Here's a couple more from out little adventure this past weekend...

This first one is of Slippery Rock Creek from the Eckert Bridge. With much of the areas south of us getting slammed with snow, I anticipated that we would get at least a little snow. As it turns out, we got absolutely none! Not a single flake! Unfortunately, I was really hoping for a couple inches of fresh snow to cover the scene and really give it that bit of pop that only comes from fresh snow... So what do you do when the snow doesn't arrive? Well, in this case, I managed to process the shot in black and white in such a way that makes it kind of look like there is more snow than there was.

Mouseover the photo for the original color version to see the difference...

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D Mark II, Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM at 47mm, 1/160th second at f/11. ISO 100. RAW processing in Adobe Camera Raw, B&W conversion in Adobe Photoshop CS5 with Nik Silver Efex Pro.

Here's also a B&W conversion of the semi-frozen Kildoo Falls. The transformation here isn't as dramatic, but it still brings out more detail in the photo. I'm a little torn as to which version of this one I like better...

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D Mark II, Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM at 18mm, 1/4th second at f/16. ISO 100. RAW processing in Adobe Camera Raw, B&W conversion in Adobe Photoshop CS5 with Nik Silver Efex Pro.

As I type this and look at these cool (pun intended) winter photos, I am also excitedly looking forward to this summer when we will be taking a trip north to Maine to see puffins! I just made our reservations with the boat today, so now I can start planning the other pieces of our trip soon!

I've also been thinking a bit more about the other styles of photography that I've been neglecting in my pursuit of wildlife photography recently, and I have a couple ideas forming in my head for a couple interesting shots. We'll see if they come to fruition.

- Bill

So after a couple requests for more landscape photography, I made a point to get out and see what I could find. We stopped at McConnells Mill State Park, and made our way to Kildoo Falls which was mostly frozen, but the water still flowed within a column of ice which really made for an interesting experience. We had visited last year, and you could hear the water rushing inside the column of ice, but I especially liked the little window that was open this time.

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D Mark II, Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM at 18mm, 1/320th second at f/5.6. ISO 800. RAW processing in Adobe Camera Raw.

You can sort of see the water splashing through the mostly frozen waterfall, but the video below really helps to illustrate what a cool effect it was...

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D Mark II, Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM.

I've got a couple more to share from this little trip, so stay tuned.

- Bill

Ok - so admittedly, I intentionally have not posted in a while, but that was so that I could post my 600th post on the six year anniversary of starting my blog. A lot has happened over six years, and I've taken a ton of photographs (I honestly don't even know how many!). I have done some bigger posts for other anniversaries, so I wanted to do something similar again... but how to do it.

Then it hit me, why not take a look back at my top six favorite styles of photography. Some have been a strong interest since the start (like macro photography of spiders and bugs), while some are pretty new (videography - ok, I know it isn't technically photography, but it still requires a camera!), and some I only enjoy sometimes (landscape), though others I'd do every day if I could (underwater), and some I work hard to get (wildlife), and others that I don't work for but allow it to come to me as the subject warrants (black & white). Of course sometime I am doing multiple styles of photography all at once. But let's take a quick stroll through some examples of each style with some photos that may have gotten over-shadowed or missed for whatever reason throughout the years...

MACRO Definitely my favorite form of photography, macro gives me the chance to show things that most people overlook or never even see. Of course, a lot of the time, those things are the "creepy crawlies" and spiders that most people don't want to see anyway... but I find those things fascinating. Particularly jumping spiders - my absolute favorite macro subject. But macro can be very versatile - spiders, bugs, flowers, abstracts, underwater, fungi, just about anything. And when other forms of photography just aren't feasible because of bad light conditions or such, there are always macro subjects to be found.

