Sunset, Holly Springs

Today's digital photographers sometimes get spoiled with Photoshop - for good reason. It's a revolutionary program. Good post-production can definitely turn a fair image to a good image; a good image into an awesome image, and so on. So it makes me happy to say that this one is straight from the camera. No cropping, no saturation. Unspoiled. This was the first time I used the Nikkor 18-200 VR. Exposure was 1/50 sec @ f/14.

Pensacola Sunset

Another shot of the sunset at Pensacola Beach.

Sunset, Pensacola Beach

This is a pretty scene I shot at sunset last week while working in Pensacola, FL. The reds and yellows were very nice, but I really love this silhouette in black and white. I will most likely post some color shots from that evening in the future, too.

Chattahoochee After Storm

A moody, beautiful image of the Chattahoochee River after a summer storm. The whole scene was quite surreal, and the colors are insane.

That's a good lookin' family!

Fall Portrait of the Talleys, taken 10/24/09.

Pink Sky, May Lake High Sierra Camp

Another magical evening in Yosemite. Taken at nightfall at May Lake High Sierra Camp while the Big Meadow Fire was burning.

Photoshop takes the Happy Burger back 50 years

Before

After

I originally posted this image on September 4th, sans editing. I was lucky enough to have a classic car parked out in front of the building when I took the shot, so I used some things I have learned in Photoshop to strip everything modern from the image, including a newer model car, a portajohn, and a neon ATM sign. Then, of course, I turned it black and white.

Allison and Rylan

Here's one of my favorite images taken at the family reunion I shot last weekend. I had set up on the front porch to shoot family portraits in front of the bricks. The lighting was natural overcast from the right and a single studio strobe bounced off the porch ceiling at 1/8 power to fill the left and upper sides of the frame. Exposure was 1/80 sec @f/5.

Fall Portrait

This is sweet little Rylan Reese Talley. We couldn't get her to smile very much Saturday morning, but she still made quite the subject as she looked up at her mom and dad, wondering what was going on.

Chad Hearts Heather

I took this shot back in July under the Highway 41 bridge in Cartersville, GA. I don't know Chad or Heather. I took the color out of everything in the shot in Photoshop, except for the brilliant red. 1/100 sec @ f/8

Tuolomne Service Station

A shot of the gas station in Tuolomne Meadows in Yosemite National Park, just after nightfall.

Halie

Portrait from Homecoming night at Ringgold High School - I love how Halie's dress shows up against the gray background of the building. Fittingly, it's the cheerleading building where she no doubt has spent countless hours over the last four years. 1/125 sec; f/6.3 @ 100mm.

Chevy

Here's another shot taken at the Canton car show a while back...

Ringgold High School Homecoming

This shot was taken last Friday night at the Ringgold High School Homecoming Ceremony. My cousin Halie was on homecoming court, and I got to take lots of great shots. I've also gotten lots of photoshop practice since then. In this one, I used the graduated neutral density filter feature to keep the full moon exposed, while lightening up all the people on the field. It was a perfect setting for Friday night football.

Noonday Creek Flood, Woodstock

Here's a shot taken right through my windshield yesterday shortly after Highway 92 was closed at the Noonday Creek Bridge, just east of I-575. Westbound lanes were barely passable at this point, but both ways would close within an hour of this shot, as well as the 575 crossing of Noonday Creek just south of Towne Lake Parkway.

Mount Clark and Half Moon

The Big Meadow fire did all sorts of cool things to the evening sky while we were in Yosemite, and it was no different on August 31, our last night there. The peak in the background is Mount Clark, a 11,522' mountain with an obelisk-shaped top. This is one of my favorite shots from the trip.

Reflection, Mono Lake

One of a few shots I've gotten when I've been happy with overexposure. This photo was taken around sunset, but the overexposure in the sky blows it out so much that it looks like fog settling into the valley to the west of the lake. The tufa (salt deposit) and its reflection are exposed fine, so the focal point of the shot is still in tact. See Mono Lake and Lee Vining, CA for more information about the location.

Big Meadow Fire, Yosemite

On August 27th, while on vacation, I got to practice some photojournalism skills. As we drove along our detour around the Big Meadow fire through tiny El Portal, we took a quick turn off the side of the road to witness one of the fire choppers drawing water from the Merced River to dump on the fire. It only takes seconds for the big helicopter to fill the water tank and head back to the blaze. This is a situation where I was less concerned with getting a nice, artsy photograph, and more concerned with the story unfolding. I put the camera on program mode and got several nice shots of the chopper. Later, as we drove back toward the park, I was able to get some good shots of the smoke rising. There, I was able to get back to creative mode...because unfortunately the smoke wasn't going anywhere anytime soon.

