Lydia Bennett

Wow, what a fantastic opportunity, @elianafranzenburg!

Here’s what I would do:

1 – Define “ordinary”. Look it up in the dictionary if you want to. Just get it clear in your head what exactly you’re going to want to convey.

2 – Make a list of anything and everything that you would classify as “ordinary”.

3 – Think of “extraordinary” w…[Read more]

Hi there, @hayhand02!

#3: This picture was more a snapshot of a cool scene than a artisitly composed image. I should have taken a little time there and done it right.

It’s amazing what a big difference a little time can make, isn’t it? It can change something from a “snapshot” to a work of art.

#2: Ummmm, the tour guide made comments abo…

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And since he talks somewhat extensively about the Air Force in the blog post, I thought I’d submit these photos I took just this past year when my brother graduated Air Force BMT at Lackland AFB in TX. 🙂

Here are my submissions!!

I can’t speak from a professional opinion, @creative-click-photography, but I definitely prefer the term the “tool” of thirds vs “rule” of thirds. I think that’s exactly what it is. A tool. And just like a tool, it’s great for some situations and not for others. I think it’s kind of like asking which is better, a hammer or a screwdriver? Well it…[Read more]

@elianafranzenburg

The darkness of the leaves doesn’t quite seem to match the lighting on the flower. I might try to bring up shadows a bit more on them in post-processing, although I’m not sure how much you’ll be able to do that without creating too much noise. The photo also doesn’t seem like it’s quite tack sharp.

As far as the logo goes, I w…[Read more]

I am so impressed with these photos, @hayhand02! Luray Caverns looks like such an amazing place to visit!

Here are my thoughts, in order from favorites to least favorite:

Favorites
# 4 (Grand Column) – The people in the photo really help give a scale of this place, and I like the silhouettes. Ideally, it would be nice if there was more s…[Read more]

Thanks again, @buddingphotographer! I’ll read up on those.

It may be that more than one photo will be chosen!

Just trying to get a little better picture of what we’re going for here, @jamesstaddon…. 🙂 is this supposed to be like a header image, or are the photo[s] potentially going to be sprinkled throughout the blog post?

Thanks for those explanations on RAW+JPEG, @loganlamar and @buddingphotographer! Very helpful to know.

Thanks for pointing me towards those links about sharpening, @buddingphotographer. I think when @jamesstaddon came out with that video I didn’t have LR (or was very new to it) and I never ended up watching it. Now I will!

So it actually looks…[Read more]

Wow, thank you so much, @buddingphotographer!

Last time we had a photo shoot, I had a ton of blown out highlights, so I think that’s part of why I ended up going to the other end of the spectrum this time around. 🙁 Maybe next time I’ll hit the perfect balance! 🙂

I’m not sure what your editing software was doing, but it was definitely b…

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Does orientation matter, @jamesstaddon? Vertical or horizontal?

Oh, you’re right! As I recall, there was a LOT more sunshine at first, so I think that’s why it ended up being ridiculously underexposed when the shadows came in at this point.

Here are the originals, @buddingphotographer.

OK, you’re definitely pushing me closer towards trying my hand at RAW. 🙂

Ok, well then let me clarify my statement, @loganlamar. I don’t believe there’s a setting to manually control shutter speed while in Aperture priority. 🙂

@jamesstaddon, I actually didn’t add a ton of noise reduction. Luminance is at 18 on the first photo and 23 on the second. I usually try not to go too high on it so it doesn’t look too fake.

@dfrazer
I shoot in JPEG; I haven’t tried RAW out yet.

I’ve attached one of the photos with no noise reduction added; the amount of noise is so una…[Read more]

Got it. I’m seeing the difference between “sharp” and “tack sharp”, now that you mention it!

I’ve gone back to shooting in Manual as well recently. I was trying to use Aperture priority for a while but I was having way too many photos not coming out nicely because my shutter speed wasn’t fast enough. So now most of the time I’ve been putting on…[Read more]

How exciting!!

It’s fun seeing your photo up there on the homepage, @blessingscaptured! Congrats everyone!

Great example, @loganlamar!