BLACK & WHITE This is a style of photography that I have to admit I don't work at at all. I let this one come to me. If the scene or subject screams to me to be shot in black & white, I might see it while I'm taking the photo or sometimes not until I'm home and processing the photos on the computer and sometimes still not until months or years later looking back at the photo. The great thing about B&W photography is it can be merged with any type of photography, and as you'll see, I've tried it on just about every style of photography I do. Actually, that makes me realize that I have yet to ever convert a macro spider photo to black & white... I guess that will be an upcoming project! While I was tempted to process some new photos for this little set, I decided to just dig through the archives to find ones I'd processed previously and get them some due screen time...

WILDLIFE Wildlife photography spans a number of areas for me... birds, reptiles and amphibians, mammals, truly wild, and zoo kept animals. All of it is a huge draw to me. Luckily, Anya and I have moved to a place where we get exposed to so much more wildlife than we did before. As such, I was able to pick this entire assortment from photos I've taken right here on our property or close by (technically the owl and the snake were from the local park where we go to walk the dogs). This is definitely what I probably consider one of my most difficult forms of photography. The amount of patience and luck required are simply staggering at times, and the time investment is one I wish I could devote more effort to. But as I said, luckily all of this is right outside our door, so the convenience factor certainly is helping me to improve and get better shots all the time!

UNDERWATER Well - what can I say about underwater photography other than I wish I could get to do it more often! It is a very challenging form of photography, and quite often by the time I'm getting into a groove and starting to feel like I'm able to get more creative with my shots, that's exactly when the trip is over and it will be another year before I get to try again. Honestly, if I could go diving every day, or even every weekend to hone my underwater photography skills, I would. For now though, I'll just have to be happy with the once a year that I do get to go experience and record such amazing things!

So there you have it... six styles of photography, six years worth of trips, experiences, passion, sights... all recorded and shared here in 600 posts. Amusingly enough, at three years, I made the claim that I looked forward to three more years but figured a site redesign was in order before then and I'm still using the exact same site. I do think that needs to change, but part of my reluctance is the fantastic compendium that this site has become for me. I quite often refer back to old posts to share things again or even just a reference for myself. So hopefully I can figure out the challenge of upgrading this site while maintaining the integrity of all of the history that I've built here. For now though, I'll focus on continuing to capture and share photos like these!

Thanks for stopping by!

- Bill

PS: If you are interested in exploring further into some of these examples, the section headers and the "button" below are links to the history of posts that have been tagged with that label, so if you want to see more of any specific style of photography, just click and explorer!

Otherwise known as "What I did over my Christmas break" - ok, not the whole break, but I did spend a couple days off-and-on working on this video... picking clips, editing them, putting together a sequence, and then finally picking a song to go with it. Take a look and let me know what you think.

For the most immersive experience, I recommend viewing in full screen mode.

Technical Data: GoPro Hero4 Black with Backscatter 3.1 Dive Filters, Edited in Adobe Premiere Elements 11. Music: Keeps Me Breathing by Approaching Nirvana

Enjoy!

- Bill

A very prominent 22° Halo around the moon on Christmas night...

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 EX DC HSM AF at 12mm, 1/3th sec at f/11. ISO 800. Raw conversion and cropped in Adobe Camera Raw,

- Bill

While that last shot really made me look at multiple ways to convert the image to black and white, these two were much easier as these conversions really stuck out for me and worked perfectly for what I wanted to portray with the conversion...

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM at 27mm, 1/120th second at f/8. ISO 800. RAW processing in Adobe Camera Raw, B&W conversion in Adobe Photoshop CS5 with Nik Silver Efex Pro using Preset 030 - Film Noir 1.

Mouseover the images to see the original color version.

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM at 27mm, 1/120th second at f/8. ISO 800. RAW processing and cropped in Adobe Camera Raw, B&W conversion in Adobe Photoshop CS5 with Nik Silver Efex Pro using Preset 020 - Fine Art (high key, framed).

And as a bonus, here's a heavily cropped shot of a Peregrine Falcon sitting atop another piece of driftwood. This particular piece was probably 200 yards away, so the sharpness produced by my Canon 100-400 Mark II lens was definitely very surprising. I really expected any of the bird photos at this distance to be completely useless, but surprisingly I was able to salvage at least a couple for slightly more than identification photos.

