Weekend Photos

We've had our new Nikon D60 camera for just about a month, now, and I'm still loving it as much as my original impressions.

Since I spent all of my time last night reading other people's blogs (and repairing my laptop!), today's post will be an all photo post.  The following five pictures were all taken on this past Saturday morning.  Did I mention I'm loving our new camera?

 

For some reason, I've been trying to get a decent Bumble Bee picture for years.  I've had some success with my Minolta SLR, but nothing exactly right.   I also tried many times with our Canon point and shoot digital, but it just wasn't fast enough.  Saturday,  my wife noticed Bumble Bees flying around some of my brother's Coneflowers, and I thought I'd give it a try with the new camera.  Success!  I got several pictures I'd consider keepers.  It could be a bit more in focus, but overall, I'm really happy with this shot.

It seems that all the photography craze these days are highly saturated pictures.  It's funny, but now that I have a nice digital camera to play with (that can certainly do the high saturation), I've gone the other way in many cases.  I'm experimenting more with reduced color saturation and B&W.   I learned about a Photoshop plug-in the other day that mimics all kinds of old films for color and grain.  Now that is something that really interests me.  Although I'm a fan of the amazingly clean digital photos, I'd like to be able to produce that film look, too.   I haven't had much success with adding noise to photos, yet, so if this plug-in can be made to work with GIMP, I might be interested!

The shot above is my daughter Rachel, laying on our couch watching Saturday morning cartoons.  I loved how the light coming in the side windows looked, so I grabbed my camera and got the shot.  I also reduced the saturation quite a bit in GIMP and exposed the shot with this in mind, actually.

For whatever reason, I have a very hard time getting a good picture of my wife.  I claim that it is because she is always talking...she claims that it's because she isn't as beautiful as I say she is!  Maybe, like those ultra-sound pictures, she is someone that needs to be seen in motion!

However, I really like the above shot of her taken at St. Louis Bread Company...our usual Saturday morning breakfast location.  I like the strong backlight, and I increased the contrast a bit, and tweaked the pure black and pure white cutoff points a bit to give the picture that cool contrasty, hard look.  Although the camera can do B&W conversions in camera, I prefer doing it in GIMP where I can play with exactly the effect I'm trying to achieve.   I tried adding noise/grain in this picture, but I just don't have it right, yet. (click for a larger version)

The above shot is my oldest daughter, Rebecca, slurping away at Bread Company.  She was on the opposite side of the table as Dianne, but still got some of that cool side lighting.  This is a pretty straight shot, other wise, I don't think I really did anything with it in GIMP, other than perhaps a slight "unsharp" filter application.

The final shot for today is one of my wife's favorite statues in our garden.  I liked the fern's textures in the background and thought this would be another great B&W shot.  I played around with the color levels and contrast until I had the look I wanted.  Here's another shot I would have loved to get some grain in, but couldn't get it to look the way I wanted.  I'm still happy with the results, though.  B&W is fun with digital!

I'm so happy with this camera, I could take pictures all day long.  I feel like I can spend my photography time thinking of the creative side of the photography, rather than trying to get the camera to do what I want.  It's amazing how much the camera responds like my old film cameras, but with immediate feedback!

Enjoy the photos!

Comments

[rebecca]

and this is why i need the Interactive Festival panel on photography. i know nothing.

but i do love the photos--- and your wife is ridiculous: she's absolutely lovely!

and did i mention how great your oldest daughter's name is? (i may be one of the few people i know who actually likes their name!)

[abunslife]

Would you be willing to take on an apprentice? :)

[Kayla]

that shot of your daughter on the couch is BEAUTIFUL! (I'm a photography junkie, by the way, so I may be stopping by your site a little more frequently!) Thanks for visiting my blog! Oh, and what's "Stumble"?

[Dina]

Great photos! Your wife is lovely!:)