Daylight on the left. Evening on the right. Being a member of a photo club or photo group can have great rewards when you're pushed to try something new. That's exactly what happened here.
 
The Calvert Photo Club's January assignment/challenge was the term "motion". I've wanted to experiment with capturing motion in the car for quite a while but never got around to it. Having to produce something for the monthly challenge finally kicked my butt in gear. Keep reading to see how this image was created.

In the quest to improve my photography skills (does that ever end?), I've been looking at the work of others I admire. I've been looking at portraits in particular and one of the techniques I've been interested in learning is how to create gritty, dark, black and white portraits. I figured that before I try this with photos of anyone else, I better experiment on my own photo first. What follows is a detailed step-by-step on exactly how I created this self-portrait.

Bulb ramping is the ideal technique for shooting time lapse segments, but you can do more with the resulting photos than just animating them. Stacking them together allows you to simulate extremely long exposures without the use of filters, and helps preserve the original contrasts and colors of the scene.

From ISO to HDR to filters, this post includes lots of tips and tricks to help you capture high quality long exposure photos. This is the follow-up post to what we learned in part 1 from Ratatouille: that "anyone can cook".

What is long exposure photography? How do you use it? What are some tips, tricks, and lessons learned that can help you get started?

But first, what can Chef Gusteau and the Pixar hit movie Ratatouille teach us about long exposure photography (or photography in general for that matter)?

I'll answer all those questions and more. So if you've ever wanted to learn about long exposures or weren't sure where to get started, this post will help you get the ball rolling.

There's something missing from this photo included with Windows 7. Do you recognize what it is?
I've yet to upgrade to Windows 8 and probably never will. However, with each Windows launch  (Windows "Blue" is on the horizon) comes a new batch of built in desktop wallpapers. What are they and who are the photographers who get their images selected? I went back and looked at the Windows 7 wallpapers and found something surprising...

I mentioned in my last post that I was embarking on 52 project in 2013 and my goal was to do more things that aren't in my comfort zone. An excuse to try something unusual, different, or possibly dangerous just feels right and I hope it is the spice in my 52 that'll  keep it going throughout the year.

Another goal of a 52 of course is to learn something, not only about what you shoot and process each week but also to learn something about yourself as well. And a day after my first post I realized I learned things on both sides of that coin.

Taking long exposures is one of my favorite techniques. I don't go anywhere without my B+W 1.7 and 3.0 filters and being able to slow things down, even in full sunlight in the middle of the day, can help create some unique situations.
 
But sometimes the long exposures make it difficult to use GND filters, so here's a simple digital technique to simulate them.

I recently attended the Calvert Photography Club's November photo trip to Great Falls. We visited both the Virginia and Maryland sides of the park on the same morning. Being only 3 days after hurricane Sandy departed the Washington, DC area, I expected the water levels to be much higher than they were. However, you could definitely tell there had been a jump in river flow. It was much dirtier than usual and the water level was a little high (much higher than it had been over the majority of the summer). It was here I took a series of burst shots of the waterfalls and put them in motion.

Carnivals and fairs offer such a wide variety of unique subjects, it really is one of the best opportunities to get different shots without having to travel too far from your home. From animals to people to the colorful rides themselves, take your tripod, wander the grounds and see what you can find.

I was on the verge of thinking this shot was impossible, that I'd have to seriously risk real bodily harm (or possible death) in order to get it. If you've ever gone waterfall hunting, or spent any time at a creek in the woods, you know how deceptively slippery rocks like this can be. Even rocks that look dry can be almost as slick as ice. Navigating terrain like this requires extreme caution. I can't stress that enough. Anyone who ventures into environments like this needs to think safety first, second, and third. The shot comes in fourth place.