From the Vault : Bronchial Trees

I found these photos in an old box of pictures.  I don't even know the last time I actually got prints made... the pictures I take these days just hang out on the internet and on my hard drive.  These two were from a roll of black and white film, and I actually vaguely remember pulling over on the side of the road somewhere in Wisconsin to take these, becasue I was so taken with the shape of these trees.  They remind me of lungs.  It was an insteresting little investigation to try and figure out exactly where and when these were taken.  "June 2005" was printed on the back--likely by whichever photo lab printed them.  But, thinking back to June 2005 I was perplexed, because I was in New Mexico then (on my way to California.)  What was also weird was the fact that the photos on the roll seemed to span about 6 months--starting with snowy trees, then these, then some spring-ish ones, and finally, some pics taken in New Mexico.  I guess it's just strange to me now that I'm fully immersed in the digital world that it could take me that long to capture 24 exposures.  It took me a minute to remember what that was like.  But film was expensive!  Patience was a must.  I kind of miss those days.  Anyway, I scanned the prints (they're a tiny bit pixelly, but I'm ok with it for now) and added a sepia tone in PS with the blending mode set to Soft Light.

TAs Needed!

To my Scorpion blog readers:
I can't believe school starts in only five days!  I hope that you all had a wonderful summer.  I trust that your creativity has been recharged and that you've got lots of ideas for this coming school year :)  I just checked my schedule and Advanced Photography is 3rd period this year, which I believe is good news for some of you who had schedule conflicts. It's a big class, but most of you are used to that, so it shouldn't be a problem.  At this point I have no TAs in any of my classes, though!  I usually have one or two per period, so this is going to be a bit rough.  If any of you are looking to add an elective or know a trustworthy friend who is please let me know ASAP.  Also, Advanced Photo students--don't forget to complete your summer homework and bring it with you the first day of class.

Looking forward to a great year!  See you in a couple days :)

~Mrs. V

Peacemonger

I think it may be time to replace the sticker on the back of my car.

Taken with my cell and edited in Pixler-o-Matic (free and somewhat decent editing app) while I waited for my Nikon to get repaired.... more about that later.

Minneopa State Park

Minneopa State Park just outside of Mankato, Minnesota.

Ring Light Black & Whites

We ran over to do a little prep work in my classroom today and I remembered that I have been wanting to try out Mr. B's homemade ring light (I'll post a link to the site he used for directions when I find it.)  However, when I went to grab a camera off the shelf I realized that they're all in the shop getting cleaned over the summer!  All I had on me was my cell phone, but it worked just fine.

 ANSEL

 ME

(Emerson took this one.  I like that the jagged cut edge of the light becomes a frame.)

 EMERSON

DUSTIN

(I always avoid getting this vent in pictures, but in this case I like how it turned out as a backdrop.)

Make a Blog Book! You'll love it.

To my fellow bloggers:  Make a blog book!  I ordered one last year and absolutely love it, and I just ordered another one.  They're sort of like yearbooks for my family blog (not this one.)  My kids and I were reading through the first blog book at bedtime.  They really love it (of course... it's the story of them!), and so do I.  In fact, while reading it I stumbled upon these pictures that I had kind of forgetten about.  I had never posted them on this blog before, so I thought I'd share them.  They're from back in October of 2010.  It's not very often that I look back through my old pictures and posts on the Internet.  But having a tangible book in my hands makes it much more fun.  I used Blog2Print, and the quality was excellent, but I think when I make a book from my photography blog I'll use something that allows me to get full page photos, which Blog2Print does not.  I've ordered photo books from Shutterfly before, so maybe that would be a good option.  Anyway, I encourage all of my fellow bloggers to get your work printed and bound every so often, and I'm going to make it one of my goals to do the same for my photography blog.

Goose Island Camping

Here are a few photos from camping at Goose Island in La Crosse, Wisconsin back in June.

Mississippi River

Sweet Emerson 

Becca's Fire Ring 

Star Trails

This star trail photo is a combination of two 11 minute exposures.  I was looking for a program on the internet that combines multiple star trail photos to create longer streaks, but actually found that doing it in Photoshop is really simple.  You just copy all of your shots into one and change the blending mode to Lighten--so simple!.  If you look closely you can see a small space between each star trail (especially the really bright one right by the trees.)  Of course I wish the space wasn't there, but I'm glad I was able to figure out where it came from--the space is a result of using long exposure noise reduction on my camera.  The camera took an 11 minute "blank" exposure after each actual exposure to reduce the noise you get with exposure times this long.  I'm not sure which is worse--excess noise or spaces between the star trails... guess it's something I can put on my to do list.  I shot in RAW+JPEG fine mode and used the RAW files, so I was able to reduce what noise I did find in CameraRAW.  Another thing I encountered with these shots is the awful purple corners I seem to get whenever I do long exposures.  I had heard this before, but looked it up to confirm--they're caused because your sensor gets hot during long exposures.  Not sure how to prevent it, but a little work with curves, layer masks, and vignetting made it a little better.  If you know of a better way to shoot or edit to solve this problem I'd love to hear about it.  By the way, the orange glow on the right was from a campfire across the road.  Not sure what they were putting in their fire, but it was HUGE!