We were driving back from visiting with family yesterday evening, and I had my camera out in my hands. I got this idea of the long shutter speed image when we were passing those ubiquitous tree alleys along the road. Yes, they are very dangerous, as they leave no space or shoulder on either side of the road. But they are beautiful nevertheless. It was fun trying different settings on the camera, and using the car’s high beam to light the trees in passing.

Last time we were visiting New York, we took camera with us for two evening walks around Manhattan. We were taking series of images for HDR processing. It was our laziness, we did not use the tripod, so even with steady hands some of them did not turn out too well. Some I had problems getting around people moving all over the frame. But this one turned out just fine.

A few weeks ago, we went one evening downtown to get some interesting pictures of the streets for a Digital Photography School weekend challenge. Our assignment image is buried somewhere on page 23, but this one I think I like even more. To get to the final effect, however, I did some playing with Lightroom and Photomatix. It is one-image HDR, custom white balance, and blue graduated neutral density filter on the sky.

Everybody taking photographs took at least once a night photograph of the cars leaving a light trail. But you can do it with airplanes, as well, and the result is not less stunning. Last weekend, we took the camera, and went to local airport around the time of the largest evening traffic. There was maybe 6 planes arriving and one plane taking off (hey, it was Saturday evening, Iowa ), just enough to have time for some trial and error and a keeper. I know now what I want to do different next time, but I still like this best image from that evening.

The iPhone photo post is my favorite of the week. It is the easiest to choose photographs, and play a bit with different apps. I used two for this one- I start to enjoy Photogene, to correct exposure, colors etc, but I still need CameraKit to add my watermark and resize it. Anyway, I took this photograph sometimes this week- it is a first week this season I am getting out of work when it is getting dark. This particular day, it was not only already dark, but I noticed a moon between the street lights. You can tell which one is which- look at the colors of highlights.

Time again to show an iPhone photo. I have some stuff about apps and macro capabilities of this device coming, but so far- I am still reading and learning. So one straight of camera- well, almost. I found Lightroom very eager to get the photos out of iPhone .
Anyway, the huge advantage of iPhone as camera is having it with you all the time. I can take photos of things around when we go shopping, for example, which opens new subjects for me. This one was taken outside our local mall. The lamp above the pot with flowers looked just like  a full moon.

Well almost. This picture was taken with our fisheye lens and it amazes me all the time how rich colors I get when I use this lens. There is no other lens we have or we tried that would produce such a rich spectrum without any manipulation in post.

This shot was taken late at night from one of the passes over interstate 380. Color stripes are actually car lights. In the background you can see nicely lit North Liberty.

I got inspired by some recent posts, including Rob’s, and what inspired him- Scott Bourne’s, talking about developing photographic style. I do not know if it is what you would call my style, but I know what is my goal in photography. I want to show on static picture movement and speed. The moving carousel, the light trails, speed of moving car or a bike. Do I often achieve the goal? No, probably because there is so much fun in just photographing world around me. After all, not every object is moving! But when it gets darker, the longer shutter speed increase a chances of getting something interesting.
BTW- look how much noise there is, at ISO 1000 on picture taken with otherwise almost pro camera?!

One night this weekend, inspired by Jeff Revell and (almost) full moon, we went out to the lake (short drive from our house) to photograph nightscape. A lot of fun, but surely more in picture taking and coming up with ideas, then later selecting keepers… I tried this scene as HDR, tried exposure blending, nothing seemed to work as I envisioned it. Finally, regular, single exposure, few saturation adjustments, graduated filter, and borrowing a piece form another exposure, and I got my winner.

I spend some time during AirVenture shooting with my Lensbaby. Most of the photos turned out to be out-of-focus disaster. Whatever stayed, was a compositional disaster. There are some which I still like, and it is one of them. It is an example of those surprising photos, which look like they have been taken in another, completely different place and time. There is nothing there to talk about planes or flying. There is still daylight on the flowers in front of the hut, and the warm lamp is lighting the inside of the place. I took it on the evening walk, when guys were busy photographing planes with their flashes and stuff.