Art by Wade

For me, I have a few photo tips that really help me. Just getting out a few times a week with my camera and taking a walk in the park or city helps me improve my skills. I tend to look at everything (Lauri has seen me do this and has said I don't miss much). Remember to look behind you (and up). The tip I wanted to share was shooting flowers in full sun. I really like the look of backlit flowers as they just glow.  I tend to bracket my shots, use a macro or zoom lens and find some flowers with the sun behind them. I normally have a small extension tube attached to get in even closer.  There are a few public gardens near me that have a ton of flowers, so this where I go for a lunch time walk. I process the files in lightroom, and combine the images using the photo merge HDR right click menu. Or I just chose one of the bracketed images, if I like it better than the HDR image. The first image below is the combines HDR image from a walk in Duke Gardens. In the second image, I used...

One thing that has helped me become a better artist (with my camera) is the Photography Scavenger Hunt . This group of wonderful photographers gets together online every couple of months to share their creations from a list of given Hunt words. The Hunt is currently on round 34 and I have participated since round 2 (It’s hard to stop!). I have met many of these scavengers in person, first local folks then later by going to their yearly meetup. Everyone in the group is passionate about photography and willing to share and help newcomers as well as veterans. A very welcoming group and tons of fun! If you are a photographer of any level you can play along. We use all kinds of cameras from our phone shots to pro cameras. All photographers are welcome! This is the sweetest, goofiest, most helpful group of people around. So don't be shy, you know you want to join us. The Famous "Photography Scavenger Hunt" sign-up will be here before you know it! To never miss a thing - click t...

One of my favorite submissions for the 25th round of the Photography Scavenger Hunt was for the word Pencil. My final image is shown below, but I didn’t actually draw this. I used several Topaz plugins, which I’ll detail for you after the final image. Final Pencil Image Here is the image that I started with, which is a simple macro shot with the pencil balanced on the Hot Wheels car. Initial Photograph The first thing I did was clean up the image in Lightroom. Then I sent it to Topaz’s Glow plugin, where I used the liquid lines filter to make the car look more smooth and give it a little pop. I masked out the pencil, so it would always look real. Here’s that image Second Edited Image Next, I used Topaz Texture plugin to give the whole car a sketched look. I masked out the pencil again. Third Image with the Sketched look applied After that, I sent the image back to Topaz’s Texture plugin and used the black and white sketch filter on just part of the image and masked out the parts I want...

Does winter have you wishing you could create more art, but you’re stuck indoors? I was feeling the winter blues and decided that today I would get out and photograph something new. I had to go to Durham, NC for a client house picture, so I planned to shoot something in Durham for me, too. It’s amazing how once you get out there with your camera (or sketch pad or notebook) the ideas start flowing. My friend, Lauri Novak, wrote an article about this recently (link below), where she talks about getting out there and shooting. She was so right! And as a bonus I got some steps in too! I was thinking I’d shoot downtown Durham, but decided that I’d head over to Duke Gardens instead. Even in winter, the gardens have some interesting plants, paths, trees and buildings to shoot. I’ve been to the gardens so many times, I have a route I take that lets me hit the interesting spots. I started with the white garden which is behind the visitor center, then walked over to the learning center. After th...

Thirteen years ago, I received a Canon DSLR as a birthday gift (I did ask for it). I wanted the camera to capture life moments of our kids participating in sports. I did use the camera for that purpose for the first five years or so. Later, when the kids were grown, I started experimenting with my camera and trying to make art. I liked to draw and paint when I was younger, so I thought this could be something I’d enjoy. At first my shots were more of the “snapshot” variety, you know the pictures I talking about. You see something happening and you take a quick snap. Gradually, I started to learn more about the camera settings and began to see in my mind’s eye what I wanted to capture. Of course, visualizing your shot and actually achieving it are two different things. Over the years, my skill improved and my processing of each photo also improved. One thing that helped me improve was doing a 365 project, which I did back in 2012 (and yes, I should do another one). Having to take a “dec...

  I thought I’d share my edits on this image of a Blue Heron that I took this afternoon.  Here is the original image, pretty much straight out of the camera (I shoot in RAW, so this is a jpeg version). This was my best image from a group of about thirty shots I took of the Heron, must were just standing so not very interesting. The fist things I do in Lightroom are to adjust for the lens and then fix any white balance and color issues. I also cropped the image a lot and added a little contrast. For this image I also lightened the birds head, neck and legs a little. My finished edits looked like this: I liked this finished look, but wanted the background to be a little more blurry or abstract. I have been using Topaz’s Impression 2 plug-in for a while and thought I would try that. I tried several preset paint effects in Topaz and finally settled on a basic Painting effect. I then added a mask to the Heron’s head and neck to remove the painting effect. As I wanted his head and e...

  I thought I’d share the basic steps I took to turn my camera image of the Tree Trimmer into the final image. I took this image while visiting Duke Gardens. I actually went back after first seeing the worker as I decided I really wanted an image of him cutting the top off the tree. I did get that shot, but decided that I liked him removing the next section better as there were fewer branches to obstruct the view of the worker. I spent about 30 minutes watching him work and taking pictures from different spots. Here is the image I started with, basically straight out of the camera, with no edits. As you can see, the image is pretty good, with isolation and pretty good contrast, etc. Next, I played around in Lightroom for a while and decided I liked the look of higher tonal contrast applied to the image. I used a preset for this, but the main changes were to bump Clarity, Shadows and Whites, while pushing down Contrast, Highlights and Blacks. As shown below. Here is the image w...

  Besides creating software and database applications for a world class lighting company, I’m also an amateur photographer. Everyone needs something they are passionate about, something that sparks your curiosity and gets you out of bed in the morning. For me, that is photography. When I am taking photographs or editing them later, time just flows and I lose myself in the task. This feeling of being in the zone is a wonderful feeling and can be enjoyed by anyone. Find your passion and hold on! Cheers, Wade About the image: My entry (image above) for Stripes in the Photography Scavenger Hunt  earned me an Honorable Mention from Sandra Parlow. I am honored to be selected out of the 273 images submitted. The image was taken at the NC Art Museum in Raleigh NC. I have taken many photographs of this building and was happy that this recent shot got noticed.