Different Mood

I was playing around tonight with my China photos from last Christmas. I really like this photo, and have come up with three different versions....the bottom two are the ones I posted before, and the top photo is my newest version...which one do you like best?

Guilin With Texture

I was messing with one of my photos from China this afternoon, and came up with this creation below. I started by converting to black n white, then wondered what it would look like with a bit of texture added. So, I added one, then another, then one more...messed with the different blend modes on each and opacity until I got what I liked...

I have one more day with the D800 then have to return it to my buddy, Edward. I will write my thoughts tomorrow...stay tuned!

Shanghai Tourist Tunnel

I have been seeing a lot of photos from Shanghai popping up on Google+ lately...it reminded me of this shot from the tourist's tunnel that takes you from Pudong under the river to the Bund....kind of expensive, but it beats taking a cab all the way around and over the bridge...this is hand-held as no tripods were allowed in the tunnel...

Internet At Home

I have not had internet at home since my catastrophic failure of my Drobo...that is more than a year without internet at home. This weekend, FINALLY, the ISP I wanted installed has been installed. If you have ever gone without internet at home, you will understand how great it is to have it...I certainly appreciate it much more. It was also more of a challenge to keep this blog up to date with no internet at home..I had to make all my updates at work, and often there was no time to do that...I can now make my posts at home, so I should have much less of those days where I can't find the time to make a post.

Below, is one of those "forgotten" photographs from my last trip to China...I remember processing it, but I don't think I posted it to this blog...so here ya go...

A Rainy Night In Yangshuo

I really enjoy messing around with textures in my photos...really gets the creative juices flowing. I used three textures for this photo. The first texture I added had the cracks in it that I used across the mountains in the background, I then added some textures with some color and "texture" to add to the rest of the photo to get that "painted" feeling. I masked out the other two textures from the background as it ended up covering the mountains. I then grouped all of my layers into one group, and changed the blend mode to "screen" to brighten the entire photo, and changed the opacity of that layer so that it was not too bright, and masked out the areas that I didn't want affected. Sharpened a bit, and that is it...done. Took me about 20 minutes...

Sneaking A Shot Inside "The Egg"

So, I paid the money to get inside "The Egg" in Beijing. It was almost closing time, but I just wanted to get in, take some photos, and get out. It actually turned out to be the perfect time to go, as there were hardly any people inside. When I got to the top, they had the area roped off...so, I couldn't get a photo of the big "red thing" that was hanging from the ceiling. I asked the security guard if I could just go up for a quick photo, but he waved to me saying "NO"....so, I walked to the other side where there was no guard standing by, and climbed under the ropes, and snuck upstairs...I felt like a bad little kid going where he wasn't supposed to go...grabbed a photo, and snuck my way back. When I climbed under the ropes, some western tourists saw me...they gave me a nasty look, but I just pretended I knew what I was doing, and walked past them to the exit...what a bad boy I am...

I did have my tripod with me, and no-one gave me any hassle using it inside. This is a 5-shot HDR...tonemapped in Photomatix, and then I finished it off in Photoshop...What did I do in Photoshop? Well, I did some sharpening, and I also created a mask with my darkest exposure to bring back the detail in the window above....it was blown out after creating the HDR. I then added a "glow" using Nik's Color Efex Pro (Glamour Glow), but changed the opacity to the filter so that it was not too "glowy" if you know what I mean...

Along The Li River With Texture

Thanks for all the nice comments yesterday. I really am keen on changing what I do here on this blog, and make it more interesting to those who stop by here....and maybe eventually, I will get more traffic coming here as a bonus.

Hey, guess what? It is my birthday today! I turned the big FIVE-O...I guess I am now officially an old man...but sure don't feel like one...still feel like I am in my twenties!! Hope that lasts...hehe...

So...about this photo...

As you know, my trip to China was dampened (literally) by the foggy, rainy, cold weather. On our cruise down the Li River, we could barely see the hills. So, many of my photos had a lack of "light" in them (we didn't see the sun for 10 days), and the skies were pretty plain. This sets up the perfect opportunity to blend some textures into the photo to add some drama to an otherwise drab looking photograph. So how did I do that?

