Well, I've been working on the blog pretty much every night, but without new posts, there isn't really much to show for it. First, let me explain what improvements have been made. Comments are now turned on for anonymous users - I debated for a long time about this to keep the site clean of spam, and decided that with a captcha and administrative approval of comments, that it would be ok. If things go well, perhaps I'll turn off the need for approval or find other mechanisms to keep it safe without the need for approval. Also, you'll notice a new logo up top - I'm still up in the air whether I'll keep it for good, but the more I look at it, the more I like it. The logo was made by my friend Douglas over at WeakNetLabs - Thanks Douglas!. I pulled the random gallery images offline for now, and will continue working on getting them back up in some form since it seemed like folks liked that feature. Those were the major improvements (at least the ones that people will see), and I have a bunch more in the pipeline, so keep checking back to see them.

And now onto today's photo:

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Tamron 180mm f/3.5 Di SP LD 1:1 Macro, 1/330 sec at f/3.5. No post production. Cedar Creek Park, Westmoreland County, PA (thanks to Tony for suggesting I provide location details)

Why This Photo: Well, I continued the nerdy cleverness here too. I figured a post with the title of New & Improved would work well for one of the first images taken with my new camera. I was out wandering around on a frigid afternoon in Cedar Creek Park, and I spotted a waterfall and some plants with berries up on a hillside, and as I made my way towards that I found these delicate little plants with these very interesting ice crystals on them. So I stopped and took a few quick shots.

What Works: I feel this is a good use of depth of field with a nice soft background, and the fact that there is sharp focus despite being handheld with macro lens is nice. This is a great example of spotting of an interesting subject - these plants and ice crystals were tiny, and considering I was already making my way to another subject I had spotted, I could have just as easily passed right over these if I didn't have my eyes open.

What Doesn't Work: My impatience got the best of me here. I had a very interesting subject right in front of my lens and instead of stopping and really working with this subject, I only took a few quick shots and moved on. I feel the angle of this shot (and the others I captured) do not show off the intricateness of the ice crystals as I had wanted. I should have taken the time to look at this subject from multiple angles and taken my time with a shot. I could also have taken the time to setup a tripod or at least used the monopod for even sharper focus. (Granted this was found in a fairly wet marshy area, and I wasn't too keen on kneeling in the water much longer, I could have improvised something and spent more time here). Especially in this case where I rushed off to another subject that wasn't going anywhere (if I were tracking some wildlife, it might be different), it is disappointing knowing I got sub-par shots because I was impatient.

What do you think? I'd love to hear other folks' critiques of my photos, feel free to leave a comment with your opinion - it doesn't matter whether you're critiquing it from a technical photography standpoint, or just giving your gut reaction to the photo. I'm hoping to be able to learn from the comments and opinions I gather from this blog.

I'm going to try and stick to a Mon/Wed/Fri schedule with posting, so stop back soon to see what else I can come up with.

- Bill