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dream hat photography > On today’s shot, I am claiming artistic license for my interpretation of the image. Lately I have played it pretty straight with the images. So, if you are a filter/effects hater, tough luck. Yeah, you got it; tonight I am running with the wild bunch. We are out there altering reality, bending it to our will, caution thrown completely to the wind, photographers without borders. My shirttail is hanging out and my hair isn’t combed. Well, that last part might be most any day but you get the idea. At one point, I had my tripod lowered all the way and I was sitting on the ground shooting (refer to the previous paragraph, I was taking chances, I could have easily gotten the seat of my shorts dirty). As I stood up and looked behind me, a Canadian goose had sneaked up and was standing right there. He had almost been looking over my shoulder. He didn’t say anything but he had that smug Canadian look in his eye. Those flat webbed feet apparently are very quiet on the grass. Instinct kicked in for me, fight or flee, but I chose option 3, take his picture. I only got one shot and then he became uncooperative. You can find the shot here - http://gldaniel02.smugmug.com/gallery/4442577_Jzof4/1/298242165_r4ivW . I only got his head, I was using the zoom lens and he was close, he could have picked my back pocket but I carry a front pocket wallet, so I would have had the last laugh. “We must be the change we wish to see in the world.” - Mohandas (Mahatma) K. Gandhi
dream hat photography > Part of this is about today’s photo and part of this is about captions in my daily photo galleries. I’ll address the daily photo first. On the way home from work, I stopped at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens and rather than shoot a bunch of subjects then eventually choose a water lily photo, I only shot the water lilies this afternoon. There is one with a dragonfly that I like and I will throw it in the Bonus Tracks and B-sides gallery. The captions part of the galleries has gone through various phases. Initially I was against captions. But I saw an opportunity to use the caption area for descriptions, thoughts, ideas, information, or just things on my mind. I don’t think it’s any secret that some people get something from the captions and some people wish I would be quiet and just post the images. It’s been well documented here that I am in this community to share with others that are also shooting daily photos and to learn from them. There is nothing special about my captions, they are just additional information. Like information of any type, it may or may not be of any interest or use to you. I totally get that. To some degree the captions have become somewhat of a tiny journal that is a companion to the daily photo. The iTunes selection is no more and no less than just a song for my mood at the time I am processing my images. I have my hands full taking and posting the daily photos so please don’t take my music selection as anything more than a footnote. For that matter, the whole caption is a footnote to the image. This is after all, a photo site and not a writing site. Hopefully that clears up a few things about the captions. Read them or ignore them, it’s your choice. So, today’s iTunes selection is by The Shins, is titled “Australia” and is from their “Live Session (iTunes Exclusive) – EP” album.
dream hat photography > It’s difficult for me to even begin to describe the broad array of lilies at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens. The beauty is always striking. Even as many times as I have been by the large area that is planted with lilies, I am still discovering new varieties that I have missed in previous visits. I should have made a note of the name for this one but I didn’t. As much as I’d like to be accurate and informational, I shot it because I liked the way it looked. Today’s iTunes is by the Be Good Tanyas and is a cover of a classic Neil Young song. The song is titled “For the Turnstiles” and is off the “Hello Love” album.
dream hat photography > Some days you go out and shoot and you feel it. You feel the energy, you feel the enthusiasm, and you go home with what you hope is a lot of good shots on the memory card. Some days, like today, you are shooting but there is no flow. You struggle to find something that excites you. Those are the hard days and you go home hoping that you can salvage something remotely worth sharing. None of that is news. We all go through the ebb and flow of the daily photo experience. My philosophy is to plug along, continue to shoot, and work through the tough days. Even on a bad day I will learn something. For me, today was one of the tough days. I was happy to be out shooting, that part has never been anything but enjoyable. There was just no spark. In a way, the daily photo experience comes in handy on such a day. Not in the sense of plucking a wonderful shot from the photographic abyss but in the sense of having a comfort with the camera and techniques that have worked in the past. On a given day, I dare say at least one of us will find ourselves with those circumstances. The beauty of looking at the galleries is not just to see what is produced on a great day with a plethora of subjects to shoot but rather to see what people manage to pull out of a day when we struggle. Many of you have been doing this a lot longer than I have. It’s an interesting journey but for me the gain has far outweighed any negatives that have tagged along. OK, I know, I am stalling again. I was trying to buy some time and wiggle room. Anyway, this is my shot for the day. As some of you may have noticed, I am behind on looking at some of the galleries and leaving comments. Hopefully I can catch up. Tonight’s iTunes selection is another one from the past. The song is “Walk on the Wild Side” by Lou Reed.
dream hat photography > This shot was taken at a footbridge that crosses the Cahaba River. The back story is that I was looking for a new place to shoot. I researched some options in my area and found out about the bridge. That was the easy part. I had directions that took me to a sports park, and then the bridge was supposed to behind the park. The trick was finding the bridge. There were some little league baseball games in progress. It was getting late in the afternoon and it was cloudy, so my light was fading. I asked some of the moms on the playground by the ball park about the bridge. My assumption was that moms know everything. They had all heard about the bridge, but none of them actually knew the location. They sent me over to ask one of the coaches who gave me directions to a different part of the park and off I went. His directions got me in the right general area and I started walking down paths and into the woods looking for the bridge. At this point I am burning what little daylight I have left, am walking in wooded areas with a lot of undergrowth, and concerned about snakes. I could hear the river, but couldn’t see it. I made my way through the undergrowth and to the edge of a small steep hillside that led down to the river. So I maneuvered down the bank with my camera, backpack, and tripod. The woods were heavy in both directions and I leaned out looking down the river, then up the river and saw the bridge. Now it was just a matter of getting back up the steep bank, back through the woods to the edge of the park to search for the bridge but I knew where it was now. Eventually I found the right path and it was worth the effort. The down side was that I had used most of the good light in the search. I took a number of shots and decided to go with this one. In my photograph from yesterday, I commented about processing and workflow. I have some pretty good books on Photoshop and need to read more. I found a great section on color correction and used it on today’s images. I am happy with the results and the colors are very accurate. Hopefully this will be something that can become a regular part of my workflow.
dream hat photography > After a long afternoon at work that ended after a three hour long meeting, I went to the botanical gardens to take some photographs and relax. The light was great and the flowers were beautiful. I shot so many pictures and I didn’t have enough time to work through all of them tonight. I struggled with which one to select and have posted a few alternates in the Bonus Tracks gallery. I expected to have a rose shot for the day but as I was getting ready to leave, another photographer told me that the water lily was blooming. I decided to go with that instead of the roses.
dream hat photography > After several days of basically playing it straight, today’s shot ventured more on the experimental side. The actual photograph was fairly basic but the post production was more of an adventure. Photoshop CS3 is such a massive package with so many options and I know I have only scratched the surface. Most nights, I follow a standard workflow I have developed for my images. It works well and gives me a good basis for processing. I try to be careful about over-processing an image. It’s not that I have a problem with people being creative, that’s all part of the fun. I am just wary of letting myself rely on it too heavily. Hopefully you will give me some space to stretch a bit. I have done basically nothing in terms of experimenting with rendering light effects under the Filter area. There are a ton of options for rendering lighting effects. I just played with it some and settled on one of the Omni effects and chose to apply a Texture Channel which gave it an enhanced effect. As always, comments and suggestions are encouraged and invited.
dream hat photography > This photo had a longer caption but it didn’t survive to be shared. Well, to be honest there were several drafts. For a lot of reasons, they have all been discarded. Today’s photo is in black & white, no color, not even muted tones. Going with the flow may seem easy but watch out for the undertow and riptides. ***edited caption - ok - i tried several funny drafts but none of them translated well - should have added that to the caption, sorry for the confusion, it was late
dream hat photography > You guys are great. Thanks for all of the positive reinforcement on my photos. Today finds me back on what is now familiar territory with another flower. I never think of myself as someone that photographs flowers. I don’t even know why I photograph them. Well, that’s not exactly true; I photograph flowers and plants because I find them visually pleasing for some reason. They pose nicely too. If you are someone that uses layers and Photoshop CS3, converting your background layer to a Smart Object is a good idea. It basically builds in a layer mask and if you choose to apply filters, it allows you to turn them off and on as well as go back and adjust them or anything else at any point, even after you have saved. It’s pretty cool. Tonight’s iTunes selection is a little song by Amos Lee on his self titled album. The song is “Keep It Loose, Keep It Tight” – the whole album is great, I recommend it if you are looking for something pleasant.
After several days of basically playing it straight, today’s shot ventured more on the experimental side. The actual photograph was fairly basic but the post production was more of an adventure. Photoshop CS3 is such a massive package with so many options and I know I have only scratched the surface. Most nights, I follow a standard workflow I have developed for my images. It works well and gives me a good basis for processing. I try to be careful about over-processing an image. It’s not that I have a problem with people being creative, that’s all part of the fun. I am just wary of letting myself rely on it too heavily.