Step 1: When you are out walking around with your camera, take photos of interesting looking textures....I now have a collection of almost 300 textures...look for nice cracks, colors and other interesting textures...you can use these later to create. Warning: people might look at you in a strange way taking photos of walls, but just ignore them...

Step 2: Choose a texture to add to your photo. This is the creative part...do you want to add some color, some texture, some pattern, a special effect, some cracks? Different textures will do different things to your photo...you will be adding another layer to your photo, so just experiment...if it doesn't work, delete the layer and try another texture.

Step 3: Add the texture to your photo by creating a new layer. Use the free transform tool to re-size the texture so that it is the same size as your photograph.

Step 4: Change the blend mode of your texture. I like overlay, soft light or hard light, but give them all a try and see what you like best. You can then change the opacity of the layer.

Step 5: Use a mask to "paint out" what you don't want to show.

Step 6: Add some other textures on top, and then repeat steps 4 and 5.

The possibilities are infinite. You can also change your textures with some filters, change the colors of your textures, darken or lighten them...up to you. Experiment, and have fun!

For this photo, I added two textures....I used softlight as my blend mode for both, and I masked out the "cracks" in the mountains. After I was happy with the textures and masking, I softened the entire image by applying a slight gaussian blur to dull the textures. I then masked out the blur in the trees, and sharpened...but only sharpened the trees (used a mask on that as well).

Hope this helps....

This Blog's Future

I have been thinking a great deal about my blog the last few days. I started this blog back in 2006. I mainly started it to better communicate with my family back in the States, and to share family photos with them. We were also building our house at the time, so I wanted to show my parents and sisters the progress on our house. After a while, I started posting my best photos on the blog, and it turned more into a "photo" blog instead of a "family" blog....so, I started a new "family" blog, and turned this blog into the "photo blog" it is today.

My problem now? It seems to be stagnant as far as traffic is concerned...It has grown a great deal in the past 6 years, but it seems to have stopped growing, and I am not sure what to do about it. So, after some research and thinking about my own behavior, and why I visit some blogs and not others, I have come to some conclusions about "human blog behavior"

People like pretty pictures, but pretty pictures are not enough...what people really want is free stuff and free advice...they want to become better photographers and they look for sites that can help them do that...they also want attention, and to be noticed. So, it seems obvious to me that the future of this blog must move in the direction of what people really want. I am very thankful to those of you that follow my blog on an almost daily basis, but I really fear that you will leave me if I continue on this same track of only posting pretty pictures, so I promise to make some changes...soon. This is what I would like to do...

(1) Blogger has been great, and easy to use, and I think my blog looks nice, but it is limiting in what I can offer my readers...and I think most pro-photographers don't use Blogger...I might be wrong with that, but it seems to me most professional photographers use Word Press or have a custom designed website/blog....I need to move in that direction too.

(2) Provide FREE tutorials

(3) Provide good advice on camera equipment

(4) Provide more information on how I created the photos I post

(5) Always maintain a personal touch. I can think of a couple of blogs that I used to really like, but have liked less and less as time goes by...the reason? They have lost their personal touch...they become too commercial...they start name-dropping, they become money hungry, and they forget about the approach they had in the beginning that made them popular to begin with. I hope this blog, or I, don't end up being like that.

I welcome any comments or suggestions you might have...

Ah, the photo below...

This is my wife, Tika and my daughter, Kayla. We were walking through a small village in China, when I saw this writing on the wall...I have no idea what is says (any of you read Chinese?), but thought it was a cool background, so asked them to pose for me. My daughter is such a natural poser, and struck this pose with Tika...I used Silver Efex Pro2 to convert to a black n white...

Simple is Sometimes Better

I just posted this photo on Google+

It's funny...when I go through my photos after a trip, I usually scan right past photos like this below. Then later, when I go through them again, I sometimes find some jewels...something about the simplicity of a photo that draws me in...this one almost made it into my "reject" pile...but it was saved...

A Walk In China

We were on one of those typical tours where you follow a guide with one of those flags...I hate those kind of tours, and I always vow to myself to never get on one, but I really had no choice this time...so when the group was inside, I snuck away to walk around by myself...I wanted a shot of these big beautiful trees that lines the sidewalk...it was only moments later when the group came out of the building...which meant I had to re-join the group....arrrrgh...

