Close up image of red tulips at a nearby tulip bulb farm

Clever title for a blog post featuring an image of red tulips isn’t it? Ok, if I am going to be totally honest I really couldn’t think of anything other than “red tulips” to title a post that features a close up image of red tulips. Now that I think about it, this post might do OK if someone is doing a web search for red tulips. :-)

I made this image last week while visiting the DeGoede Bulb Farm down in Mossyrock, WA.  For those who care, I shot it with one of my Sony a6000 bodies and used my Sony 70-200 f4 G lens.  I then used the new On1 Photo 10 to bring out some detail, add some dynamic contrast and boost the reds and greens.  For those that follow me, you probably know that I have been a fan of, and at times a beta tester for, the On1 products going back a number of versions.  The new version 10 of the package is no exception, in fact it might be their best release yet.  The folks over at On1 have been doing a great job of brining a number of great apps together into a more complete photo editing package.  I do have plans to post some workflow videos of how I used the On1 software.

That’s it for today.  I hope that you enjoy this image, and as always, please click through to see a larger version as well as other images from my Macro and Still life gallery.

A seven image panorama of the Lower Lewis River Falls in southwest Washington State

I have wanted to visit the series of Lewis River waterfalls since moving to western Washington back in 2012.  Lower Lewis River Falls, featured in this post, is the most popular, and possibly the more photogenic of the series of falls, but the whole area has a lot to offer photographers.

We started the day photographing tulips at the DeGoede Bulb Farm in Mossyrock.  After shooting the bulb farm, images from that shoot will be making their way to this blog soon, a few of us decided to make the trek south to Lewis River.

Lower Lewis River Falls are the first of the Lewis River Falls that you come to if you enter the area from I-5, and it was actually a lot further away than we thought it was which lead to us spending a really long Saturday out shooting and not actually being able to explore the area as much as we would have liked.  We shot both the lower and middle falls as well as some of the small un-named falls along the highway but we never made it to the upper falls.  I am already planning a full day trip back to more properly explore the area.

For those interested in the image that is featured in this blog post, It is a seven image panorama.  Each of the seven images used to create this panorama were shot vertically with one of my Sony a6000 bodies and the Sony 70-200 f4 G lens.  I then stitched them together in Adobe Lightroom and stylized the image a bit in the new ON1 10 suite of software.

I hope that you enjoy this image, and this is one that I would suggest your clicking through to see a larger version.

Marcro image of yellow flowers in my back yard

I really enjoy looking at macro photography, but to be completely honest, I don’t actually do a lot of macro photography.  I’m not really sure why, I find macro shooting to be quite relaxing and I have all the gear to do it.  I went out into my back yard the other day and saw these very pretty yellow flowers growing on what I think is actually a weed, so I decided to grab my gear and make this yellow macro image.

As pretty as I thought the little yellow flowers were, I ended up being more fascinated with the green buds that hadn’t had the yellow flowers emerge from yet.  I decided to have those green buds be the main subject of my image.

I hope you enjoy this little yellow macro.  With it being spring, I have put my macro lens and LED ring light into my camera bag and hopefully that will motivate me to slow down, smell the flowers, and then take a picture of them.

The reflection of the ocean sunset in the wet sand of the Pacific Ocean near Ocean Shores, WA

The last two months or so have been particularly stressful with my day job.  I have had a couple projects that haven’t gone quite the way that I had intended them to and I have been traveling just enough that I can hardly remember the last time I had a full weekend with two days off in a row.  Because of that, I really wanted to get out to the coast for some relaxation and reflection.  It didn’t hurt that there was a really nice sunset and I was able to capture this image of the sunsets reflection in the wet sand.

One full weekend, meaning now thinking about my day job for two whole days in a row, wasn’t nearly enough to “recharge my batteries” but it did help.