The fire began as a 91 acre prescribed burn on August 26, and quickly got out of control when winds shifted. Immediately, Big Oak Flat Road was closed, causing long detours for visitors trying to get from Yosemite Valley (the Southwest side of the Park) to Tuolomne Meadows (center of the Park) and points east. Big Oak Flat Road just reopened today at 5pm. The fire spread to 7,425 acres before 100% containment yesterday.

Hallowed Ground

This shot is of the church at the Lutheran Cemetery in Gettysburg. I was in the back seat of a car on the driving tour of the town and the Battlefield. I got this shot just in time, and framed the steeple with the tree, and luckily got some clouds on the left side.

The Happy Burger Diner

Because of the Big Meadow Fire in Yosemite, we had to take a detour through a little old mining town called Mariposa. Hungry, we stopped for lunch here - The Happy Burger Diner, with the self-proclaimed "biggest menu in the Sierra." When the classic Oldsmobile pulled up into the end spot outside, I couldn't resist grabbing my camera and getting this nostalgic looking shot.

One Year

It's been an insane couple of weeks, and I haven't been able to do any posting between trips back home to lawyers offices, courthouses, and trips out west to the backcountry of Yosemite. I wanted to post this picture on August 20, the one-year mark since my Dad's passing. This photo of my grandmother was taken at Gordy Memorial Gardens on August 23, 2008 after his funeral. Of course you can see the sadness, but you can also see the disbelief in this shot. A firm believer in God's will, even she had to be wondering why it was in His plan for such an untimely passing.

Leaping Lab

A nice action shot of a black lab jumping after a tennis ball at the Chattahoochee River in Roswell, GA. Also proof that horizons don't always have to be level to produce a nice image! Full size shot is on my Flickr Photostream.

Car Show - "Self-Portrait"

Here's a shot I took with while at the car show in Canton Saturday evening. I like the reflection of the sky and the sunset silhouette of the Mustang in the chrome headlight of the roadster....I couldn't quite manage to get out of the shot, and you can see me and my camera peeking from behind the front wheel well.

Storm Rolling In

Just a simple shot of some nice puffy clouds over Woodstock yesterday.

Dad's Guitar Case

This is a detail of my Dad's old guitar case taken a little over a year ago. I like how the latch is showing a bit of rust. It adds some character to the shot. Exposure is 1/20 sec at f/5, surprisingly not taken on a tripod.

Icecrushers vs. Ice Pirates 8/6/09

Shot from the game last Thursday at Ice Forum in Kennesaw. Hockey is a pretty hard sport to shoot. Watch a game and try to follow the puck. Then try it through a viewfinder.

Wine Bottle

Just an interesting shot of a wine bottle on a rack I took with my 60mm Nikkor micro lens while playing around at Courtney's house yesterday. Starting to really like that lens.

Oak After Storm

This is one of my favorite shots. It was taken late last fall after a big storm had passed through. The sky was deep cornflower blue, and I went to an old church to shoot. This is another case when I got a better result shooting a subject I didn't know I would be shooting in the same location as the church. I liked the color version, but the B&W version I made in Photoshop definitely adds a certain element to the image. I ended up framing this and giving it away as a Christmas gift to several people. Courtney hung the framed print in her room and her best friend asked if it was an Ansel Adams. That was a good day. Exposure was 1/15th second (handheld!) at f/4.

Spider Spinning its Web at Night

I've been through about 450 photos today, and this is one of the few I feel like posting because it is interesting. I got the shot by experimenting. After taking dozens and dozens of pictures of a beautiful full moon over Lake Allatoona (and not being extremely happy with any of them), I saw a big spider on its web just to my left. The web was large and spanned a space between a pine and the dock on which I was standing. I took off my headlamp and hung it on the end of a stair rail to illuminate the center of the spider web and waited for the spider to crawl to the center. I put the SB800 speedlight on, and fired away. This was taken over an 8 second exposure. The flash froze the image of the spider when it fired, and over the rest of the time, it crawled up in a J-shaped route toward the center of the web. 8 second exposure @ f/2.8.

My First Published Image

A few months ago, I got an email from an iPhone/iPod Touch application called Schmaps!! Chicago. This picture is now part of the information for the John Hancock Building in that app. After a few posts of nature images, it was time for a good cityscape!

