Follow the Leader, Lake Sam Rayburn TX Cheech loves to walk out on this log at our favorite beach in Texas, and this time Sala decided to follow. But Sala doesn’t have near the balance that Cheech does and when it came time to turn around, it was easier for Sala to jump off the log and get back on going the other direction! I have a nice time-lapse sequence from this logging adventure for the dogs. You see both dogs head for the log, both make it to the end of the log, then Cheech hurries back, then pan back to see Sala falling in the water, getting back on the log and then running to catch back up with Cheech. It is a really funny time-lapse I’ll have to make a video of soon. Critiques are always welcome. Daily photo: January 22, 2013, taken January 18, 2013

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Testing the Waters, Lake Sam Rayburn

As far as we can tell, Sala doesn’t really like the water very much. He’s got short hair and it’s January so I think he’s just too cold. Maybe when it starts to get hot and the water warms up he’ll be more interested. By the way, it’s fun to play “guess Sala’s breed” if you haven’t already. We love hearing your ideas since he’s such a crazy concoction and we’ve heard so many different guesses in the few months we’ve had him.

How often do you capture video with your camera? I’ve started to take more and more video footage after watching several DSLR-video workshops on CreativeLIVE recently. After I’ve collected a decent amount of footage I’ll make a short 2-minute video. I might also add in some short time-lapses and stop motion sequences of the dogs running and what not. I think it will be a fun project to try. It won’t be fancy, I’m going to edit it in iMovie. What do you think?

Critiques are always welcome.

UPDATE: If you haven't joined the Smugmug Daily Community on Facebook yet, you can find the group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/SmugMugDailyPhotosCommunity/
It's a little easier to have a conversation and share information on FB. I think you can add yourself to the group or friend someone in the group and we'll get you added.

Daily photo: January 31, 2013, taken January 18, 2013

Cloudy Colored Sunset, Lake Sam Rayburn TX

We’ve been getting pretty lucky with sunsets out at Lake Sam Rayburn recently. Two out of the last three trips have had nice sunsets. This photo is from our most recent trip. There were very few clouds in the sky when we left the house a couple of hours before sunset. Then all of a sudden these clouds rolled in about a half hour before sunset. I got a really cool time lapse out of it, but I’m a long way from processing it.

This is a single 1 second exposure. I used a three-stop soft-step graduated ND filter and a two-stop soft-step graduated ND filter to reduce the exposure above the foreground.

Critiques are always welcome. In fact, my dog Sala has already given a pretty rude critique of my foreground, as you can see in this previous photo.

Daily photo: January 30, 2013, taken January 25, 2013

The Mother Plate, Omaha NE

A plate of all four dishes my mom, Nini and I ordered at Mother India, our favorite Indian restaurant. At the top is the staple of my Indian diet, Chicken Biryani, which is a rice and chicken dish. On the right is Chicken Kadai, a mixed vegetables dish. On the bottom is the beautiful and elegant Malai Kofta, with the almond sitting nicely on top. On the left is my other staple, Mattar Paneer, a peas and cheese dish in a tomato and butter based sauce. In the middle of the plate is Basmati rice that comes with every meal.

Another foray into food photography. I thought this dish looked very picturesque and would make for a good overhead shot that I have been trying to use effectively. The light was very hard. It’s actually direct sunlight through a window. So there is a lot of room for improvement, but I think this composition works for me.

Critiques are always welcome.

Daily photo: January 28, 2013, taken January 9, 2013

Omaha Glacier Blue Hour, Omaha NE

My favorite city skyline from my last shoot in Omaha. Dad and I set up on the East side of the Missouri river to catch this beautiful sunset and blue hour from its icy banks. We had a blast watching big chunks of ice go twirling by as the sunset colors came and went.

This is a single two minute exposure. I used a two-stop soft-step graduated neutral density filter to reduce the exposure of the sky and bright reflection in the top half of the frame.

Critiques are always welcome.

Daily photo: January 27, 2013, taken January 8, 2013

Colorful Me, Lake Sam Rayburn TX

Nini and I took the boys to Sam Rayburn again last night. It was in the low 70s so I was in shorts, t-shirts, and sandals. Nini took this photo of me in action with my iphone. I processed it on my iphone while watching CreativeLIVE last night. There are a lot of free iphone apps for processing. I love to play around with them and really overuse the film looking textures and light leaks. After processing on my iphone I used Lightroom 4 to try and reduce the noise. We had a nice sunset. Yes, Sala is taking a pee right in my foreground. I guess he didn’t care for it!

