Tall Trees with Autumn Leaves

Originally uploaded by dgmiami

So, I was in the Seattle, Washington area earlier this month for a conference at Microsoft when I found out that it happened to be the peak of the season for the leaves changing colors. With a little research, I found out about the Washington Park Arboretum.

The Arboretum consists of 230 acres including North America’s largest collection of Sorbus and Maple. Since I had NEVER seen this up close and personal, I eagerly drove to the park to see the famous colors of fall that everyone talks about. Boy, was I pleasantly surprised!

My GPS took me directly to the visitor’s center at the park where I promptly gathered my back pack along with my camera to capture the spectacular beauty of the colorful trees. I shot hundreds of pictures (many bracketed for HDR later) as I walked along clearly defined paths in the park. The colors of fall are indeed something to be seen first-hand. Whether you are in the Pacific Northwest, or elsewhere, take a drive to one of these areas in the middle of October and see what you have been missing!

In capturing the image here, I was challenged with framing it properly. There is actually a sprinkler head on a pipe sticking out of the ground about 2 feet high just behind the center tree. I had to take small steps left or right of my optimal composition to get the shot you see here. My walk in the park was cut a little short that day unfortunately, as the famous rain in Seattle started to come down and chased me out of the park.

I hope you all get to see this in person sometime – it is spectacular!

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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!

Corvette Z06 in Miami – Speeding Away…

Originally uploaded by dgmiami

All I can say about this shot is…. WOW, this turned out great, and people are talking!

As you can see from my last blog posting, I went out to shoot a car in various locations throughout Miami. We went out to Watson Island, drove through Coconut Grove, down through Gables by the Sea, and then found a great road with no traffic to take this shot. I knew the theory behind longer exposures and capturing motions, so I put what I thought was right for this shot into play…

First and foremost as to use my newly purchased tripod. I found an “open box” at Best Buy and saved twenty bucks, paying $30 for this one. Since I saved that money, I also bought a monopod as well. After setting up the car facing away from me, I put the tripod in the middle of the road and yelled at the driver – “GO!” – about a half second before hitting the shutter. Why the delay? You have to give time for human reaction! Figure it takes 3/4 of a second for someone to react to something like this if you try it out.

I set the camera to 400 ISO, 18mm, for a 6-second exposure. It was rather dark already and I wanted to make certain I captured as much as I could with the street lighting and what was left of the sunset off to the west (right side of the picture here).

Find a pedestrian overpass somewhere and start playing with your camera until you figure out what setting is just right for what you are dealing with. I worked on some of this during my recent trip to Las Vegas as shown in the night shot below. If you don’t take the time to play with your camera, the only other way to get a shot like this is pure luck! Here are some more samples of night shots with time exposure – click for larger images:

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Corvette Z06

Originally uploaded by dgmiami

Sometimes one sets out on a hunt for the perfect location to take pictures of their subject, only to find a surprise location on the way home!

Today I drove down to Watson Island with a friend to get some pictures of his car in front of the Miami skyline. We went there, took the pictures from several angles, and then it started to rain.

We decided it was time to move on and see how the rest of the day would go. Perhaps we would come back if the rain stopped and take a few more pictures before heading in for the day. We ate lunch in Coconut Grove and decided to continue towards home.

As we drove through Coconut Grove, we observed a great photo stop. I jumped out of the car and started shooting… The result – awesome!

If you are taking pictures for fun like me, don’t forget to take a look around while driving to and from your selected location… you may drive by a place that is perfect!