David VanKeuren's Photography: August 2007

Photographic Trickery

Heres a composite of the two lower images. Its the shot that I wish I had gotten, that I could have gotten, but I wasn't in the right place at the right time. Thank goodness for Photoshop!

High Desert Lightning - A Goal Fulfilled

I was able to accomplish one of my photographic goals earlier this evening, that is to capture lighting in an image, and oh boy, did I ever! We had a really spectacular lightning storm pass through, and I was lucky enough to get some shots. Heres a couple of them. The top photo was taken from a gravel lot behind St. Charles Medical Center and the bottom photo is a shot of "The Center" an orthopedic clinic near the hospital.

Heres a sunflower for your desktop wallpaper

This is a nice size for a 1280 x 1024 desktop. Enjoy!
This image is also available for purchase! Click HERE!

Sunflower

Heres a nice sunflower to wash away the bad stuff from the Aliens vs. Predator film clip below.

Aliens vs Predator 2 - Red Band Theatrical Trailer

"I say we take off and nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure." -Ellen Ripley, Aliens

"They mostly come out at night, mostly" -Newt, Aliens

"You are one, ugly mudafucker" Dutch, Predator

"You got chocolate in my peanut butter! You got peanut butter on my chocolate!" -Reeses

Camera Phenomena and Pop Culture Mythology

Above you see what many folks out in the world would think is some sort of paranormal apparition (no, not the cat the light streak). Its not, and I want to do my part to stop this nonsense. The urban myth of paranormal 'orbs' in photography has really exploded with the popularity of handheld digital cameras. For the layperson, the above image would be impressive, but let me share with you what I know about the image. First the aperture of this image is F2.8. Thats a really, really wide open aperture, and because of that, objects in the image easily fall out of the narrow depth of field of the image. So what you are seeing is most likely dust, reflecting the camera flash. Why the trail? Because the image has a shutter speed of 1/30th of a second. That may not seem long to you and me, but to a camera thats a heck of a long time. So, the dust was moving at the time of the exposure. Why was it moving? Ha! Because the intake for the heating system is in the room that it is traveling into. So, what you have is reflected dust, caught in air currents, moving toward the intake for my central heating system. Not a ghost. If you came here to see a photo of a spooky 'orb' may I suggest you read a book instead. Oh also, ghosts don't exist, now go play outside.

Diamond Lake

Heres a shot of Diamond Lake that I took yesterday, for a free 1280x1024 desktop wallpaper, just click on the image and 'save as'.
Enjoy.

Last Nights Shots Noise Filtered and Color Corrected

I applied some noise filtering using Photomatix's noise filtering program. I also employed some color correction to these images using Scott Kelby's book "The Photoshop CS2 Book for Digital Photographers". I think the images look much better now, and I shouldn't have released them prior to putting them through a proper work flow. Enjoy!

Images from the Pine Mountain Observatory

This is the home of the 32" telescope at Pine Mountain.

A 30 second exposure of one of the telescopes at the observatory.

One of the telescopes at the observatory, this is also a 10 minute exposure.

This is a 10 minute exposure focused on the North Star. Notice the amount of movement in the starfield around it during those 10 minutes!

Its really late, I'll add comments later about the visit. For now, enjoy the images!