An Orchid and Its History

Orchid

I took this photo back in 2011. I had bought my first DSLR, a Nikon 7000, after using a friend’s D70 for over a year. Back then I was not only learning to take pictures, managing ISO, exposure, aperture, etc., but also learning editing software. Lightroom was at version 3 I think, not the CC or Classic of today. Since then I have played with a number of different post editing programs, but in reality don’t use any of them to the maximum potential. Do I want to?

Certainly I am better at editing than I was 12 years ago. Then HDR was sort of “the thing” and I pushed things a lot, and often with rather dreadful results. Before having my cataracts removed, I also starting pushing colors as my vision declined. Now I still look at color as a very important part of photography, but of late I am looking more at contrast, complementary colors, and the sorts of things you look at in painting.

Pictures are still what I look at more than anything, whether photos, paintings, drawings, or just the world around me. The visual is always what intrigues me. Some people are sensitive to sound or scent or taste, and I wish I had the ability to experience them as deeply as I do the visual. I wonder what synesthesia would be like – does it enhance or confuse?

Anyway, back to editing. Below is the above orchid edited in 2011 in black and white.

And below is a new BW edit of the same . . .

Interesting how times and experience change us . . .

Revisited: 12/21/2011

I cannot believe I have digital images going back to 2007 – but I do! I will be looking at them a bit more and pulling out ones I rather like. The reasons for choosing this one or that will be variable as the day.

Today’s choice is one that I took in December 2011 at the local botanical garden. I wonder if it’s in bloom right now! I haven’t been up there for a bit because of the rainy weather and the holidays. I should go take a look pretty soon!

BTW, I think this is a protea, but I may be wrong. I used my now-lost Nikon D7000 and Tamron 70-300mm lens.

The Birds

the-birds

Today I cleaned up this blog a bit, and in doing so created pages for each month of the years I’ve been doing this . . . over four years.  In July of this year, I was not in a good mood about photography or what I was doing.  My ego was quite into it, in a bad way.  Burn out is not a good thing.  While rummaging through things, I came across this picture from February 2014.  I rather like it, though it is better suited for Halloween than Thanksgiving!