Drum Circle!!!

     Tonight, I went to the drum circle after going out to eat. It was cool while it was still light, but when it turned dark, it got crazy. I used flash in these photos and it really brought out extreme contrast. The energy there is incredible! Nobody is embarrassed to let out there true emotions and DANCE! This guy was the leader this time and he was really eccentric to be around. This baby was there too!

Macroish Dragonfly!

    Last weekend, my Mom and I went over to the Botanical Gardens and shot some photos. I went not really knowing what I wanted to shoot but I finally found some cool stuff next to the river. This dragonfly was really hard to get in focus. It is constantly moving with very fast and sharp motions, and it never sits still. Good thing I was using my telephoto lens (oh wait, that's all I have!), I was about three feet away from it and got this close-up, pretty good for a max f-stop of 5.6... These things are nasty little creatures, they look harmless, but if you hit it or something, it'll bite the heck out of you!

Superman's Heat Vision... or car trails...

     Tonight, my dad and I went around searching for a place to take some pictures of Asheville's skyline (not much of one however). We went up to Town Mountain, around Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd, and almost to the Parkway! We couldn't find a single place that had a clear view of the city from afar. Finally, as we were heading home, I remembered that I had been wanting to try out a new type of photo, light trails! Basically, you go out at night and set a really long shutter speed. Click the shutter right before a car passes by and the camera can't really see much of anything in the pitch black, so the camera doesn't capture the car itself since it is too dark to see, but the camera DOES capture the headlights/brake lights of the car. This makes light trails. I think they look similar to Superman's heat vision! I took a lot of pictures because getting it right is mostly an experimental process... tried a lot of different settings and got a few good ones after about ten minutes of tweaking settings. Still not perfect, but this is what I got; Not too bad for my first try!

Mission Hospital Internship

    This week I've been at a Mission Hospital internship called Mission Possible. We basically go tour different departments of the hospital and have people present to us about what they do in the hospital. It goes on for another 2.5 weeks (total of 3.5 weeks) and at the end we get paid $600.00. I haven't had much time to do much of anything because after the internship, I get home and I'm just worn out. I took this picture this morning. It's a day lily and I found it very pretty!

    If anyone knows of any jobs/photoshoots I can do for anyone, please message me on Facebook. I need to buy a macro lens! Thanks!

Happiest Goat Alive

    Happiest Goat Alive. The End.

Praying Otter!

    Gram and I went to the nature center today and took some shots of the animals there. I got a few pretty decent shots but this one was exceptional. I was shooting through thick Plexiglas and somehow managed to get this. I was also using manual focus because the camera's automatic focus wouldn't stop focusing on the glass! The otter was moving constantly and I think it was just a stroke of luck that let this photo happen. It was cleaning itself off but to me it looks like it is praying or making a tough decision... either way, I like the completely blurred out background and sharp subject. This is one of my favorite shots that I have taken so far!
    Gram drew some awesome things while I was photographing too, check out her art at Real Life Journals

Evaporation's Coffee Break

    This picture is just some leaves with water on it, sure it's a cool picture, but what really interests me is that this plant had water droplets in exactly the same place yesterday and it hadn't rained yet... The water just sat there for 24 hours and never evaporated even in the killer heat. Luckily, I just moved into the basement of my house where it is constantly cool. The only downside is that if I am in my room for extended periods of time, I tend to get a little cold. However, it's great for spending time outside photographing in the hot weather and coming into my cool room to edit the photos! "Always look on the bright side of life!" ~ Monty Python

End of School!

    Sorry I haven't posted in four days, it's been the last week of school! Really hectic and tiring. First, on Monday, I had my French 2 Final Exam. On Tuesday I had my World History final exam. and on Wednesday, I had my Science final exam. Yesterday, I had $80.00 to turn in to the school for my laptop fees and I was in line getting ready to do it when somehow the money (all cash) fell out of my pocket and I guess someone picked it up and left with it. It was awful! This is the only picture I have gotten this week unfortunately.

1960's Gas Mask Ghost Incident

     Alright, before you see this picture, I'm just letting you all know that this picture was edited no more than a few brightness and black and white tweaks. I am not sure how but this picture showed up on my camera but here it is;

     Today, I was thinking of a picture to create because there wasn't much of anything outside that was worth photographing. I had recently acquired a Czechoslovakian World War 2 gas mask with a working filter and all. I thought about making a weird photo so I took this painting that was on the wall and sat it down behind me, put on my mask, and lit some Sage to make a smoky foreground. I also recently got a wireless shutter release so I can now click the shutter and be over 10 feet away from the camera; this reduces blurry (wobbly) photos, and is a great convenience to the photography (me). I was testing it out when I took this picture. It seems like two pictures were merged into one, the way the painting is basically halfway inside me. The outline of the painting is crisp, while the outline of me is also quite apparent. I had been clicking the shutter button quickly and I got up to see the photos while this picture had been taken. I was using a 1 second shutter speed (so slow!) and a f-22 stop. I am not sure if the camera momentarily malfunctioned or if I'm just so ninja that I can instantaneously teleport out of my camera's also-instantaneously sensor.    

Baby Birds With Mohawks and Their Possible Demise

     Today, I was wandering around tracking this bird who was abnormally friendly, taking pictures. I followed it around until it flew inside a large gas tank beside the house. While it was flying, I noticed a worm in it's mouth. I went a little closer and heard high pitched squeaks and whines. Meanwhile, my cat Steve was prowling about, he looked like a tiger ready to pounce. I followed his line of sight and saw a bundle of sticks and leaves. Sure enough, I see three baby birds and it's mother inside! The mother flies away, however, since the babies can't fly, they stayed put. I took out my camera and started taking pictures. I had to guess a little on the focal point because since it was so dark inside, I couldn't use auto-focus. While I am trying to focus on the babies manually, the mother is sitting nearby in a tree screaming it's butt off at me! I finally get the picture I want and get ready to head inside. Steve, aloof as always, is getting ready to slaughter the birds like it's his morning routine. He jumps in mid air and I catch him right before he gets inside of the gas tank (about four or five feet tall). The birds are safe now and here are the shots I got of the birds and of Steve;

This one has a mohawk! ^

Steve getting ready to attack ^

Cool Construction Site Downtown

     This weekend, Gram and I went downtown to look at an interesting construction site. They were leaving half of the old building standing but had torn down the rest of it and made it look really quite creepy. It was hard to get a lot of good pictures because there was an inconveniently placed fence in our way, obstructing our views. Luckily I managed to slip through the fence while the worker (there was only one worker on duty that Saturday) and took a few shots before he/she came back. I took three shots of different exposures and combined them in HDR Efex Pro, this is the result.

     Here is Gram's site, go check out her amazing artwork.