This is kind of an extension of the "What Is It Game" thread elsewhere in FHOP, but it seems like we have some pretty talented amateur photographers in the crowd. So, let's see your favorites! Here are the rules: Post only one item at a time, and give other people a chance to post after you (don't monopolize the thread). Keep sizes reasonable. Try to keep all images 600 pixels or lower on their largest axis. Use whatever compression level you think looks adequete, but try not to blow out Danny's disk space by posting pictures that aren't compressed enough. Remember... this is the web. *Danny, if a really large one hits, feel free to delete the picture with a note to repost smaller - thanks! Don't post stuff without some small degree of artistic merit, and make them family friendly. No gratuitous breast shots, please. Only post things you've actually taken yourself. Share technical details if you have them. Share the story behind the photo. ----- OK, my turn, then? This was shot yesterday at the Lake Tahoe Environmental Forum in Incline Village, Nevada. I used my Canon EOS-1D Mark II with a 100-400mm f4.5-5.6 zoom lens. It was full out, so it was shot at f5.6, 1/50, and at ISO 200. The stage was a bit darker than the surroundings, which accounts for the low shutter speed. I did some minor touchup in Photoshop... mostly to remove some stray light glare in the background, but also to remove some dusty lens spots on Clinton's face. <div align="center">[attachmentid=10739]</div> I like shooting candid portraits, especially with a long lens. One of my favorite tricks in Tahoe is to shoot a portrait with a long telephoto, placing the subject in the foreground and the mountains on the other side of the lake in the background. The long lens exagurates the size of the mountains, giving a really nice oversized slightly-out-of-focus background. The same lens works very well for wildlife. Next person? Dan
Continuing on a portrait theme... I wouldn't consider this one of my best photos, but it is a favorite portrait. This is a native dancer at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage festival a few years ago (pre-Katrina). Probably the Nikon D70 w/ 80-200/f2.8 and SB-28 for fill...most likely a polarizer on as well.
Well, I'm going to lower the standards right off the bat, just so those of us without professional aspirations stand a chance. I use but a humble instamatic, though it's got character, don't you think? [attachmentid=10743]
Allow me to be the first to not be so profound. Here's Nina looking out the window last fall. (yeah, she really is that black) [attachmentid=10744]
Sometimes the solid fog bank rifts open enough to reveal the structure that holds it suspended. Some people think this was built for some other purpose, but they misjudge the vision of Joseph Strauss. We were just returning from an afternoon spent in the furnace heat of Red Bluff and, seeing the fog spilling through the gate like a great soft glacier, asked Oakland Approach for a detour so we could take a few pictures. San Francisco has got the best air conditioning system to come back to on a searing hot day bar none. [attachmentid=10746]
This is Caesar at 13 weeks. He had just come back from the hospital. He got parvo at 12 weeks despite the fact he had been getting all of his shots. Dr. said the parvo vacination isn't as accurate as others and he had no immunity. He was half labrador and half doberman. Dobermans are very susceptible but labs have a good survival rate. So it was a crapshoot whether he would pull through or not. He spent two days at the vet and then my Mom and I had to move him to the Animal Hospital for over the weekend. He was such a sick little guy. They had him isolated at the vet. I visited him and he was so happy to see me. I had nightmares of my little man dieing all alone in that room. The animal hospital was wonderful. They gave me progress reports in the morning and evening. Sunday night he was starting to show an appetite. I got to take him home and after a few days of baby food he gradually switched back to his regular dog food and he was fine. You can barely see the shaved spots on his right leg from the IV. He got sick the first day teachers reported back to school. I brough him with me because I knew there was something wrong. As soon as the vets office opened I brought him in and got the bad news. But I got to take him home on Labor Day. He was a great dog. He seemed to always know when a camera lens was pointed at him. He was quite photogenic. All it took was an "oh boy!" and he was camera ready. He lived for 10.5 years. Pretty good for such a big boy. He died quite suddenly of cancer the day after Veteran's day. This was taken with a 35 mm camera. I took quite a few shots and this was the best. I was so scared I would lose him that I vowed if I got him back I would take plenty of pictures. He was truly my Forever Dog.
oh, this is a perfect mood brightener. thanks for the idea, danoday! june 28, 2004- 2 days after our wedding. some of my extended family has a cabin in door county, wi and we drove up there and spent a night on the lake. the next morning was beautiful, and we were so happy, and the whole newlywed rush was still upon us. the lake is in the background, the points of light from the water came out so nicely, even though the camera wasn't the greatest.
This was fairly recent. I happened to glance out the window one morning and saw this Cooper's Hawk sitting atop the utility pole waiting for breakfast to scurry across the yard. He (or she) sat up there for a good twenty minutes.
Here is one of my favorites from a hike in the upper Rockies on our recent cross country trip. Now I am wondering, any chance this is an Edelweiss? PA P [attachmentid=10754]
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(PA Prius @ Aug 18 2007, 08:07 PM) [snapback]498488[/snapback]</div> Hard to tell from this angle but I'm thinking not. It does grow in the Rockies, however. They cultivate it in the Canadian Rockies. What is edelweiss?
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(MJGreen @ Aug 18 2007, 08:21 PM) [snapback]498476[/snapback]</div> That has to be on Angeles Forest hwy between Big Tujunga Canyon Rd and Angeles Crest Hwy.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(bestmapman @ Aug 18 2007, 06:34 PM) [snapback]498495[/snapback]</div> YUP, our favorite hiking spot is there.
Some day I'm going to get a real camera (and the reflector Evan reccomended ) and hopefully get some nice shots like the ones posted here. I have a bunch that I think are more dramatic but tonight this one is high on my list. Taken last summer in the white mountains. Bristlecone Pine remains. This tree could have been 3,000+ years old when it died and it could take a few millenia to fully desintegrate because the climate is very dry and cold so dead trees tend to be sand blasted away as opposed to rotting and decomposing. Hosted on my myspace page so it has been compressed.
[attachmentid=10762] Both shots taken with an N80. Both probably taken at around 50mm focal length. T-max 400 film. Combined in the darkroom. One taken at the local arboretum and the other taken in a kitchen if I recall. Forgive the dust. I obviously printed it without cleaning the negs well, and I scanned it without touching it up first.
This was taken at a temple in Bali. I left my sunglasses there and like to think of a Hindu monk wearing them on a sunny day.
OK, I'm going to break my own rules here and post something larger than expected. This one is long, but not tall (it is panoramic). [attachmentid=10763] This was taken from the "Little Matterhorn" near Zermatt, Switzerland. Most of these peaks are over 4000 meters high, and I was about 3900 meters up to take this. The central peak is the Matterhorn. It was July, it was frigid, and I was having a hard time breathing. And no, I didn't hike it... there is a cable car! Don't recall exactly how many photos are included in this panorama, but think it was somewhere between 12 and 15. I used software called Autopano Pro to stitch them together. The trick is to use a camera that allows you to manually set the F stop and shutter speed. Meter the center of the picture, manually focus, and then use those settings for all the shots. I usually overlap about 1/3rd in each shot. Autopano did most of the hard stitching work, but I also cleaned up some dust spots in Photoshop, edited out the occasional ghosted edge of a mountain (from a bad overlap), played with the colors a bit (increased saturation), and cropped it. Of course, this version is resized - the master copy is 12106x1752. Dan
