Your Boat is Ready!

Originally uploaded by dgmiami

During my current trip to Alabama, I took a ride into Oak Mountain State Park on what most considered a horrible rainy afternoon. While driving through, I saw a lake to my right and was fortunate enough to find that NO ONE was around! Their loss, my gain…

When I came around the corner, I saw a beautiful clash of colorful paddle boats and canoes sitting at the dock. The amount of color was just too much to walk away from, so I parked in the empty lot, put on the best lens I had with me, and walked out to the dock looking for the right angle to get this capture.

All I can say is walk around your subject until you can see what you really want to capture. I never imagined I would stand where I did to capture this shot. But, it was the best for lighting and color. Time was also on my side when the sky opened up and I caught the gorgeous blue sky with gray and white clouds just above the tree line. Don’t stay in if it is raining, you never know what you will find!

Sunset at the Boat Ramp

Originally uploaded by dgmiami

As I was driving home today, I couldn’t help but notice the light coming off of the lake near the boat ramp I drive by just about daily. With my camera in the seat next to me, I simply stopped, rolled down my window and snapped away.

Since I am still learning what to set for ISO, shutter speed, aperture, and all those fancy controls, I simply sat there and kept changing things on the manual settings until I felt I captured enough to capture the moment the right way.

To get this picture in the right balance (in my eye at least), I ended up selecting the one that looked best on my computer. It was set to 1600 ISO, f/5.0 at 1/25 with a focal length of 46mm. The flash did not fire and after tweaking the exposure slightly in iPhoto, the result is rather surprising.

Another reason that I call this “capturing the moment” is because when I took a look at my Flickr account today, I noticed that there was a picture of mine that had gotten a lot of attention. I captured that moment quite by accident and used everything in automatic mode. Since it got so much attention, I posted it to more Flickr groups and invite you to see it here. Your comments are always welcome here – I would love to hear your thoughts and what you think would make the next shot just that much better!  Someone asked via Twitter what camera I was using… It is the Canon Digital Rebel XSi kit for now.