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM at 400mm, 1/200 sec at f/11. ISO 800. IS Mode 1. RAW processing and cropped in Adobe Camera Raw.

We'll get back to the underwater shots here soon - I still have some gems to share from that trip (and hopefully at least one more video if I can get the motivation to put another one together).

Thanks for stopping by!

- Bill

And now for something completely different... </Monty Python>

Well, to be entirely accurate, we'll look at six rather similar things that are still pretty different in their own respect. We'll take a little break from the underwater photography and look at some photos taken just this past weekend in Presque Isle State Park. Anya and I went to the park to do some birding, and while we didn't see much in the way of birds, we did see some cool driftwood on the beach at Gull Point. As soon as I saw it, I knew I wanted to do some black and white photography of it.

What I didn't realize was that picking which B&W conversion I liked the best would be a very big challenge.

Original Color	Preset 001 Underexposed (EV -1)	Preset 005 High Structure (harsh)
Preset 010 Low Key 2	Preset 020 Fine Art (high key)	Preset 024 Full Contrast and Structure

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM at 26mm, 1/80th second at f/8. ISO 800. RAW processing in Adobe Camera Raw, B&W conversion in Adobe Photoshop CS5 with Nik Silver Efex Pro.

As you can see from the original color version, it was a heavily overcast day, and even the horizon between the sky and the surface of the lake blended into each other and vanished. I wanted to either eliminate the sky or somehow draw some detail out of it. I think each of these conversions were at least partially successful in that goal, but I was amazed at how each conversion produces almost a completely new feel to the scene.

Mouseover each thumbnail to display the larger version, then cast your vote below for your favorite.

- Bill

Alright - it is time to liven things up a bit! Why not come along for a dive today. We'll go visit the site called Thunderdome.

The story is that there was a French TV show called Thunderdome where they would have people free dive down into this giant cage they have at the bottom. There, the free divers would try to collect pearls or something that was being shot out of a cannon. The free divers were able to get breathes of air from "mermaids" who had scuba equipment. The problem was that free divers hold their breath... air from scuba equipment is compressed, so if you try to hold your breath with compressed air in your lungs and you ascend, the air expands and you can have severe injuries and death. The show apparently ran into this problem and people were hurt or killed.

They canceled the show, and left the cage there. It has fallen apart, but still provides for a cool dive site, and you can see how the marine life is making use the structure and making it their own.

Technical Data: GoPro Hero4 Black with Backscatter 3.1 Dive Filters

I've got tons of videos from this trip because I mounted my GoPro on top of my Ikelite housing for the 7D, so I was able to take video and macro stills all week long on almost every dive! So stay tuned, there are tons of other goodies to come!

- Bill

Anya and I made another trip out to Cuyahoga Valley National Park last week in hopes of getting some good fall foliage photographs, but sadly the trees out there were still green for the most part. I did take a number of shots at the Blue Hen Falls and put together a couple HDR images. In general, I've never been a huge fan of HDR because they usually have a very clear processed look to them, but I still give it a shot from time to time.

Take a look at this attempt (mouseover the images to display the larger version) and place your vote for which version you like best.

Single Shot
HDR with PS:CS5
HDR with PS:CS5 + HDR Efex

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM at 18mm, Various exposures at f/16. ISO 100. RAW processing in Adobe Camera Raw, HDR processing in Adobe Photoshop CS5 and Nik HDR Efex Pro.

- Bill

I need to go diving.

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 II at 53mm. 1/120 sec at f/14. ISO 160. Ikelite Housing and Port with dual Ikelite 161 Strobes in eTTL mode. Raw conversion and cropped in Adobe Camera Raw

If you're curious, that is a Goldentail Moray (Gymnothorax miliaris) from a trip we took to the Turks and Caicos a couple years ago.

- Bill