What I was looking for!

How many times, in the past, was I viewing other peoples photos on Flickr and wished I had a following too! How many times have I viewed a photo from someone else and wished that I can take such an amazing image! One night, from the pit of despair, I saw this image as I was walking up to the beach at Torrey Pines State Reserve. It had everything that all those OTHER photographers had in there amazing line up of photos. It had the ocean, duh, it had standing water, even a set of wispy clouds in the back. And the one thing I was missing, under the standing water was rocks and details! OH, all the good photographers have that in there set of photos to look at!

All I had to do to get there, was take my son to the bathroom, and well, I kind of had to go too. SO, we made it to the rest rooms only to find a sign that said something like "Budget cuts." and "bathroom closed!" What?!?!?! He is 4 years old! No bathroom? OK, so I take him to the restrooms that are at the OTHER end of the beach only to see the SUNSET on the way and to see the "budget cuts" sign on those doors! WHAT!!!!!!!! Ok, so I RUN back to the truck, hand my son over to may man, and RAN to the beach, where there was standing water and rocks under the water. Oh ya, did I mention, the tide was coming in? :) Ok, so by time I was able to fire off my first image, there was no standing water left, it was a once in a while rush, which stirred all the sand below. SO, in the image above, I was able to get some under water details, but really, very little compared to what I saw before the sun went down. OH and those wispy clouds? Over to the right and not the direction of my rocks and standing water. But the silhouette of the couple to the top left, I love! But at the end of the day, the set of photos I came home with that night, were some of the best I have had in a while. The lesson here? Learn to see what you want and compose the image instead of just shooting! And that was 2 months ago? And I am still learning that today! :) Foreground, foreground, foreground. That will be my goal for April. Look for the foreground element.

I thank you for stopping by and I hope you check out my flickr photo stream. There are a lot more photos there!

Moving on with Daytime Long Exposure

So, as I had posted before, I was getting into day time long exposure before I realized that the color cast of the Cokin filters was just getting annoying! And, I could only take the image to a few seconds with my stacked ND filters. Stacked was another word for lower quality, when I put the two filters together, it would add stuff to the image, like extra sun flairs and more spots that just did not come off during post processing. There had to be another way. So, that was when I started to look into EXTREME ND filters. Extreme as in, hitting the 30 second mark with one DARK filter. After much research, I knew that the B+W ND110 was the filter for me. At 10 full stops of light, the filter was suppose to be blocking 1000x's the light. When you take the filter and look into the sun, all you see is a round ball, I bet I can capture a solar eclipse with this baby! (I look forward to the chance to try!) Any way, on my first week of having the filter, I found myself quite successful at the idea of LONG exposures during the day. I give Cokin the credit for teaching me how to deal with the day time work, with out that period of learning time, the curve would have been grater! Now, the only thing missing, my wide lens. Before I got my ND100, my wide lens stopped working. Right now, it is still in the shop! It seams I can only have one pice of gear at a time! :) No worries, I expect it back next week, then you will start seeing WOW from me. I hope so any way. The image above is, from a distance, a 30 second exposure during the day. Please enjoy! And don't forget, check me out on Flickr. I put a lot more stuff there!

Day time Long Exposure

Even before I received in the mail my B+W ND110 filter, I still wanted to work with and play around with long day time exposures. This image here is only one second long. But considering the sun was out, thats a long time! I do have a set of Cokin filters and in that set, I have two ND filters. ND filters is pretty much what I would consider sun glasses for your camera lens. You just slide it over your lens and adjust your settings, in camera, and shoot the subject. Before my new B+W filter, the Cokin were all I had and they did just fine! I think any way. They offer a pink hue to all the images and I had to correct in Post processing, but this image, the colors stuck around.

I am showing this to you because at last glance I mentioned to you that I was newly getting into day time long exposers, this was one of my first tries. Tomorrow, I will bring to you what the ND110 does, this was 1 second, I now can do 30+ seconds! I hope you enjoy!

A very colorful evening

I have heard, that when a pro photographer goes out for an evening of shooting, they are not always happy with what they come home with. Some would even say that pros are happy to get one amazing shot out of 1,000. Of course, in there own opinion, they might be right, they are there own toughest critics. But I can see what they mean. I find my work, for the most part, good. I see that I have some natural raw talent that can get MUCH BETTER! I see that I can still learn more and that I know I have mad crazy potential skills! I see that someday I can become someone who can make a living selling art! In the time being, I want to get out and shoot, shoot and shoot some more. When I go out to catch the sunset, I have no idea if there will be a nice level of clouds, that will bring beautiful colors after the sun sets. If there are any clouds at all! For the most part, if there are any clouds at all, its SUPER overcast. So why do I keep waisting gas, going out for an hour drive, one way, just to shoot the sunset? Because of nights like this, where the sky is so alive with color. Far and few between, yes, but when I get there and see this, its one of the most amazing feelings in the whole world. And that one in a thousand shot? This was the ONLY sunset shot from that evening that I loved! I took a few before sunset shots that I liked, but from the lot of long exposure images, this was the only one I even considered good. Perhaps I have just become my own toughest critic!

I want to leave you with a link today, its a link to flickriver, where you can view my flickr photos in order of most interesting. Please take the time to view some of my work, and let me know what you think.

View my photos on Flickriver

January 1st, 2010, a sunset I will never forget. My husband and I went out to catch the first sunset of the year. On top of that, it was our first chance to go out for the sunset after receiving for Christmas a set of Cokin filters. Something that had been on my wish list ever sense discovering my love for long exposures. I also thought, that with these filters, I would be able to get long exposures earlier in the evening. Yes, I was able to, but they were not "magic" and I did have to learn all about them and how they affected the shot and even at that point in my life, I still had a LOT to learn about aperture. As a matter of fact, that was the first night where I took on a 365 project. A project at which I was going to take a long exposure at least once a day and post that photo on Flickr, good or bad, I have a shot for every day so far. I had no idea that I would even make it this far, especially when the goal is for a 30 second exposure, or longer, every day! Some days have been less, but for the most part, 30 seconds! To make a long story short, Jan 1, I took on the project, March 26, I have learned SO much. And I still learn each and every day.

This image I have put here today, is from that most awesome sunset. I have not seen a sunset this great sense. I keep heading off to the beach, in hopes I do, I keep chasing the sun. Wondering what will turn out when I arrive. Sometimes I get color, but not like this. I hope you enjoy.

Oh, and what makes this one of my most favorite shots of all times? It was my first image on Flickr to reach 100+ views!

An introduction to my photography

One of the things I love so much about photography, there are so many different styles and ways to present your work. After a while of shooting, I have realized that I have developed my own personal style. Where as my husband, Dan, has developed his own style too. After a couple of months on Flickr.com, I can almost tell who took the picture by the stile of the image. That being said, I want to share with you my own personal style of photography. There are two elements that I love the most, the beach and long exposures. La Jolla, in San Diego, being my most photographed beach. Why, because of all the rocks, the beautiful color of the water and all the natural beauty that comes along with it. I find that a beach with just sand and water makes quite boring photos! (Just my opinion) A sunset or sunrise setting is my favorite time of day to photograph, but I am learning more and more every day about taking long exposures during the day. More to come on that subject! For now, I hope you enjoy this image and feel free to view my work on flickr.com/photos/cuteasabugonarug/ and feel free to make any comments you like. I love feed back, good or constructive. I am a student of life and I still have a lot to learn.

Welcome to the wonderful world of blogging? Am I really in this world? Due to the fact I am new to this world, I will probably treat this more like a journal then anything else. I am not a writer but I enjoy sharing what is on my mind. I am also here to show you my passion and my hobby, photography. So for now, as I set this blog up with some photos to share, please be patient with me. The process might be long, but it will happen!