Day 9: The Ins(ide) and Outs(ide) of Photography

Welcome! And happy Sunday! It was a superbly nice day out today, but it took me a while to get motivated to take any pictures. But it's okay because 1) I finished cleaning my room and bathroom, and 2) I ended up getting some really great sunset photos. To be honest, it's hard to not get a good sunset photo. Call me unabashedly romantic, but there's just a lot of beauty to be found there.

Alas, today's first photo was taken inside. I stare at this shower head every day when I'm getting ready. I still haven't actually installed it on my actual shower, so it's just resting on the ledge by my mirror. I really love curved, reflective surfaces. They make things look crrrazy. Like me, see?!

.5 sec exposure at F/7.1. ISO 400.
Click here for larger image.

I set up my camera on the tripod, then leaned in really close during exposure. Then, in Aperture, I cropped my actual self out of the photo, so only my goofy reflection remained. I played with the white balance and some other settings a bit, trying to get my orange shirt to stand out a bit (it was pretty dark and shadowy in the original file). I also played with the touch-up tool as well. There was a white stain (paint, I think) on the shower head that showed up and made it look like I had half of a white mustache. It actually took it away pretty nicely. I don't think you can really tell it was there at all, except when you blow the image way up. It's a very handy feature, that was extremely easy to use (literally, just point and click on the trouble areas).

For the next image, I finally got some motivation (at least the picture taking kind) and got outside. When I was taking the trash up to the street for pickup, I notice the sun was about to set and it was a very clear sky so it had some great potential. I ran back inside and got all bundled up, packed up my gear and grabbed my tripod. I walked around for a while near our house and eventually found this shot on the other side of 422 heading out of town. It was also the only spot I was really able to find that didn't have some sort of structure in the shot (building, guardrail, electrical/telephone wires/posts).

1/5 sec. exposure at F/16. ISO 100.
Click here for larger image.

I messed around with very few things in Aperture for this photo. The biggest thing I did was try to darken the bottom half of the shot (you could still see snow/ground/the bottom of the trees) to help bring out the colors in the sky more. Other than that I didn't really tweak too much. Like I said, sunsets are pretty hard to screw up. And I don't know if this technically follows the Rule of Thirds, but I tried to get it so the dark part was along the bottom third and the colorful part ended at the top third. My own interpretation, I suppose.

All righty-roony. Another day, another photo adventure is completed. I'm finally getting into the swing with this I think. I knew once I got into the habit, things would be a little easier. I'm at work the next three days, so I'm not exactly sure what I'll be photographing so stay tuned. Hasta luego, mis amigos!