July 2019 – C'est la vie

Antietam Creek was the sight of a major battle during the War of the Rebellion (Civil War). It is also called the Battle of Sharpstown (Maryland). This battle occurred when the Confederate forces under General Robert E. Lee invaded Maryland which was not part of the Confederacy. The opposing army of Union forces was under the command of General George McClellan. Some experts consider the outcome a stalemate; however, the Union forces claimed it was their victory since it forced General Lee’s army out of northern territory. Please check this link for more details.

https://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/battle-of-antietam

This post is not about the battle. It so happens that my family held a summer picnic this past Saturday at Devil’s Backbone County Park on Antietam Creek near the site of the battlefield.

I chose not to bring my DSLR camera since this was not a photography outing, but I did have my smartphone with me. The photos that I am sharing in this post were taken with my phone and some editing was done with Adobe Lightroom after I returned home. Although the photos are nice, you can easily see that they do not compare to the quality that would be produced with a good DSLR.

Taking photos is an enjoyable hobby with either a smartphone or my DSLR for me. I thought that some of you might enjoy seeing these photos. My smartphone is a Motorola Moto Z3 Play and is certainly not a high-end model, but the camera takes acceptable quality photos for viewing on a blog, Facebook, Instagram etc.

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Antietam Creek and Dam

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Antietam Creek Dam

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Bridge over Antietam Creek

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Mossy Tree

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Meandering Creek

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Ant’s View

Please come back to www.cestlavie4me.com to see where my photography takes me in the future. Keep shooting even if it is with your smartphone! You might enjoy the results.

The other day I was at a farm with my daughter and we were picking peaches, blackberries, green beans and sunflowers. This is a farm that sells family memberships and they deliver fresh vegetables to your home once a week. Each week you can also visit the farm and pick some items for yourself.

I recently purchased a new smartphone, not one of the expensive ones, that is against my budget religion! The camera has taken some good photos of people, but I had not used it for anything else. This was my opportunity to see how well it would perform in taking a closeup photo, not a macro, just arm’s length type photos. I decided to use one of the sunflowers I had picked and to shoot it with the sun lighting it from several positions. After returning home I did some fun edits with Photoshop to practice some techniques. These are not fine art photos, just some fun photos that I decided to share with you. All these photos were edited to push some Photoshop features farther than I would normally go as you can plainly see.

The first photo is one taken with the sun directly behind it. You can just see the sun at the top of the photo. IMG_20190721_100505576

The next photo is almost the same shot with the sun clearly visible at the top of the frame. IMG_20190721_100836564

The following shot is front lit with the sun slightly to the photos right side.

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This photo was taken with the sun facing the flower but it was held closer to the camera.

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Now it was time to take a photo with the sun directly facing the flower or at least a close approximation of that position. IMG_20190721_100732012

The last shot is just a selection of the sunflower that was directly facing the sun. IMG_20190721_100800715

This was a fun exercise and I got to practice with Photoshop. This is probably the only way I will ever learn how to use this powerful tool. By the way, the smartphone does seem to have a pretty good camera considering it is not a high-end device.