It has been a while since I have posted an update to this blog. It’s not that I haven’t been taking any pictures it’s more like I’ve been trying to learn how to take better pictures and also to process them in Adobe Lightroom Version 5. I have also been taking some pictures but nothing that I thought was interesting and certainly not worth posting for you to view. I do have some photos that I think are somewhat interesting and I have decided to publish them in this post. The pictures are all of a single subject, a rusting, old abandoned farm tractor.
But before talking about the photos, I’d like to talk about my photographic journey. As I mentioned, I’ve been trying to learn how to take better pictures and also how to process them using Adobe Lightroom. In the last several weeks I’ve spent a lot of time viewing videos on YouTube. I have found a large number of videos that do a great job of discussing various technical aspects of photography. I have found these videos to be a great help and they are all free to view. That makes the price excellent!
I also decided to take a class on taking pictures at night. The class was conducted by a professional photographer over 3 sessions. On the first evening, after a short lecture that included viewing some great examples of night photography we took our cameras and tripods out into the surrounding neighborhood and starting taking photographs. I learned a great deal and much to my surprise I found that you could take pictures at night at ISO 200 and f/8 along with a few different shutter speeds and the pictures came out great. The second night we met at a nearby park and attempted to take some photographs of the stars, moon and silhouetted buildings. As it turned out, a light fog floated in that evening that somewhat obscured the sky photos but it created some interesting photos of nearby buildings and also the automobile traffic that lit the fog. The last night of the class we went to a retail development that featured reflecting pools, water fountains, a movie theater and a few restaurants, and other establishments, all of which had beautiful colored lights glowing. Some of these pictures came out very nice and a few with colored water fountains came out quite clear and colorful. I posted some of these pictures in October. Needless to say this class was a lot of fun and hopefully I learned enough to become a better nighttime photographer. Time will tell.
I have been working with Adobe Lightroom for a couple of months and more or less training myself on its various features. I have learned a great deal but decided there was a lot more that I could learn so I met with a professional photographer for a one-on-one training session on using Lightroom. Denise was a wonderful instructor who shared a great deal of information with me. She even spent additional time talking to me about various ways to fully utilize Lightroom and also how I might want to begin using Adobe Photoshop. I think I learned some additional tips and techniques from Denise that I have incorporated in the photos included in this post.
This past summer I was at a park that had an old farmhouse, barn and some farm equipment still in place. I thought it might be interesting to take some photographs; however, I forgot to come back until just a few weeks ago. You can tell by all the fall leaves on the ground that it is not summer. I decided to try and take these photographs from several different perspectives around the tractor. I also wanted to try to fill as much of the frame as I possibly could with the tractor while at the same time allowing for enough of the farm to show through to be recognized. I did some minor editing with Lightroom; however, my sense of style is to use a light touch and not overcook these pictures. Hopefully, I was successful in creating some images that are interesting and worth your time to view. Until the next time, let’s all keep on shooting and improving our photographic skills.
C'est la vie 