Announcing King Zeus

This last weekend I was in Chicago visiting my sister and her new puppy. Her and her boyfriend just rescued a puppy from their local shelter, his name is Zeus and they believe he is nine months old. Zeus is a manchester terrier and border collie mix, so he doesn't sit still for anyone. As much fun as I had playing with Zeus, I found it almost impossible to capture a quality photo of him. In fact, I actually think the photos I took on my phone are better than the ones I was able to capture with my camera. One of the problems I ran into while taking photos outside, was weather. Chicago is known for not having the best weather and being the "Windy City"....well, that held true on Sunday when we walked to the park to take some photos. Colleen and her boyfriend Matt live about two blocks from a park in Chicago that over looks the entire skyline...it is so cool! The weather was sunny and windy, so it didn't make great photos come easy! Not to mention the temps were in single digits! So, we braved the cold and managed to get a couple good photos---my favorite of the bunch is actually the one of just the skyline... Anyway, we headed back to the apartment and fooled around taking some photos in there. However, the sun was producing just enough glare to make the photos look grainy....UGH! Luckily, I was able to capture some photos and be able to share them.

One of the things I told myself that I really wanted to start doing, was to take my camera with me where ever I went, so I could capture quality photos instead of just using the I-phone. Sadly, Colleen and I went to the bean in Chicago and I forgot to take my camera with me! UGH! Those would have been some cool cool photos! I did get some on my i-phone and shared them via instagram-where I am trying to make a conscious effort to show my photography on (you can follow me on there to see more i-phone quality photos from the trip (and some camera quality pics too). Username-emfk).

So envious of the skyline they have!

Meet King Zeus!

Best Skyline ever! 

The Melting Period

So my last post was really short and I have been pretty crazed since I took those photos at the lake. The weather has been really warm lately here. We went from below zero temps to almost 50 degrees by the weekend. Yesterday, my grandparents were going over for diner and I was going a little stir crazy, so I had about thirty minutes until they came over so, I called Mandy, my friend from the previous post, and we went to the lake to take some photos. The lighting was terrible and the wind was screaming so it wasn't exactly the best conditions to take photos in. I quickly realized that almost all the photos were blurry and it was a waste of a trip. This actually, was the first time I was disappointed in my camera. The problem is, the lower the lighting the longer your exposure which means you need a lower aperture  to capture more detail. However, since my camera is a beginners camera, it is only a 14 mexapixel camera so I am starting to notice in bad lighting very grainy photos. This weekend I am headed to Chicago to visit my sister and I am hoping to take some photos of her and her boyfriend at their local park...hopefully with great natural lighting!! Here are the only couple of photos I could get that turned out ok. I'm not super happy with any of them, but they are the best they could be with the lighting I had.

I'm aware at the terrible quality, but I love when the ducks are there! 

LOVE the faint sunset from behind the fog 

This one is my fav

Lake Adventures

For the first time in abut two day the temp outside was finally out of the negatives so, I grabbed a friend and headed to the amazingly frozen lake down the street. The lighting was perfect as the sun was being hidden by some clouds. Take a look at some of the photos I took today:

This might be my favorite photo of the day 

Not the best photo by any means, but I was so excited to see some
ducks there! 

LOVE the filter on this one! 

LOVE LOVE LOVE the sun hitting the ice! 

No Excuses

Now that the new year has passed and everyone has gotten back into their routines I have had time to decide what I wanted my resolution to be. First off, I hate the word resolution, I think that just sets you up for failure. Instead, I prefer to use New Years Goal because, a goal is something you work towards. My goal for this new year is to take more photos. Anyone else have the flash of the friends episode where that is Monica's new years resolution and she snaps photos of every second of every day? No, just me? Well, it won't be like that, I really just want to challenge myself with photography this year. I want to take photos when it doesn't seem ideal and learn new things. So, I started that yesterday. Ohio got hit with a HUGE snow storm and we got a solid 7-8 inches of snow with freezing temps! However, the snow was falling so lightly and it looked beautiful! So, i grabbed my camera, wrapped a plastic grocery bag around the lens and body and went outside to take some photos. I was so excited to be able to capture fine details as well as the beautiful snow falling in the background! Take a look at the photos below and you'll understand what I'm talking about :)

This one is in black and white because it was easier to see the snow
falling. 

Happy New Year!

Wishing you and your families peace and relaxation this new year! Happy 2014!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!! 

Merry Christmas

As Christmas festivities may be quieting down, I can only hope that everyone had an amazing Christmas time with their family and friends. This Christmas I got to spend it with all of my family which is the biggest present of all! Christmas is the one time of year that everyone is home at once!! One of the other greatest gifts I got this Christmas was a new macro lens for my camera! If you don't know what macro is, it is the ability to capture amazing details with a SUPER close up zoom! One of the major things I have noticed since having my new lens for a solid 24 hours (hello...we all know I have been playing with it nonstop!) is that there is a HUGE learning curve when working with it! While macro lenses are amazing for close ups and fine details, they are not so great for standard portraits. Obviously the more detail one wants in a photo, the more light they are going to have to use. However, that is where the problem comes in with macro lenses and portraits. Since you can only capture so much detail in a person, the lens often over exposes the person in the photo while making the details in the back much crisper. Like I said, there is a large learning curve that I will need to adjust to!

Today I played taking portraits of my sister Colleen as well as some nature close ups. I was so so amazed right away with how much clearer the photos I was taking were right off the bat! After I was done taking the pictures outside, I came in and did a little editing before family came over. Right away I needed to adjust levels, curves, and exposure to the portraits to make Colleen not look over exposed. I'm excited to keep practicing and learning how to keep the lighting correct.

(**Guess who learned how to make the photos on the blogpost larger!!) 

LOVE THE CLARITY 

Is this not amazing?! This is taken from 10-15 feet away just using my zoom! LOVE THIS LENS!!!

Spur of the Moment

Today happened to be one of those days where I saw the perfect opportunity to take a photo and for once, instead of saying "Oh, I'll get it later. . ." I ran inside grabbed my camera and took advantage of the cool scene I saw. Below I attached the photos that will make this a little more understandable to see, but I was coming home to kill some time today waiting to go to lunch with a friend when on our brick pillar I noticed how the snow was laying just so oddly on it. The temps outside today were slowly rising. . . yes, going from a balmy 14 to 25. So I knew with the sun was coming out and melting some of the thinner areas for snow, so I knew if I waited to get my shot, the drift on the pillar would have melted and fallen off. The lighting outside wasn't the best but with a little lighting editing I made it work. Below I attached the photo of the wall before I had taken the "cool" shots so you could see what I was seeing when I walked passed it.

Nothing fancy to show, this is the
drift on the wall all together. 

Love the detail in the brick. Brought the levels up and
increased vibrance a smudge.

Upped the levels and increased vibrance 

Make this one big and look at the snow crystals on the one
dangling clump of snow.