Hayfield in Tunnel Hill

I was back home taking care of some business with Dad's estate yesterday, and I drove down to the historic part of Tunnel Hill. Having grown up in the country, I'm partial to pastoral scenes like this one on the farm where the Clisby Austin House sits. The house served as General Sherman's headquarters during the early stage of his march to the sea during the War Between the States. I liked the elements of compostion in this shot like repetition, rule of thirds, and depth of field. Exposure was 1/200 sec. at f/11.

Andrew and Meredith

This is one of the shots from the engagement photo session I did with Andrew Wright and Meredith Day back in May. After Plans A and B fell through for our shooting spot, we ended up going to the Rock Barn in Canton, which turned out to be a great location. Exposure is 1/125 sec at f/5.6.

Fog on the Chattahoochee

Man, I got lucky today. As I was crossing the river while going down 400, I looked down and saw fog settling. I had some extra time, and figured I may be able to get a good shot or two. Turns out I got so many good shots I couldn't decide on which to post! This one is one of my favorite shots I've ever taken. Exposure is 1/1000 of a second at f/9. This one will probably find its way into a frame in my house soon.

Under the Bridge

On the way to Cartersville today, I stopped under the Hwy 41 Bridge over the Etowah River. I wanted to get some shots of the river and the Old 41 bridge pilings. I took quite a few shots of the river, but the most compelling shots were the signs of the people that hang out under the bridge. There were several graffitti shots, and this one. 1/100 sec at f/4.8.

Waterfall in Cherokee County

Today was definitely a learning day, and and an interesting day. This waterfall is part of a creek that runs along Brick Mill Road off Hwy 140. It looks beautiful in the shot, but there were very few places where I could set up without trash and graffiti being in the shot. It really was a shame. I didn't shoot here for long because someone had taken a giant crap and threw all their toilet paper about 6 feet from where my tripod was sitting. There was a man at the top of the waterfall sitting on a rock with his feet in the water when I climbed down to the bottom. We said hello to each other and I went to set up. When I climbed back to the top, he was sleeping in nothing but his boxers. Pretty creepy, but I did learn some things about exposure compensation. It was still pretty bright outside, but I had to use a slower exposure to capture the flow of the water. I pulled this one off without any compensation using a 1/3 second exposure at f/22. However, I had to compensate the exposure on some other ones up to a full stop.

Flickr Page

I also have some past work on my flickr page. Occasionally, I'll probably post a few photos from that page on here. Here's one of my favorites taken on long exposure at the 2007 Georgia National Fair in Perry.

Nightfall at Allatoona

This is the view from Victoria Harbor Day Use Area at night. The shot was taken about 9:25, 45 minutes after sunset. I shot an anti-climactic sunset looking west (of course), then turned around and the southeast sky looked great, so I put on the 17-35 wide angle and went to work. Exposure was 30 seconds at f/9.

Carrie Underwood 7/25/09

This shot is one of just a few that turned out well when I got the opportunity to see Carrie Underwood at the Grand Ole Opry. The Opry is one of the few concert events where audience members are actually encouraged to "rush the stage" to support the artists. I took my chance, put on the 80-2oo zoom, and took probably 200+ shots. Out of those, about six turned out well. That's the way it goes, and here is one of my favorites. When shooting concerts from the audience, there's no chance to set up lights, so you take what the venue gives. I like the red rim-lighting around her hair here, and once again, it was one of a handful that didn't turn out blurry. I've probably said it a dozen time since then, but I wish I could have been just a few feet closer! I used my SB800 flash on this one (they let you do that); exposure is 1/60 sec at f/2.8.

Black Rock Mountain 7/16/09

Once again, found this gem one morning on the way to a cell tower atop Black Rock Mountain. 1/125 sec at f/11.

Hendrix 7/25/09

This photo was taken at Wes Aldridge's house in Nashville. Just a shaky shot of a poster on Whit's wall that turned out kinda cool. Hendrix probably looked about like this to most of the people who saw him in concert, anyway! 1/2 sec @ f/5.6.

Old Bus 7/17/09

Found this on the way back to a cell tower in Buford. No idea how long its been there. 1/80 sec at f/5.6.

Fog in the Gorge 7/10/09

This is one of those moments that happen in the rearview mirror and it turns out rather nicely. Courtney and I pulled off for gas on the way up to a camping trip in NC. I turned around and looked back toward where we came out of the Nantahala Gorge and saw this. I took the $15 flexi-leg tripod, sat the camera on my truck toolbox, and took the shot with a 1.6 second exposure at f/4.5.