Hopefully you will give me some space to stretch a bit. I have done basically nothing in terms of experimenting with rendering light effects under the Filter area. There are a ton of options for rendering lighting effects. I just played with it some and settled on one of the Omni effects and chose to apply a Texture Channel which gave it an enhanced effect.

As always, comments and suggestions are encouraged and invited.
dream hat photography > After several days of basically playing it straight, today’s shot ventured more on the experimental side. The actual photograph was fairly basic but the post production was more of an adventure. Photoshop CS3 is such a massive package with so many options and I know I have only scratched the surface. Most nights, I follow a standard workflow I have developed for my images. It works well and gives me a good basis for processing. I try to be careful about over-processing an image. It’s not that I have a problem with people being creative, that’s all part of the fun. I am just wary of letting myself rely on it too heavily. Hopefully you will give me some space to stretch a bit. I have done basically nothing in terms of experimenting with rendering light effects under the Filter area. There are a ton of options for rendering lighting effects. I just played with it some and settled on one of the Omni effects and chose to apply a Texture Channel which gave it an enhanced effect. As always, comments and suggestions are encouraged and invited.
After several days of basically playing it straight, today’s shot ventured more on the experimental side. The actual photograph was fairly basic but the post production was more of an adventure. Photoshop CS3 is such a massive package with so many options and I know I have only scratched the surface. Most nights, I follow a standard workflow I have developed for my images. It works well and gives me a good basis for processing. I try to be careful about over-processing an image. It’s not that I have a problem with people being creative, that’s all part of the fun. I am just wary of letting myself rely on it too heavily.

Hopefully you will give me some space to stretch a bit. I have done basically nothing in terms of experimenting with rendering light effects under the Filter area. There are a ton of options for rendering lighting effects. I just played with it some and settled on one of the Omni effects and chose to apply a Texture Channel which gave it an enhanced effect.

As always, comments and suggestions are encouraged and invited.
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