FInal Blog Post

There are many important things that I learned throughout the semester but there are three main ones that I believe will make an impact on any future photography that I end up doing.

One thing that I took away from class this semester that will make an impact on photography in my future was the 7 rules that we learned.  Each one of those I incorporated into my final photos and I believe that it made them better and more attractive.  When looking at photos now that other people take and even ones that I take outside of class, I always think of those rules and actually remember them since we went over them so often in class.

Another thing that I find useful was reading that book we read and learning all of the different camera settings and what they do.  Before, I knew what the basic settings were on a camera but I did not know how to use all of the settings to get a good photo or even a decent one.  Knowing all of the basic settings used for landscapes and wildlife have definitely helped me since those are the types of photos that I love taking.

The third thing that I have found very useful was using Lightroom throughout the semester.  I have used it before but not as in depth as I have this semester.  Knowing the basic presets helped a ton and gave me a place to start when I had no idea what to start with while editing photos.  I will probably end up buying Lightroom as I start taking more photos.  I was amazed with how many things could be done with it!

FINAL 25 Pictures

With these photos I was not able to use my mom's camera the entire semester and a lot of the pictures that I loved that I took were with my Samsung since I didn't have my camera with me, for example, the majority of these were out hunting or hiking.  I shot RAW with an app on my phone but with the smaller camera lens and minimal settings of my phone, I wasn't able to use the basic camera settings for a lot of the picture that I would have liked to use for my landscape photos, for example, f/11-16, 1/2sec, and ISO 100-320.  While looking at some of my photos properties, it had wrong dates on some of them, they were all taken throughout this semester though.

This photo was one that I took of the Yellowstone river while out taking pictures one weekend last month.  I wasn't a huge fan of this photo at first but after I darkened the golden color and made it "dramatic", I like it way more!  Nikon D40, 55mm, ISO200, 1/200sec, and f/7.1, AV

 This was a photo that I took of the geese at Riverfront park when I went there a couple weekends before we went there as a class.  I love the action within this photo and the water movement.  With this photo I wish that I would have used a faster shutter speed to make the water a little more crystal clear.      Nikon D40, 55mm, ISO 200, 1/320sec, and f/10, AV

This photo was one that I took the same day as the one above, I had to crop it in a little to get the other geese out of the picture and just focus on this one.  I used a gradient and made the water more of a defined blue.  I like the dramatic colors of the water so I left it as it was, and it brings the color of the goose out more, it may not appeal to everyone's eye but I like the dramatic color of the water against the goose.  I tried to use a brush on the duck's head a little but before I could make more changes my trial ran out on Lightroom.   Nikon D40, 55mm ISO 200, 1/320sec, and f/8, AV

 This picture was one that I took at the beginning of the semester in Island Park, Idaho.  I cloned some of the poles and the bright red canoe as well as increased the saturation and clarity of the water ripples.  I made the blue in the sky vibrant like it is so that they contrast with the clouds more.  Samsung, 1.8mm (26mm lens), ISO150, 1/1718 sec, f/2.2, AV

 This picture was taken from my yard one evening as the sun was setting.  I love bringing out the color in the dark clouds in sunset pictures, which is why I made the sky so dramatic.  I was impressed with the quality of my phone!  With this, I tried to lessen the vibrant color in the sky so it wasn't so "fake" looking but it started to turn very pixelated, so I left it as it was and used a gradient to even out the color in the sky.   Samsung, 4.2mm (26mm lens), ISO100, 1/60sec, f/1.7, AV

This was a picture that I took while I was out hunting up in the breaks last month.  This was taken with my Samsung so it was a little pixelated at first but after using the dehaze and clarity tool as well as a gradient on the sky, it really added to the picture.  I under exposed it a small amount but when I increased the exposure by a stop in Lightroom I lost a lot of detail in the bottom half of the picture so I left it this way.  When taking this picture, I should have overexposed it by a couple spots.  Samsung, 4.2mm (26mm lens), ISO 50, 1/2456sec, f/1.7, AV

