands, Whatcha Gonna Do.

     So looking back through my photographs I did find some that have some of the characteristics of what we have been talking about in the book. Such as portrait shots and having blurring effects and similar things in the shot that I tried to do. Unfortunately some animals aren't as caring for photographers and don't like to pose very well or correctly frame themselves with a stalk of grass or with a better colored backdrop.

So here are some that I took specifically in Bad Lands State Park SD.

So this is just one of the many goats we saw along the road through one stretch and I did try to get a better picture but this is the only time the baby was alone and it didn't take any consideration of mine to take a quick glance up at the camera. Oh well.

This one I tried to frame more specifically but it wouldn't stop moving and so I took a few through the grass like this. I will say this was when I hadn't thought to manually focus myself so it took a bit of work to get it to focus on the goat and not the grass. But I don't think it turned out all bad, mostly just too much grass in the foreground. I also was on an opposite ridge and didn't bring my tripod.

This one looks kind of barren and desolate but I thought it looked cool with all the layers of earth being that defined in it as well as the sidelight making the shadows pop out really well.

This one was also taken for the same effects accept it was from the inside of a vehicle that was in motion. Thus the little sliver of black that was the window frame.

Over all with all of these pictures I think they are fairly blasted out in the whites and I wish I could have been better with my camera at the time so I could mellow them out a bit. I also wish I didn't take some of them at such a high ISO because it becomes pretty evident in the landscapes and the blurred grass. If I had a tripod and a better picture understanding maybe I could have made them a little higher quality. I still enjoy them though, looking at them from a photography standpoint its a good stepping stone for messing with framing and from a personal standpoint it was a very fun trip that I'm fond of remembering.

Photos from the Skies

       One of the things I find amazing is aerial photography. I would love to do some myself but I don't have many friends in the aviation department yet besides not having a good enough camera to do it justice. I just find the perspective you find from that high above interesting because of how different it is from our normal view. The ground disturbances stand out in much better contrast when the lighting is right.

   














        Another thing I noticed and found funny is how the universal rules still apply for this type of photography (even if loosely). In particular the time of shooting, because those highly contrasting shadows wouldn't be visible during the midday sun. You also have a much longer view of the land which can lead to cool effects that you would in no way be able to see from ground level, like the bends in the river, or the shape of the dunes.

These photos are just from a random google search and the links didn't point them to where or who took them, and I ran into the "links go bad places" issue as well. But here is where I found them.
http://designyoutrust.com/2011/06/wonderful-aerial-photos-of-nature/

Missed Opportunities

So for the past 2 mornings when I have left my house I have been greeted by amazing sunrises with very interesting clouds, which if I had woken up 15 minutes earlier I could have done many different things and gotten some good pictures. Instead  I was already too late for my morning class, so I had to do what I could in the moment. (Taking a picture through my windshield with my phone while driving down a gravel road. Not the safest thing I could have done but its all I could do.)

These 2 I just loved how the clouds looked. All blocky with the sun shining through giving it a cool effect.

These ones you can clearly see the effects the wind has on clouds because of the sweeping lines which almost make it look like it was a paintbrush.

The following pictures were also ones I had taken with my phone camera on various trips as well as the summer that I was fascinated by bugs while doing ranch work for a friend.

(Spoiler alert: THERE IS A SPIDER PICTURE)

These pictures were from Sioux Falls SD. As well as from Wyoming where I found a moose while fishing and though its hard to see cause we were so far away we didn't want to get closer cause there is a baby moose over there as well.

Images from my past

I know Dave said to limit our pictures to this last summer but I have nothing of interest for pictures from this summer since the majority of the time I was stuck indoors at work. I do have some of my favorite pictures that I have taken in the past so if this is against the rules I'm sorry and will definitely be willing to redo this blog post, but I thought it would be fun to show off some of what I have done.

The good majority of these were taken in Glacier National Park on a trip I went on a few years ago. I will say some of them I did hang a little far out over some falls to get the angle I wanted but the pictures were definitely worth the risk.

I enjoy this one because it was one of those moments in a perpetually cloudy day that you could just barely see the peak and the trees in the foreground added to the effect of the height.

Not only was the effects the camera had on the water cool, but the most interesting thing for me was the rock that is wedged here in this stream. cause it makes you wonder how it got there and how long it has been there.

This was one of the pictures that made me very happy with the camera I chose to get for myself. It may still be a point and shoot camera but it has amazing zoom and very good clarity even at the distance I was taking this from. (roughly 60 yards or so)