Extremely amateur photography

[LouCipherr]

Awesome pics, kraken! LOVE the pic of the front of the boat with the slight motion blur. That's a pretty creepy ranger station there... *shudders*

[LouCipherr]

Cannons in a field, taken in Harper's Ferry National Park, West Virginia

[LouCipherr]

Was out in West Virginia this weekend and found this critter. No lie, this moth is called Eacles imperialis or, the "Imperial Moth" and it's wingspan was 7 inches! I kid you not! The stick he's sitting on is at least 3-4" wide, and you can see how far his wings hang over it.. creepy! I've never seen a moth this big in my entire life. WTF?! My apologies for the not-so-great photo quality, but I didn't have my dslr with me at the time and only had my crappy cell phone camera. When I came into work today, this little bastard was sitting on the wall right next to the entrance to our building. This must be a stellar month/year for moths, 'cause in the 4 decades I've been on the planet, I've NEVER seen them this big. This red one is about 2/3 the size of the Imperial Moth above... It's invasion of the Moth people! aarrgghh!!

[MinionZombie]

Blimey! Those are some chunky-arse moths! We've got pretty bog-standard moths over here, and wee tiny ones by comparison too!

[LouCipherr]

Blimey! Those are some chunky-arse moths! We've got pretty bog-standard moths over here, and wee tiny ones by comparison too! MZ, man, you have no idea - the bodies to these things are like 1 inch diameter tubes - their bodies are HUGE! It's really kinda freaky, 'cause I've never seen moths this big before, and now I see two similar sized huge ones within 3 days of each other! *shudders* The second, brown & red one I think I've identified too: I believe it's 'Citheronia regalis' a/k/a the "Regal Moth"

[LouCipherr]

Went to Emerald Isle, North Carolina last week... here's a few pics I've processed. More to come... A shot of the beach from Saturday night: The sunset from the Bogue Sound in NC: A few shots from the North Carolina Aquarium: Corn Snake: And one that really gave me the creeps, a North Carolina copperhead (very venomous):

[MinionZombie]

Nice pics - strong colour palette, and yet subtly employed. Good show!

[LouCipherr]

Nice pics - strong colour palette, and yet subtly employed. Good show! Thanks man! That's one of THE toughest thing about HDR - not overdoing it! And I must admit, it's extremely easy to do, and I've fallen prey to it myself in the past many times. Now, I try and keep the color palette as "realistic" as I can within reason (unless the pic screams for some unreasonable touches! ), however, by "realistic" I mean, what I saw with my eye when the pic was taken. That's one of the things I just love about HDR. It allows you to capture more of what your eyes saw at the time of the photo, rather than just what the camera will grab for you in a single shot. A single shot never, ever has the detail you see at the moment of pressing that shutter button, due to how a camera works. Add in those multiple exposures though, and <bam> you've got detail you'd never see in a single shot. Here's an example of what I mean. This is a shot of one of the sand dunes at sunset on the beach. This is one exposure of the three taken, and this one is the "normal" exposure - in other words, you put your camera on "auto" and take one photo, this is what it turns out like: However, blend that single, normal-exposure photo together with two other photos that are over-exposed and under-exposed, this is the result: It's a bit on the 'blue' side, but I did that intentionally because I liked the somber color tone. That being said, see the MASSIVE difference in detail between the two? The 2nd one is more what your eye would see, where the first one, while it's the 'scene' you saw, you certainly saw a lot more detail with your eye than what the camera could produce with a single shot. Notice the lack of details in the sky and on the dune? This is why I love me some HDR.

[Tricky]

As I live in York now I've been taking plenty of photos, here's one I took on the banks of the Ouse while out for a run a few weeks ago

[LouCipherr]

Nice, Tricky! Post more if you've got 'em! I'm sure being in NY you have lots of opportunities for photos. Here's another I just processed while I should've been working (shhh! don't tell my boss). Hammocks on Atlantic Beach: I took a similar photo (but at a different angle) of my son, swinging on one of the hammocks at night:

[Tricky]

Nice, Tricky! Post more if you've got 'em! I'm sure being in NY you have lots of opportunities for photos. Haha man this ain't NY, this is genuine Medieval York in the UK Here's one I took of Cliffords Tower in the middle of the city last weekend, it is the remains of a Keep originally built during the Norman conquest, it has it's fair share of gruesome history Uploaded with ImageShack.us And looking at the medieval city walls which still circle most of the city at it's original boundary

[LouCipherr]

Haha man this ain't NY, this is genuine Medieval York in the UK *scrolls up a bit and reads* How the hell did I get "new york" out of "york"? WTF is wrong with me? Apparently I stood in the sun WAY too long on the beach! Either that or watching "Sharnado" really warped my head. Sorry about that, man... - - - Updated - - - Another one from the beach:

[MinionZombie]

Hanging out under the boardwalk, eh Lou? I dig the colours of the wood against the blue and white of the sea ... again, nicely subtle. That shot reminds me of the time when I was at uni and we were doing a practical unit on Documentary filmmaking, and we had to do a piece on the theme of 'sense of place' ... so we went to the seaside nearby and at one point were yomping around under the pier (which, naturally, look similar to the photo up there) ... there was also an old building which at one point had a pier, but it was just portions of the steel struts sticking out of the sand left. When we edited it together we took inspiration from Requiem For A Dream, as well as Lost Boys - and used music from the films. I put the short up on YouTube, but had to eventually change the music track because of YouTube's policies on music (is it just me, or do they seem more lenient with American uploaders on that subject?), which kinda spoils the effect of it, but well...

[LouCipherr]

Hanging out under the boardwalk, eh Lou? I dig the colours of the wood against the blue and white of the sea ... again, nicely subtle. Thanks, MZ. Interesting story, too. Yeah, I like piers and boardwalks and all - it adds a bit more 'flavor' to the landscape around the ocean. I get a tad tired of staring at sand, sun, and water all day. That pier was about 2 blocks down from where we were staying, so I figured I'd head over there while taking pictures and see what came out of it. Now, as an experiment... Which does your eye prefer, the first photo of the pier I posted or this one: I personally like this 2nd one a tad bit more, but I'll be damned if I can explain why in words. It's really nothing more than a different angle on the thing, but it seems to make a lot of difference to my eyes.

[MinionZombie]

Now, as an experiment... Which does your eye prefer, the first photo of the pier I posted or this one: Yeah, I like the 2nd one more than the 1st - I think it's because you get a better sense of scale and distance, as well as the overall framing of the picture (e.g. the railing on the pier terminates right in the top right corner at just the right point. There's a greater sense of size, depth, distance, scale, length - the whole lot - plus you can properly see through the pier legs, so you don't feel crowded in by the structure itself either. The colours are a little nicer too - a bit more vibrancy in the sky, and the sea looks a bit better too - there's a nicer split between the sea a little further out, and the white of the tide. I think the 2nd makes the most sense to the eye in a 'formal composition' sense - everything looks how it should look, everything is placed and positioned as it should be, and it generally feels right. I suppose the only way to make it any more 'formal', would be to have the end of the pier in the very centre of the frame.