Posts in Category: Austin
Fourth (of July) Photography
You didn’t think that Fourth Photography would miss the opportunity to take pictures on Fourth of July, did you? Christmas and Thanksgiving are definitely my two favorite holidays, but Independence Day is a close third. It was my first FOJ in Austin, and a very memorable one at that. Four of our friends came to town to visit – we had a breakfast casserole and mimosas to start, went to a cookout/pool party in the afternoon, and finished off the day with fireworks downtown. Hope your July 4th was as awesome as ours!
Capitol Sunset
I know that it’s been too long since I’ve posted on the blog when I need to update 6 of my plugins and WordPress itself when I sign back in. Sorry about that folks. Anyways, I posted one picture from this set on my Facebook fan page (if you’re not a fan yet, you can click “Like” at that link) and on Twitter earlier this month, but there were several others that I thought I should share.
A little background behind this set of images: my wife was out of town, I was bored, so I decided to go take pictures of the Capitol in the sunset from the roof of a parking garage near I-35 in Austin. Obviously, I wasn’t allowed on top of said parking garage, since it’s part of a medical complex near campus, but it took about an hour before the inevitable security guard came trotting out to give me the boot. In the meantime, I took these pictures! Hope you enjoy this unique view of the Capitol – I haven’t seen many other photos from this angle. And yes, I had to end it with the classic “burnt orange” sky.
Bloom: Before and After
I PROMISE that Europe pictures are coming soon, but I couldn’t help myself with this one – it just needed more attention. The featured image for this post is titled “Bloom,” and it’s also featured in the previous blog entry. Bloom is one of those pictures I took, reviewed on my camera screen, and knew right away that I was going to love the final product. I also knew that what I saw on my camera screen wouldn’t be nearly the same as the final product. Normally, I don’t let everyone in on the behind-the-scenes stuff, but this time, I decided to do just that.
I use Adobe Lightroom pretty extensively to enhance every picture before I publicize it. Lightroom is an essential tool for importing picture files, selecting the photos I want to edit, publishing them, and creating archives of old “albums” of imported images. Most people think about Photoshop when they hear “editing photos,” but I haven’t touched Photoshop in months. IN FACT, I only have Photoshop Elements installed on my computer right now – not even a full version of Photoshop. Anyways, I used almost all the “weapons” in the Lightroom “arsenal” to get the final product just the way I wanted.