Textured Wall

Happy Friday!!

I just loved this wall I spotted in China...check out the texture!! I am not sure why this kind of stuff always catches my eye, but it does...

Have a great weekend, and see you back here on Monday...

A Nice Climb

Happy Friday!! ...and better yet, it is a three day weekend for me!!

My buddy and I decided to make the trek up to the top of one of these "hills" to get a great view of the town below. It was a tough climb, but we made it. I took this photo at a point 1/4th the way up, and the view ended up being better here than at the top because of the haze...all that energy ended up being a waste...ha ha...

Have a great weekend, and see you back here on Monday or Tuesday...

Farm House

On one of my photowalks, I got a driver to take me to a remote village that not many tourists visit. I could tell they didn't normally get tourists by the way people stared at me wondering why I would be there...they were all very nice, but they had a look on their faces like they were saying, "why the hell would you want to come HERE?"

Why? Because this village had buildings left over from the early Qing Dynasty...the early 1600's. It was an amazing little walk...just wished the weather had been better....there was a constant drizzle of rain while I was there making for some muddy conditions.

In any case, this is a small farm house just outside of the old part of the village...

Jurassic Park

Here is another from our cruise from Guilin to Yangshuo...I can't decide which one is better...the color version or the black n white version...so have included both.

A Room With A View

We stayed at the Yangshuo Mountain Resort...this is the view from the front of the hotel...and our room was in the front facing the river...the view every morning was incredible!!

Bridge In Guilin

This park in Guilin was fun to walk around...there were lights everywhere...in the trees, in bushes, and on this bridge....the lights on the bridge would change colors every 30 seconds or so, but I like this combination of colors the best...

Inside A Cave

I have been in a few caves before, but this one was truly amazing...

Back From China!! Happy New Year!!

Ah, good to be back...but always so much to catch up with when coming home from a long trip.

We came home to find our security wall of our house had fallen over onto the lot next door. Not good...going to cost a small fortune to fix, and after spending that fortune in China, I have no money left...arrrrrgggh....happy new year, indeed.

China was awesome, but the weather was not good. I knew it would be cold, but I did not expect it to be as hazy, drizzly and foggy as it was. If I had known we would not see the sun for 10 days, I think I would have chosen a different spot to vacation. I somehow managed to get some decent photos despite the weather, but it would have been so much better if the sun had shown its face. No sunsets or sunrises...

If you decide to travel to Yangshuo, China, go between May and October...don't go during the winter. We stayed at the Yangshuo Mountain Retreat which was awesome!! I highly recommend this hotel if you go to Yangshuo...and be sure to take the cruise from Guilin to Yangshuo. The photos below were taken on that cruise. Even though most of the mountains were shrouded in clouds, the scenery was spectacular....I can only imagine the scenery with some light casted on the hills...I was constantly complaining about all of the clouds, but when I got home and started to edit my photos, I kind of liked the "mystical" look the photos have with all of those clouds...so, not all was a loss...but still, it would have been better with some sun.

I couldn't decide which photo I liked better...color or black n white....I posted both...which one do you like better? I hardly did any Photoshop with my photos this time around....I didn't take a single HDR photo...that painterly, softness look to the photos below was the way it looked...seriously...

Another Shot Inside The Egg

Here's another shot inside the Egg on the ground floor. This was the last photo I took before being kicked out of the building...they closed at 5:00, and I begged the guard to let me take one last shot. It was dark inside, so my exposures were really slow...amazing how 12 seconds can feel like an eternity....I am sure it felt the same way to the guard who was standing there waiting for me to finish...but you know the best part about shooting in China? No-one bugs you about using a tripod...it is really nice. If I were in the states taking a similar photo, I would have been for sure been harassed about my tripod in a public place...what's up with that anyway?

Inside The Egg

I couldn't get enough of this building...you had to pay to get inside, and I waited until the last hour to go inside. I didn't want a lot of people running around. They closed at 5:00, so I went in at 4:00, and pretty much had the place to myself...cool.

It is tough to capture this amazing place with one photo...you need one of those 360 degree cameras to capture it all..but wow, what an amazing place!!