Moab Landscape

There are some incredible flowers in the desert.

Not to mention just the incredible landscape.

I love the different patterns on the rock and wanted to get a few different black and white ones because they are so cool!

And then there is sunset

And I just happened to be there for a full moon. Night time photography is definitely an area I need to keep working on but I like what I got!

Visiting the Seattle Locks

Photo Challenge 2014: Week 48 Landscape - Cityscape/Townscape

This is Bellevue, WA. Not exactly the best location for a photoshoot but it's really hard to get up and away from trees without standing in the middle of the road or interstate...

Photo Challenge 2014: Week 44 Landscape - Nighttime

This was actually a challenge. It was hard to find a place to photograph because there are so many trees here. And then it was like below zero outside, not really.... but it felt like it. We pulled out the middle seat of our van and filled it with blankets and pillows. So the boys watched a movie in the van while I took pictures. What did I learn? If you're going to do a 30 second exposure, you'd better have a really high quality tripod and some sand bags to stabilize the camera. Even though I didn't touch the camera at all and it was on a tripod, the pictures are still a little blurry.

Photo Challenge 2014: Week 43 Nature & Wildlife - Twilight

This was an adventure. I've never really distinguished twilight from the sunset. It was always: if there's color in the sky, it's sunset. I'm actually still unclear on the matter... Maybe I'll google it. Regardless, the sky was incredible last night.

Photo Challenge 2014: Week 39 Nature and Wildlife - Water Meets Land

What did I learn doing this? Don't try to hand-hold the camera while doing landscape photography! Also, to get a pretty sky, you need some kind of a filter, or need to be smarter than me about the time of day. And can I just say, I took these after running a marathon and I was in so much pain but had to keep moving and squatting to try to get my shot. I did alright. I honestly didn't care enough to get the perfect shot because I was so exhausted. AND I just got Adobe Lightroom and these are the first edits I did with it. I love it already. It's so much faster than what I was doing before.

Photo Challenge 2014: Week 36 Horizons

I was kinda bummed because I had been saving my horizon picture specifically for when I went to the Portland beach. I had hoped to be there for sunset or for there to be some cool clouds or something but it was absolutely clear out there and it was not an option to stay for sunset. So here is the best I could do!

Photo Challenge 2014: Week 32 "Tilt Shift" Quasi-Landscape

Once again, I am so glad I'm doing this photo challenge. I had NEVER heard of tilt-shift. True tilt shift is doing with a crazy lens that actually tilts and shift. I will never own one because it's just not practical for everyday shooting. But the concept is cool and there are programs and filters that can replicate the effect pretty well. The idea is to make something look miniature.

I didn't get to try it as much as I would have liked because there are too many trees around here. So these next few photos are appropriate, though they really make me hurt inside. I love Washington because of the trees and to watch them tear them down like they are garbage in the way is devastating to me.

So here's my attempt at tilt-shift:

We went beautiful drive past amazing houses to a little airport and LOVED watching the planes. It was fun to try tilt-shift with them.