Warren Wilson College Sunrise

     Exams have finally shown their nasty faces and so I have been bogged down with lots of school work and other drama. This post features two photos that I took two weeks ago on the Warren Wilson College campus. We woke up at about 5:00 in the morning to catch the early sunrise and it was worth it but wow was I tired. I went to bed at about 2:00 in the morning so I was functioning on only three hours of sleep (luckily I had the luxury of falling back asleep when we returned).
     Anyways, the first photo was taken in front of the silo that marks the beginning of the campus. The second photo was taken at a small wheat field a ways down the road from the silo. There was plenty of fog and haze which gave the field an ominous and dreamlike feel to it.

Thanks for Modeling, Steve

    Hey guys! This post, while it is a pretty nice photo, is just an excuse to ask you all a question! I am trying to get into more portrait photography and I was wondering if there is anybody out there who has any tips? Anyone that I could connect with and ask some questions? If you know of anyone, text me at 828-545-3000! Thanks so much!

Hard Work and Flattering Results

      

     Since I can remember, I have always wondered why anyone would work their butts off, to the point of utter exhaustion, simply to do something like clean up the yard. Well, this weekend I found out why. My parents have always been telling me, "It may be hard work, but you'll be happy you did it!", and I never believed them. I was watching my father work in the back yard and I saw the lawn go from long and nasty to sharp and clean. His face showed his fatigue, but his eyes showed his pride. Sweat dripping down his face and out of breath, but sparkling eyes that reflected the flattering results that he had just produced. He gets the pleasure to know that HE completed that. HE made a change. HE made the back yard a nice place to rest and contemplate thoughts. His mouth is clenched, but if you concentrate enough, you can see the smile hidden underneath his scowl. He exerted hard work and produced flattering results. 

Thank you for letting me use your face, dad!

ISO 400 ... 50mm focal length ... f/11 aperture ... 1/1250 sec shutter speed

Thank you for viewing!

~Jacob Diehn

Photos from Florida - Honorable Mentions

Here are the rest of the photos that I took at Florida.

Starting with this post, I am going to start including the settings that I used with each photo and some other details. I will most likely go back and include that in my previous posts too. Hopefully it helps!

 ISO 200 / 62mm / f.9 / 1/1000 sec

ISO 200 / 185mm / f. 5.6 / 1/125 sec

Returning to a Rejuvenated Culture

   
     Hello! I spent the last week at the beach in Florida for my spring break. It was an exorbitant amount of fun and I took a lot of interesting photographs. The drive is always fun, even though it was a twelve hour drive. We traveled for approximately six hours before resting at a nice hotel in Georgia. After waking to a nice breakfast, we hit the road again with only six more hours to go. Unfortunately, my sister Maya vomited her breakfast out - a mixture of donuts and applesauce! Yum! After arriving, we went to the beach and swam for a while before spending the rest of the night in the pool and hot tub. The following morning, I woke up before the sun peeked over the horizon (6:00 am) and shot the sunrise (7:15 am). The rest of our week was saturated in crazy fun activities such as going to Rapids Water Park and snorkeling at a coral reef. We also visited a nature center where I shot a couple of photos of the creatures that resided there.

     Aside from all of the fun we endured, the interesting part about this vacation was the return home. The culture in Florida is vastly different from the culture where I live, Asheville, NC. Living in a culture causes many people to be blind of their surroundings, as I was. However, when I spent the week engulfed in the Florida culture, it was a kind of reset button on my understanding of where I live and what I live around. Today I spent a good four hours downtown with my friend Haylie. During that time, I observed twice as much as I ever had before I left for Florida. There is now a contrasting culture to compare Asheville to. It stands out, much like what Depth of Field does to a photograph. It is extraordinary.

     Below, you will see my favorite of the photographs that I took during the trip. Tomorrow I will post the other "honorable mentions".

ISO 400 / 90 mm / f.11 / 1/500 sec

ISO 400 / 90 mm / f.10 / 1/200 sec

ISO 500 / 200 mm / f. 5.6 / 1/1600 sec

ISO 400 / 90 mm / f.10 / 1/3200 sec

ISO 100 / 55 mm / f. 5.6 / 1/6 sec

ISO 200 / 55 mm / f. 5.6 / 1/500 sec

ISO 200 / 15 mm / f.22 / HDR

More Photos from the Workshop

Mountains to Sea Photography Workshop

This weekend, I participated in a winter photography workshop with a handful of other photographers. We were up early, out late, and working our butts off to get some unique shots that we could work with. It snowed for the majority of the time which made the whole experience that much more fun.

We visited a lot of different locations and hiked to almost all of them. The first place we went to was Price Lake in Blowing Rock, NC on Friday. Arriving at the parking area at around 5:30 pm, we hiked for about 15 minutes (very short hike) and shot the sunset across the frozen lake at roughly 6:15 pm. It was a gorgeous scene and one that I wasn't very prepared for - I had forgotten my tripod at the house. Unfortunately, I didn't get any good shots from that day but I had loads of fun.

Saturday, we woke up at 3:45 am to leave the hotel at 4:15 am in order to get to Roan Mountain by sunrise. The roads were so frozen that we couldn't go to Roan Mountain, however we did go to the Viaduct on the Blue Ridge Parkway. That hike was intense. Since the Parkway was closed, the group had to hike down the road (which was covered in a foot of snow the whole way up) and got to where we needed to be in 45 minutes. Let me remind you, it was PITCH black and colder than I've felt in a while. We got some good, but mostly colorless photos up there and hiked back down to get some breakfast at around 11:00 am. After breakfast, we went to a place which didn't have a specific name but had huge rolling hills with an enormous oak tree in the middle - it was also covered in more than a foot of snow, 2.5 feet in some places!

Today (Sunday) I woke up at 4:30 am to go catch the sunrise atop Beacon Heights. It was an unimaginably breathtaking scene (covered in snow again) and was a short quarter-mile, straight uphill hike.

I learned a lot from that trip - lots of technical things - but most importantly for me, I realized that it's okay to take photographs that aren't portfolio-quality and to take my time. I have a new-found motivation to do photography as much as I can and I can thank Tommy White and Alistair Nicol for that.

I'll be posting more from Friday night (I'll share a couple, even if they aren't GREAT) and from Saturday morning tomorrow!