 This was a picture I took from a boat while on Fort Peck hunting in October this year.  This was with my Samsung since I didn't have my camera and this picture turned out amazing in my opinion.  I wanted to bring out the bright yellow color more but still keep detail in the waves so I used a gradient on the sky.  Samsung, 4.2mm (26mm lens), ISO 50, 1/812 sec, f/1.7, AV

 This was a picture that I took while out camping/hunting in September while everything was still somewhat green.  I wanted to bring out the sky color but the mountain on the top fence strand was distracting, but darkening the blues a little made it so color in the sky was lost, so I decided to make it a black and white picture below which helped that.  The fence post was old and pretty green itself so I tried to bring the green color on that down a little to make it not blend in with the grass around it.  Samsung, 4.2mm (26mm lens), ISO50, 1/2440sec, f/1.7, AV

This is the black and white photo that I made out of the picture above.  This helped the fence post stand out from the surrounding grass too.  I do like this picture better in black and white since it hides the distracting mountain on the fence line.  Samsung, 4.2mm (26mm), ISO50, 1/2440sec, f/1.7, AV

 This is a photo that I took while I was out hiking up near East Rosebud in September.  I increased the clarity and used the dehaze tool on this to make it "cut and dry", sharp lines, which appeals to me when it comes to lake photos.  Samsung, 4.2mm (26mm lens), ISO 100, 1/1992sec, f/1.7, AV

 This photo was one that I took while out at the fishing access on the Yellowstone River.  I was trying to get a blurred effect of the water flowing so I used a slow enough shutter speed but did not have a tri pod so I couldn't use any lower of one.  Nikon D40, 55mm, ISO 200, 1/50sec, f/11, AV

 This photo was one that I took while out at the duck creek fishing access on the Yellowstone river.  I was there right at sunset so the colors were already amazing I just increased the hue of the blue a touch and the vibrancy to make the sky pop, as well as crop out some distracting things at the bottom.
Samsung, 4.2mm (26mm lens), ISO100, 1/60sec, f/1.7, AV

 This was a photo that I took at the beginning of the semester out at my grandmas house.  This was the photo that I used for the art show since it seemed to draw the most attention when I would look at all of my pictures.  I tried to dehaze the flowers in the center and lessen the dark blobs behind but having a lower aperture allowed me to make the background blurry.
NikonD40, 55mm, ISO 200, 1/30sec, f/5.6, AV

This photo was one that I took while out hunting this semester.  The sun was starting to go down, giving it that golden color in the background, which I think added a lot to the picture.  I cropped out some distracting weeds in the left bottom corner as well as whitened the snow and increased the clarity of the water.  I wish that I would have had my camera when I took this photo so that I could have a higher shutter speed so the water wasn't so blurry, but my phone was all I had.
Samsung, 26mm, ISO 100, 1/3000sec, f/2.4, AV

 This is a photo that I took over the semester when visiting Island Park, Idaho.  This was just outside of that in Yellowstone Park.  I wanted to capture the water at the top being clear and the water at the bottom misting and blending into the air, which my shutter speed helped with that.  Other than that I increased the clarity and increased the vibrancy.  Samsung, 4.2mm (26mm lens), ISO 50, 1/2752sec, f/1.7, AV

 This was a photo that I took while out in cook city at the beginning of the semester.  I tried to use a brush tool to increase the clarity and dehaze of the mountain in the background, but I couldn't get it as clear as I wanted.  I increased the hue in the greens so that they would pop more.  Samsung, 4.2mm (26mm lens), ISO 50, 1/1388sec, f/1.7, AV

 This photo is one that I took while at my grandma's at the beginning of the semester along with my other flower picture.  I used the wood as a way to get the purple in the flowers to pop more.  I increased the green in the flower stems and increased the clarity in the center flowers.
NikonD40, 55mm, ISO 200, 1/15sec, f/5, AV

 This photo is one that I took while at my grandmas the beginning of the semester for the couple weeks that the lilacs bloomed since there was a late bloom this year.  For this I tried to keep the distracting stuff out by cropping some and using the heal button as well as used a brush to dehaze the main flowers in focus.  NikonD40, 55mm, ISO 200, 1/60sec, f/8, AV

 This is a photo that I took while at my grandmas house the beginning of September.  I love fence post pictures so I tried to take one myself and get the sunset in it as well.  I increased the clarity of the fence post and used the heal tool to take out some marks on the fence post.  I increased the saturation and vibrancy as well to make the colors pop.  With the bright sky I should have underexposed it more but since I didn't, I lost some of the detail in the top left corner of the sky, which I tried to fix by bringing light into the clouds, which was completely lost in the sun before editing.  Samsung, 26mm, ISO50, 1/2272sec, f/1.7, AV

 This is a photo that I took while out hunting near white sulfur springs this semester.  I tried to increase the hue of the blues and greens while still keeping the snow white but I couldn't keep the sky blue without having a tint of blue in the snow.  I cropped out some logs and tried to use the heal tool for some distracting things.  If I would have had a faster shutter speed I could have made it less blurry and maybe cleared up the background a little, but all I had was my phone, using a higher ISO would have helped with the clarity of the picture which I would raise next time.  Samsung, 4.2mm (26mm lens), ISO 50, 1/5060sec, f/2.4, AV

 This is a photo I took while at my grandma's at the beginning of the semeseter.  For this picture I wanted to capture a different perspective than I see everyday and I think it worked well.  I increased the clarity of the rocks at the bottom of the picture and increased the blues in the sky and the green on the picture, trying to keep it from getting too pixelated with the brush tool.  The sky was very dark so I brightened it up a little to contrast against the trees.
Samsung, 4.2mm (26mm lens), ISO 50, 1/301sec, f/1.7, AV

This is a photo that I took while driving around.  I love field photos that are drastic colors that seem to go on forever, so I wanted to try and capture that for myself.  I increased the hue of the blues and greens as well as put some contrast back into the clouds since It felt like I over exposed the picture by a few stops when I took it.  I tried to use the dehaze tool for the bottom of the picture where it is blurry, but it did not work the best.  Samsung, 4.2mm (26mm lens), ISO 100, 1/300sec, f/2.4, AV

 This is a photo that I took while riding fourwheelers up to hell roaring at the beginning of the semester.  I over exposed this a little as it was also a bright day but I did not want to lower the exposure too much which made me lose detail in the picture, so I took it how it was and left it like this after spending some time editing it.  I used the heal tool to remove some distracting rocks and increased the blue on the sky, as well as the normal presets we used in class.
Samsung, 26mm, ISO50, 1/2456sec, f/1.7, AV

 This was a photo that I took while outside one evening down at the park.  The sun had just set and the sky was still a pretty blue color so I wanted to make the tree a silhouette picture.  I tried to darken the blues but not too much that it looked fake.  I brought my blacks down really low so that it would stand out in the night sky.  The sky is sort of pixelated which I tried to fix with a gradient but it did not help much.  I wanted to make the blue a dramatic color to bring out the tree silhouette more.  NikonD40, 55mm, ISO 400, 1/4000sec, f/5.6, AV

This was a photo that I took while we were all at Riverfront Park taking pictures.  These berries stood out against the blue sky.  I underexposed the picture a bit so it was difficult to bring the defined lines of the berries back but it worked.  I darkened the blues and blurred the background out more.  I should have exposed this picture more to get detail in the berries but I didn't realize that when I took this picture.  I tried to blur out the background a little more witha  brush so that the center berries stood out.    NikonD40, 55mm, ISO 200, 1/60sec, f/8, AV

Weekly Blog Post

The first picture was one that I took while out taking pictures over at the duck creek fishing access in Laurel.  I took this picture with my Nikon D40, 55mm lens and did not like this at first until I started messing around with the editing of it.  I like the dramatic colors that I used in this picture and was impressed with the editing of it.  For the second picture, this was taken while I went and shot at Riverfront Park before it snowed.  The ducks and geese were all out and close to the shore so I took this opportunity to take some wildlife photos.  The only editing I did to this was cropping it as well as increasing the saturation and clarity of it.  The fast shutter speed I used helped to stop the water droplets in place, which added to the effect of the picture.  The third picture was one that I took while at Riverfront Park that same day.  For this one, I cropped a bit so that the other geese wouldn't be in the picture.  The only editing I did to this one was increasing the saturation and clarity as well as used a gradient filter on the water to add some dark blue  in there.  This picture seemed too blue to me at first but every time I came back to look at it, the color appealed to me more like this than a gray blue color, so I left it as this.  This color really seems to bring out the duck more than just a gray blue color.

Weekly Blog Post

The first picture is one that I took while out hunting this last weekend with my phone.  This was taken with an ISO of 250, and aperture of f/10.  The only editing that I did to this photo was increasing the contrast and saturation as well as the clarity.  For the second picture, I used the same camera settings on my Samsung, but I didn't really do much editing.  The only thing that I did was increase the clarity a few stops and increased the dehaze so that the grass was less blurry since it was sort of windy.  The third picture was towards the beginning of the semester out at the Yellowstone River fishing access.  The editing that I did to this photo was increase the clarity a few stops as well as increase the temperature and saturation to warm up the picture a little bit.  The sunset added some warmth to the picture which helped warm up the picture.

Share 2 & Critique

The first picture is one that I took earlier this semester with my mom's Nikon.  I increased the contrast and saturation of the purple color of the flowers.  I had to increase the clarity of the flowers in the center and darken the background.  This was taken with an ISO of 150 and an aperture of f/10.  I played with the contrast with this picture and made it a black and white photo and it actually turned out really interesting.

The second picture is one that was taken on my Samsung at the beginning of the semester when I was out camping.  I did not have my Nikon at the time so I used my phone.  This was taken with an ISO 200 and an aperture of f/9.  I did some editing to this picture but not much.  I increased the saturation and the contrast of this picture as well as increased the clarity of the picture to make the post more clear.  I did this picture in black and white as well which ended up looking really good as well.

Weekly Blog Post

The first picture is one that I took while out hunting last weekend.  This one was with my Samsung since I did not have my Nikon with me.  This was taken with an ISO 200 and an f/9.  It wasn't windy so a fast shutter speed was not necessary.  The only editing that I did to this photo was to increase the saturation and contrast by a few stops.  The second and the third pictures are the same, just different editing done to both of them.  The second picture is one that I just turned the contrast way down to black and white and with the third one, I increased the saturation and the contrast a few stops to warm up the picture a little bit.  This picture was taken with my Samsung as well since I did not have my Nikon with me at the time.  The fourth picture is one that I took with my Nikon last week.  I did a lot of editing to this picture.  I decreased the contrast and the saturation so that the picture would be more cold and the tree's silhouette would stand out more.  Having the black of the tree against the blue of the sky helps the tree pop out of the picture.  I thought the colors of this picture were interesting and turned out very well.

Share 2 & critique

The first picture is one that I took while out hunting the other weekend.  I took this one with my Samsung since I did not have my Nikon with me.  This one took a little bit of editing but the sunset coming through the trees in the background added a lot to the picture without editing.  The picture was taken with an ISO 200 and aperture of f/10.  When editing, I increased the warmth of the picture and increased the contrast and saturation.  I also increased the clarity of the picture to sharpen the trees and used the dehaze tool to clear up the water since it was running.  

The second picture was one that I took towards the beginning of the semester at my grandmas house.  This was taken with my moms nikon.  This was taken with an aperture of f/2 and an ISO of 200.  When editing this picture, I brightened up the orange color and increased the clarity so that the flowers were more clear, leaving the background blurry still.  I had to brighten up the picture a small amount since it was under exposed when I took it.  I wasn't sure what else to do with editing this picture so I stopped here.