MHJphotos's PhotoBlog

Geometry

2008-07-22T20:36:12Z

I have no idea what this wildflower is called. However, seeing the flower, in the shape of a star go to seed, and having the seeds also form a polygon, is amazingly cool! Well, at least its cool to me. The color version is as shot from the camera. The BW is a square crop. I don't often use square crops (I don't often crop, period), but I think it works here ... especially in BW. Mat

MRNP - Photoblogger's Style #2

2008-07-21T21:43:40Z

Several more images from the trip that Julie, Eric, JR and I took up to the Sunrise area of Mt. Rainier National Park. Many are similar to ones from yesterday, a few slightly different shots. Please, if you haven't checked out their blogs, check out my blog from yesterday by clicking here. All of the specific links to their shots are readily available in yesterday's post. Believe me, you owe it to yourself to click ... They're that good. We started our day at the parking lot of the Sunrise Lodge within MRNP. At 6400', its the highest point one can drive in the park. We opted to only climb a few hundred vertical feet, instead of climbing to the summit of the 14,410' peak. You guys have no idea how much fun I had during this trip ... even if I was outmanned by 3 CANON shooters, and teased unmercifully about my lens hood! Again, as I stated yesterday ... find some people local to you who use this site and put something together! Believe me, you won't regret it. Mat

Mt. Rainier National Park - Photoblogger Style

2008-07-20T20:28:55Z

I had been hoping to get together with some local photographers that I have met through the Photoblogging community. Finally, July 19th FINALLY came and I met up with 3 wonderful people for a day of shooting in Mt. Rainier National Park. Julie - aka TheCrazyCroat, Eric - aka etodd80, and JR - aka jezterr. There are some fantastic images in their galleries, so be sure to check them out! It was so much fun to watch the other photographers and how we would all see things a little differently. I probably learned more on this trip than any of the others ... of course, if you ask Julie, that would simply be due to the fact that I'm a NIKON shooter, and the 3 of them were Canon shooters! LOL. If anyone reading this has the opportunity, and lives nearby other bloggers, believe me, you owe it to yourself to go on a photo shooting excursion with them. You'll build lasting friendships, learn more in one day than you may in MONTHS of shooting on your own, and you'll have a ton of fun! So Julie, Eric and JR ... you guys ROCK! Thank you for an absolute blast of a day. Let's do it again soon (and by soon, I mean when things settle down for all of us!). And next time, someone else gets to pick the destination!!!

Rays of Hope

2008-07-14T10:54:39Z

================================================= Psalms 113:3 This is an HDR, made possible through Photoshop. This is how I saw this image through my eyes! Unfortunately, the scenario and ability to capture the image as I saw it was essentially impossible. The EXIF (in case its missing) is 24mm 1/40" @ F11 - ISO800. I didn't have my tripod at our neighbor's garden, but I didn't want to shoot with the lens wide open and miss those golden light rays. So I stopped down the lens, cranked up the ISO and the image was still too dark, but at least I had my sun rays! So I processed the RAW file a couple of different time, pushing the envelope a little more with each pass, and then merged them in photoshop. A little selective NR, a little cloning to remove 1 sun flare, some dodging and burning and voila, the image you see here. A tripod would have been much, much nicer allowing me to stop down the lens without fear of movement ... I could have stopped down the lens even more, done some better exposure of the foliage, etc and not caused me so much work on the back end to come up with the image that I saw with my eyes. This is a friend's arbor and part of their rose garden. I think I'll print this as a thank you for letting them use their pool!

Good Ol' Harmony

2008-07-11T00:29:11Z

Tonight began our city's "Concert in the Park Series" - A Thursday night occurrence during the summer months. To start off the series, we rounded up the representative of the Miss USA pageant from Washington, followed by the night's main attraction (some may debate the attraction!) "The Coats". The Coats are a nationally recognized A Capella Vocal Band from right here in Puyallup, Wa. In fact, I went to High School with the lead of the group, way back when. If these guys ever come around your town, and they do travel the country, please you owe it to yourself to go hear them. they're awesome. There were a bunch of the blogging community there ... although they seemed to take FAR too many pics of yours truly and not nearly enough of the people that were performing. Some may think, by looking at their pics, that I was the one performing! =) Be sure to check out the images from Jody, Kevin, Tami, and Heidi for more great images of the evening. Especially if you want a good laugh at MY expense! ;) Mat

I drives me boat ...she drives me dinghy!

