It’s hard to find any outdoor color this time of year, but thanks to this little Nandina bush I was able to capture some vivid red colors blanketed with some fresh snow.
Photo details: Nikon D80, Tamron 90mm macro, f/4.0, 1/640 sec. shutter, 200 ISO, in aperture priority mode.
I’ve been posting a lot of nature shots lately, so let me change things up a bit and post one from the studio:
Since this model had an edgy hairstyle, I wanted to give an edgy appearance to her photo. Normally, I would turn the face away and at an angle to the main light to bring out more soft shadowing, but instead I posed her directly into the main, giving a more intense and harsh lighting effect. Women also photograph well looking upward, so I stood on a chair only almost directly above the model and took the shot in a downward direction. I also turned the camera about 45 degrees to frame the face at an angle.
The studio setup was a main strobe with softbox about 3 feet away from the model’s face. There was a secondary strobe with an umbrella reflector immediately behind the camera, and I had an assistant holding a 3rd strobe a few feet above her head to highlight the hair. Finally, the model was also holding a white card at her waist to bounce some light under the chin. The background was chosen black to accent to intense look of the shot.
I was out doing a little Appalachian Trail maintenance last weekend, and decided to hike on up to Laurel Falls. With the wet, rainy weather lately, it has been good conditions to photograph waterfalls. This one is always a treat, and one of my favorites in the area.
I was there mid-day, but was fortunate to get some cloud cover allowing me a longer shutter speed. I also used a circular polarizer, and closed the aperture down to f/25. Shutter speed was 1/3 of a second. Here’s another a little closer up:
Here’s some more from the beautiful Rocky Fork stream that I shot this past weekend…
This waterfall is normally a series of three small falls, but depending on water levels it can be one large cascade, or at low levels it can be five very small falls. It’s a pretty little spot with easy access, making it (I would guess) the most photographed area in the entire Rocky Fork Tract. On my recent visit, it was almost frozen over.
Photo details: Nikon D80, Nikon 18-200mmVR lens @ 18mm, f/11.0, 1/5 sec. shutter, 100 ISO, in shutter priority mode. I also used a circular polarizer to reduce glare and to allow a slightly longer shutter speed.
This shot was taken yesterday in the newly protected Rocky Fork Tract in Unicoi, Tennessee. I was so happy to learn a couple of weeks ago that the deal finally went through for the preservation of this 9000+ acres of beautiful land. This little waterfall is located on the Rocky Fork stream, which I found very unique with its green-tinted pool. To learn more about the acquisition of Rocky Fork by the U.S. Forest Service read here.
I’ll continue to add more photos in the next week of the photos I took in Rocky Fork.
Photo details: Nikon D80, Nikon 18-200mmVR lens @ 75mm, f/14.0, 1/3 sec. shutter, 100 ISO, in shutter priority mode. I also used a circular polarizer to reduce glare and to allow a slightly longer shutter speed.
I’m not very good with bird identification, but I believe this is a Blue Heron. I found him sitting near a snow-covered, frozen pond in Unicoi, Tennessee. When I got within 20 yards or so he took off, not leaving me much time to adjust camera settings. If I had been prepared, I would have increased the ISO in order to have an even quicker shutter speed. I may try to find this little guy again tomorrow, and give it another try.
Photo details: Nikon D80, Nikon 18-200mmVR lens @ 200mm, f/5.6, 1/400 sec. shutter, 100 ISO. I also increased the contrast in post-processing.
This shot of my friend Jimmy was taken on Wilburn Ridge in southwest Virginia. On backpacking trips, where carrrying minimal weight is a must, I use a small Fuji point/shoot camera. Another advantage of the point/shoot cameras on trips such as this is that they work well for landscape shots. They have very short focal length lenses, allowing them to have a huge depth of field, even at wide open apertures.
Photo details: Fuji Finepix E510, focal length 4.7mm, f/6.4, 1/340 sec. shutter, 80 ISO.
Shot in studio. I muted the reds in the image to turn those shades to black and white, leaving the blue colors.
Photo details: Nikon D80, Nikon 18-200mmVR lens @48mm, f/4.8, 1/100 sec. shutter, 100 ISO. Shot in studio with four lights (softbox main, fill umbrella as a reflector, head light, and SB600 sppedlight to highlight the background.
A quick covering of snow fell today at my workplace at Pine Oaks Golf Course in Johnson City, TN. The pond is not natural, but instead is excess drainage from the heavy rains we’ve received lately.
Photo details: Nikon D80, Nikon 18-200mmVR lens @38mm, f/11, 1/20 sec. shutter, 100 ISO, manual mode.
Even though this waterfall is over 60 feet high, I sometimes feel it is much more interesting to shoot flowing water close-up. This is Sill Branch Falls located in Unicoi County, Tennessee.
Photo details: Nikon D80, Nikon 18-200mmVR lens @28mm, f/14, 1.3 sec. shutter, 100 ISO. Shot with a circular polarizer on Shutter Priority mode.
