Grassroots Photographers, post YOUR favorite photos (one per day)

I got lucky with some strange near sunset lighting, my built in flash, and my 70-300 mm zoom lens. I've been experimenting with flash lately and look forward to seeing what Slow/Rear sync and a softbox can do indoors.

Got lucky with this pano, wasn't planning on it but two of my shots from my trip to vegas last week lined up nearly perfect for a nice stitched panoramic of Red Rock Canyon Park.

Light pillars over Fairbanks, AK 11/5/2014

As a bonus, the lights were out too

We don't do trains

I still like film..

Minolta X-570, Rokkor 35-105mm zoom, Kentmere 400 ISO, developed in Kodak D76 in my kitchen.

Yes, film is a wonderful thing.

Can't say enough good things about the camera in my LG G3...and the stock editing software is pretty great too (for the lay person like myself anyway)

View from my back porch the morning after a storm

The requisite whip pic

4cylndrfury wrote: Can't say enough good things about the camera in my LG G3...and the stock editing software is pretty great too (for the lay person like myself anyway)

I have noticed after looking at digital camera pics, raw digital camera pics, and iPhone pics, that iPhone / iPad pics (and I suspect other phones) use a lot of default enhancement.

Not a dig, just a note.

Here is an HDR (the non-overdone type) shot from New Hampshire last fall. Shot with a 3 shot f-stop spread burst (I think it was 1.5 steps per)

There's a ton of tweaking done inside every digital capture device; the more limited the capabilities of the device, the more tweaking has to be done - that's why phone pics always look so much more processed.

This is the thing I've owned the longest. It was given to me as a baby. I'm 36.

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From the Iditarod restart in Fairbanks, 2015

One more from the Last Great Race

aircooled wrote:

4cylndrfury wrote: Can't say enough good things about the camera in my LG G3...and the stock editing software is pretty great too (for the lay person like myself anyway)

I have noticed after looking at digital camera pics, raw digital camera pics, and iPhone pics, that iPhone / iPad pics (and I suspect other phones) use a lot of default enhancement. Not a dig, just a note.

You're probably right, my background with quality photo gear is virtually nill. I did buy swmbo a pretty decent (for the time) Sony Alpha 500 and a few pieces of glass, but she doesn't use it much. I might commandeer it if it gathers too much dust, I think this could be a fun hobby!

That said, I did monkey with those photos quite a bit. Even raw, the images are great from this phone camera

Here are 2 of those pics above with their original, monkeyless raw images

Thanks for the comparison. A good illustration.

It is an interesting question. A lot pictures you see these days are not "as you would see them in the real world". It can certainly make them more interesting, but it can be deceptive if you say something like "look what I saw", (which you did not) because it wasn't.

The tree clearing photo I posted above is close to what I experienced there. It's probably a bit lighter then what I saw, and a bit more color. In a case like that though, HDR can be used to make up for the inability for current cameras to capture the full human dynamic range of vision in one picture.

This is a similar photo taken on the opposite side of the country (Muir Woods). This is VERY close to the actual experience, but still could use a bit of dynamic adjustment. The tree trunks should not be as dark as they appear, but it is closer to what the camera captured and does make for a more dynamic / dramatic photo.

I can enjoy all types of photography (realistic, hyper realistic etc.). I do find it a bit annoying when someone (not talking about anyone here) post something about "what they saw", when it is clear the photo is enhanced. The fact that phones do this by default can make this an unintended misrepresentation.

Again, NOT an indictment of your photos. An nice image is a nice image no mater how you got to it. I like to think of modified photos more like paintings then photos though (which I think is appropriate).

And yet to me, a photograph isn't a photograph until its been processed. Even documentary black and white photos, check the link:

http://petapixel.com/2013/09/12/marked-photographs-show-iconic-prints-edited-darkroom/

Agreed that processing is an intrinsic part of the process. Doesn't matter if it's processing the film, or a digital camera processing a JPEG in-camera, or dodging/burning a print, or manually adjusting a RAW file. The question is what you seek to achieve by processing. Traditionally, there was a certain subtlety to processing, though obviously this varied by photographer - compare the high contrast look of Ansel Adams landscape photos to the generally lower contrast of Cartier-Bresson or Atget. Now, it seems that the more garish and over-the-top the processing, the more people like it. Some of the stuff I see on Flickr and elsewhere should come with warning stickers and protective safety goggles. But there's no accounting for taste.

At some point there's a threshold between photography and graphic arts - I'm just not sure how to determine where it lies. Personally, I prefer photographs to look like photographs, and I process accordingly.

Here's one I took of Franz Kafka's pad in Prague with my Rebel T2i/18-55

Yeah, I don't know where to really draw the line either. As note, some amount of processing from what was captured on the camera is almost always necessary.

I guess it has to do with expectations. A picture of a car? Well, it doesn't really mater at all for that. It's going to be pretty obvious if it has been messed with, but either way, it's still the car presented in however the photographer wanted to do it. It's not like you are going to think the car is super sharp and saturated in real life for example.

I do like to see some pics as a sort tourism thing though, what it would be like to be there etc. I just get a bit disappointed when a I see a picture of a place that is interesting to me that looks impressive, then realize it's clearly pretty heavily messed with.

I instagrammed this last week and I'm REALLY proud of it.

St. Jude's church in Lincoln, RI

I love modern architecture and this is a gem that I pass on my way to every time I ride my bike on the Blackstone bike path. I wanted the photo to look like a classic vintage architecture photo a la Julius Shulman and I think I came damn close.

Taken by my eldest daughter at our neighbours' farm. This one is a few days old.

Now I think this weather is finally done for the year, here's a "cool" shot from a couple months ago: