The home by the stream

Last Art Show of the season

It’s that time of year again, that it is the end of my Art Show Season this weekend. If you are in the Carroll County, Md area, but sure to stop by the Carroll Farmers Market in Westminster at the Ag Center this Saturday from 8 am to 2 pm.

Since it is the last show of the year, it is also a customer appreciation day, and I will be giving up to 25% of my prints. So if there was something that you liked during the year, but didn’t get it, this weekend will be your best deal of the year.

The home by the stream

Abandoned A-Frame home and broken footbridge

Not totally sure that no one lives in this home anymore, but I’ve always loved the look of it by the stream. Even though the footbridge is no longer usable, I think it still ads character to the scene

Sunset Wheat and Capture One Express

Capture One Express for Free

disclosure: I am an affiliate of Capture One

Capture One has created Capture One Express for both Fuji and Sony users and made it available for free. It is a complete editor with catalog (DAM), and all the tools you need to edit an entire RAW or JPeg image. The pro version adds the ability to do local edits, but you can get your feet wet and do most of what you need with the express versions.

Quick intro to the Express version and how to activate it.

Get Capture One Express for Fujifilm

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Get Capture One Express for Sony

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Download a Free Trial of Capture One

Capture One does have a sale on their Styles for all versions of Capture One, but ends tomorrow, June 30th, 2019

Check out the Capture One Styles

Image for Today

While out taking a few images for a long term project which will take me at least nine months I decided to see what different kind of compositions I could get.

Below is one of my favorites of the evenings experiments in different compositions. I may post some others later on

A field of wheat with the great backdrop of an awesome sunset.

Wheat Field at Sunset
Sunset Wheat

#CaputureOne #fuji #sony #affiliate #freephotoeditor


Thinking of My First Home

Recent passing of an Aunt

With the recent passing of an Aunt that was the last of my fathers immediate family, I been thinking a lot of New Zealand, my first home. Even though I left New Zealand as a young child, I still consider it home and still have many family members there. I do occasionally get to go back and visit but not as often as I like.

For the photographers out there and anyone who likes outdoors, New Zealand is a beautiful county and I think is one of the places where you can experience every kind of environment from the Snowy Alps in the south to Desserts in the central highlands, and of course everything in between like the tropics or at least subtropics.

The photo below is one of those places that I just had to visit my last time back home.

Cathedral Cove

Cathedral Cove on the Northeast side of the Coromandel Peninsula of the North Island. There is a little hiking involved to get down to this beach and some area’s are very steep, but the track was well maintained when we were there.

Cathedral Cove New Zealand
Cathedral Cove Beach on the New Zealand North Island East Coast

#NewZealand #CathedralCove #Beach


Luminar for the Mac Available now

Luminar

Luminar is Now Available for download.

 

Get it at the launch pricing for a limited time of $59 for new customers and $49 for existing Macphun customers. That’s a $10 savings off of the retail prices

And NOW, you can Try it BEFORE you Buy!

So give it a try as I’m sure you will realize this is the best photo editor for the Mac for beginner to Advanced users.
Once you download and install Luminar, you will get access to a series of 26 videos showing you how to make the most of Luminar’s features and options.

 

Here is my first photo edited with Luminar and one of the first I took with my Fujifilm X-T2

 

The tracks in the Fall

#Macphun #Luminar #Photoeditor #FujiFilmUSA


 

Sunrise along the lake

Sunrise only the lake at Centennial Park

Got up early to meet up with a friend at a recommended spot at Centennial Park. For someone that is usually not up before sunrise since I work the later shift in my office, getting up before the sun does is out of the ordinary for me. But I did it and it was well worth it I think.

Didn’t get to meet up with my friend since he had gotten a new phone and forgot to set his alarms, but he picked a great spot for a sunrise. We caught up later at another spot which I’ll post photos from later on.

 

The Sunrise

Sunrise at the lake

The water was fairly still so I was able to get a great reflection of the sunrise and the trees. Aurora HDR 2017 did a great job processing this 3 bracket shot.

 

Folks out enjoying the park in the early morning.

Unknown out in a canoe in Centennial Lake in Columbia.
A peacefull morning out in a canoe in Centennial Lake in Columbia.

20161030-dsc_8162
Taking a break from running to take a picture of the view

#fall #Sunrise #lake, #leaves, #park


Another Year Another Calendar Month

Another year another calendar month that features my photo

Humbled again to have two of my pictures publish in the JHFCU 2017 calendar. This year I ended up as the main photo for the month of August and in October as a side photo. No matter where I am I’m always grateful for the exposure, so be sure to get your copy and look for my photos.

 

The image selected for the Month of August.

United States Lightship Chesapeake
United States Lightship Chesapeake

 

The United States Lightship Chesapeake in the Inner Harbor Baltimore during the City Light Festival in 2016

 

The side photo for October

The Johns Hopkins Hospital Dome in Fall

 

#JHFCU #Calendar


Shot the Cherry Blossoms

Shot the Cherry Blossoms in Washington DC

I had a pretty productive day shooting the Cherry Blossoms around the Tidal Basin in Washington DC. Spend pretty much the entire morning down there and walked the entire basin.

It is taking a bit longer to edit the photos as after coming home I discovered I must have dirt on my sensor or somewhere in the camera. So it is taking me a bit longer to edit them as I have to clean the dirt spots of each picture. Although there is software out there that can remove the spots it is always best to make sure your camera is clean before your trip. In my case I did check out the sensor and cleaned the lens before this trip, but either the dust is very small on the sensor or I had dirt on my ND filter. I’m going to re clean everything and see if I can figure it out and do some test shots to see if I got it clean.

 

Washington Monument and the Cherry Trees

The Cherry Trees along the Tidal Pool with the Washington Monument in the background.
The Cherry Trees along the Tidal Pool with the Washington Monument in the background.

One of the first shots I got during the day and turned out as one of the better shots I got during the day. It is from the bridge on the way to the Jefferson Memorial.

#Cherryblossoms #WashingtonDC #DC #Flowers #Cherryblossomfestival #tida


Going to see the Cherry Blossoms

Going to see the Cherry Blossoms Tomorrow

Making the trip down to Washington DC to take pictures of the Cherry Trees that are now in full bloom along the Tidal Basin.

This year I’m attempting to arrive before Sunrise, but we will see how that goes. For those who know me, getting up at 4am to make the trip is the middle of the night for me. So this might be a bit rough in the morning and will have a nice supply of coffee to keep me away.

If you want to see what I get this year, check back here or visit my Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/markdoddphotography/ Be sure to like the Facebook page so you can get notified of the posted pictures and any live videos that I do.

 

If you are planning on going here are a few tips.

  • Arrive around sunrise if you can to avoid the crowds. But even this early there will be people there.
  • Take public transportation. Parking is already tight on a normal day, but even more so during this time, so public transportation is the best way to get there.
  • If taking Metro, the Smithsonian is about the closest stop to the Tidal Basin.
  • Weekdays are best, but the weekend is crazy packed with folks enjoying the trees.

Washington Monument through the Cherry Trees

Cherry Trees in Washington DC

This is one of the photos I took on my trip last year. It was a weekday trip, but I didn’t get down there until the afternoon. Even though it was a weekday, people were everywhere enjoying the view.

#CherryBlossoms #Washington #DC #TidalBasin #Spring #flowers #Cherry #Tree


Aurora HDR Software and Macphun

Great Photo editing software from Macphun

My primary photo editor is now Aurora HDR that was developed by Trey Ratcliff of Stuck in Customs in collaboration with Macphun. If you do HDR photography I would say this is the best program to use for that.

Macphun makes a whole series of photography apps in addition to Aurora HDR. When I’ve taken a single photo instead of the multiple brackets that you need for HDR photography I sometimes use the Macphun apps of Intensify and Noiseless CK to do select edits, but they do have an entire suite that you may like.

Check out the complete line of Macphun software. Click on their logo below to visit their site.

 

 

And don’t forget you can get 10% off any of their products using my coupon code

 

Mac Phun 10%off Coupon Code MDPDEAL

 

A recent photo edited with Aurora HDR

This is my photo of the Johns Hopkins Hospital Billings Building also know as the Dome.

I know it needed a little punch added to it so I brought it into Aurora HDR, the Macphun/StuckinCustoms application. Click the slider to compare the 2 photos of the original iPhone image and the edited image from Aurora HDR. It didn’t need much adjustment, but you see the possibilities especially in the sky.

 

#Macphun, #AuroraHDR #photoeditor #Freestuff


 

Made it through the storm

We survived and made it through the storm.

The weekend storm is now the largest single snowfall event on record for the Baltimore area. The only time we have had it worse was the back to back snow storms in 2010. What made it worse was that it was one right after the other, but still not the amount of snow we received this time.. Like many around us, I spent yesterday digging out for 6+ hours just to get my 100 feet of driveway clear and unbury the cars. We got lucky in that a neighbor’s son who had a plow on his truck cleared our spur of the road and another neighbor had already cleared the main private road out to the county road.

Thank goodness I bought a snow blower a few years back or I think I would still be out there and very sore instead of just a little sore and stiff. I’m still recovering from all the exercise today though with sore muscle that haven’t seen that much use in a while. Despite all the work it takes to clear it, it was a beautiful sight to see everything covered in snow there for a while.

The beauty of the snow

20160124-DSC_3252

The scene outside out house before we got to clearing the road. Yes our road is buried in there between the stake and the pine trees. Now that things are cleared and all the snow is piled up it doesn’t look so pretty.

I was hoping to get another series of photos with the snow on the trees, but by the time we got things cleared out enough the snow had fallen off the trees. It was just way to deep for me to walk in before so I wasn’t able to get the entire tree line as I’ve done in the past like I had hoped to. Also, the snow was only on the south side of the trees this time. During the storm the high winds from the north kept the snow from sticking to the north side of the trees.

A tip when taking pictures of snow

I learned over time from various web sources that when you are photographing snow you should slightly overexpose your photo. The thinking behind it make sense to me in that all the snow glare is making your sensor think it is much brighter than it actually is and thus it is setting your f-stop higher that you want it to be, an Aperture of f11 instead of f8 for example. Since the f-stop is higher it is letting is less light and as a result you will get dull looking snow instead of the crisp white snow that you see. For the above picture I over exposed my photo by 1 f-stop. It is straight out of the camera untouched.

Here is a photo I took back during the 2010 storm before I figured out this tip. And you can see how dull it looks. Granted it was cloudy in this picture but it was still very bright outside at the time.

DSC_0173 - 2010-02-06 at 14-48-03

#Storm #Snow #Snowmagedon #WinterStormJonas