2008-07-08T21:07:37Z

I saw that on a bumper sticker once. It cracked me up so much when I saw it, I nearly drove off the road. Still one of my all time favorite bumper stickers. I took this image while on the same boat ride as my previous post. When I took the shot, with the dinghy being towed behind the sailboat, the bumper sticker came to the forefront of my mind I knew IMMEDIATELY what I was going to do! Hey, its good practice with the PS clone tool! I hope you enjoy this. It may get little, or no reaction, but sometimes I'm my own best audience. This cracks me up! Mat P.S. Sorry for yet another departure from the blogging community. Life is a bit of a challenge right now, but I have faith it will get better soon! And at some point, I will be back FULL FORCE!

Leadership

2008-07-06T22:35:18Z

Connor's birthday was Saturday 7/5. As part of his day, we went on a lunch cruise around the Puget Sound waterway along the Tacoma Waterfront. As we were cruising, I noticed these cable links along the bow of the ship that caught my eye and attention. Perhaps they convey something other than Leadership, like Security, Support and Strength, but hey, I liked the quote! And I did take it from a ship afterall. More fun with Photoshop. I'm quickly getting hooked. Truth be told, I've been playing with some images that I had previously taken, and wow, I'm amazed at the power of such an application. Sounds ridiculous, I know. Hope you enjoy. Mat

Happy Birthday

2008-07-02T20:30:20Z

================================================= For my birthday last Saturday, Heidi surprised me by buying me Photoshop CS3! I was absolutely stunned. I know there are some wonderful women out here on the 'blog, but I'm sorry, none of you as are WONDERFUL as my Heidi! =) To this point, I've not had any editing tools other than a very powerful RAW editor, which has been fine by me to this point, and I will continue to use this tool to convert my RAW images to jpg. But, I have had a desire at times to do more with my images, and this will definitely allow me to do MORE. What an enormous learning curve. With the gift of CS3 for my birthday, and America's upcoming birthday on Friday, I thought I'd push my Neophite Photoshopping skills a bit and try to come up with something appropriate for both occasions. This is a composite image of 3 separate images - 2 of which were taken when I shot the Internment service at the National Cemetery, and the Eagle was taken recently as well. All of the original images have been posted before. I rather like this! One day, I MAY even participate in the editing challenges! Mat

Inspiration

2008-06-30T20:28:29Z

'There are always two people: the photographer and the viewer.' Ansel Adams US nature photographer (1902 - 1984) ================================================= A quick update before I get to today's post... Last night, I was showing my most recent blog post to Reilley, my 8 year old son. He said "Dad, that 'tongue' is actually called a Proboscis! The butterfly uses it to suck the nectar from flowers". So you think you're smarter than a 3rd grader?! =) Now, onto today's post. A few months ago, Heidi gave me a book of 400 of Ansel Adams images neatly compiled from his humble beginnings as a teenage photographer in the '20s, to his most acclaimed and noted works of 60s and 70s. Some of the my most favored images are of small, intimate details of the forest floor. I marvel at the broad landscapes that he was able to photograph, but I will forever be fascinated by his images of ferns, and berries, mosses and burnt stumps. These are inspired by some of the images I saw in my book. While I don't pretend these are anywhere near the quality I find in the book, they do represent a reasonable facsimile. They vary greatly from Ansel's images by the somewhat shallow DOF that I used (especially the last image) simply because I didn't take my tripod camping, and the amount of available light simply didn't allow for stopping down the lens. Alas, one must make occasional sacrifices! Mat

Ever seen one of these?

2008-06-29T18:32:31Z

This shot was taken yesterday while we spent the weekend camping. Heidi was attempting to read, when we were visited by this interesting little butterfly. It seemed to be enjoying the taste of some pop that she would put on her finger. I took several images of this interesting little creature, but this one, is my favorite. That tongue is amazing! I probably have, but I honestly don't recall having ever seen a butterfly tongue prior to seeing this image. Hope you enjoy. Mat