Thanks for all of the nice comments yesterday! We all occasionally get mean comments from random strangers, but we can’t let strangers get us down. Personally I find it more entertaining than anything else.

CreativeLIVE is live and FREE with Sue Bryce and Haley Bartholemew giving an excellent workshop on using show reels to promote your studio. Check it out at www.creativeLIVE.com/live

Critiques are always welcome.

Daily photo: January 26, 2013, taken January 25, 2013

Blue and Yellow, Lake Sam Rayburn TX

Back at our favorite beach in East Texas. This is the nice part of the beach where Nini sits and reads her kindle while I play around in the mud near the swampy side of the beach. It almost looks like sand in this photo, but the surface is actually these weird little clay pebbles that are very soft and squishy. It is a really amazing texture that I love to walk on barefoot.

This is a three exposure HDR. This is the first HDR I’ve posted in ages! I almost felt a little rusty processing it! This photo reminds me that there are great shots to get before the sunset reaches its peak colors. Lately I’ve been setting up one camera on the tripod with my primary composition that doesn’t change much as the night goes on, and then shooting handheld or on another tripod with a second camera that I move around and try other compositions. This photo is from the second camera.

I noticed someone going by the name of “God” left me a harsh comment on my last beach photo here. I don’t get why people leave comments like this. In a way it’s flattering that my photo is having such a strong emotional impact on someone, whether good or bad!

Critiques are always welcome.

Daily photo: January 25, 2013, taken January 21, 2013

Shadow Hunter, Lake Sam Rayburn TX

Big Red is still the handsomest! He’s still going strong, tearing up the swamps and forests of East Texas. Sala and Cheech can keep up with him in the backyard but he leaves them in the dust when we’re in the wild. I need to make a video of him in action. So far we’ve been lucky to avoid Texas wildlife, and have not even seen a snake or boar.

Thanks for the constructive feedback yesterday! I updated the photo following Doug’s advice and I like the new version better. I also posted the original version so you can compare here (follow the link in the caption to compare).

Critiques are always welcome.

Daily photo: January 24, 2013, taken January 18, 2013

Before Sundown, Lake Sam Rayburn TX

Nini and I were treated to a beautiful sunset at Lake Sam Rayburn on MLK day. These reflection pools are an interesting new feature to our beach that I think may have come about since the lake is very high right now due to winter rains. The reflection pools were great for me, but for they made a muddy mess out of my dogs!

This is a single 0.8 second exposure. I used a three-stop soft-step graduated filter and a two-stop soft-step graduated filter to reduce the exposure above the horizon and above the reflection pool.

Critiques are always welcome.

UPDATE: HA! I have coined a new phrase: "dad crop"! I should add it to urbandictionary.com, except there is nothing urban about it. I agree a dad crop would work well here. I tried to achieve the effect Tom is mentioning during blue hour, moving the camera about 10 feet towards the sunset so that I was cropping the bottom reflection at the clouds. The decision for me is always to have the horizon in the top third or bottom third. If I can find a cool foreground I'll put the horizon in the top third, and if there is no cool foreground then I'll put the horizon in the bottom third to minimize the poor foreground. I'll also put the horizon in the bottom third if the sky has interest all the way to the top of the frame. But in this case there was only blue sky above where I cropped it in camera, so I decided to put the horizon in the top third and scrambled to find a decent foreground (which I'm very rarely satisfied with the foregrounds I find!). I also agree with Doug that the detail in the foreground mud is distracting. I played around with darkening the mud so that it was less distracting and now I'll go back and look at that again. Thanks for the critiques!!! I'll definitely reprocess this photo and make it better, and I'll post the blue hour photo taken shortly after this soon too.

UPDATE 2: I've updated this photo, darkening the mud to make it less distracting. I also added in some contrast. I'll post the original here and you can see both side by side.

Daily photo: January 23, 2013, taken January 21, 2013

Follow the Leader, Lake Sam Rayburn TX

Cheech loves to walk out on this log at our favorite beach in Texas, and this time Sala decided to follow. But Sala doesn’t have near the balance that Cheech does and when it came time to turn around, it was easier for Sala to jump off the log and get back on going the other direction!

I have a nice time-lapse sequence from this logging adventure for the dogs. You see both dogs head for the log, both make it to the end of the log, then Cheech hurries back, then pan back to see Sala falling in the water, getting back on the log and then running to catch back up with Cheech. It is a really funny time-lapse I’ll have to make a video of soon.

Critiques are always welcome.

Daily photo: January 22, 2013, taken January 18, 2013