First Fotolia Download

Had my first sale at Fotolia today, Stone Tile Texture:

James L Davidson - Fotolia.com

Black Widow

After shooting about 250 different black widow shots, I finally got one that works!! I have been finding many Black Widows around my house this summer, but they haven't made it easy to Photograph. I've been wanting to get some nice Macro shots for Halloween, but I've been unsuccessful so far, until this one, which is close, but still not what I have been hoping for. I will clean up the isolation on some of it to resubmit to the other sites, but I at least finally got one!

This Black Widow was discovered Thursday night by Ryan, my stepson, as he was getting ready to put the trash out. She set up her nest in our trash can and was hanging out, waiting for one of the flies to swing by. Unfortunately, she was a ways into the can, about halfway, and the trash at the bottom was pretty ripe, but what one will do for a photo... Needless to say, it involved taking a big breath, stepping in and putting my face halfway in the trash can, snap a few shots, and then step out to breath... Not Ideal Conditions, but sacrifices must be made!! I'm sure my neighbors are what's wrong with me... Anyway, the white trash bag actually helped provide a good background to bounce the flash off of. I would have liked to try again, but I think she went out with the trash as I haven't seen her since.

Freeway Traffic

I've been meaning to get around to taking these photos for a while now, so Saturday night I finally got around to taking them. They were kind of successful, but I want to go back and revisit them, hopefully a little earlier by maybe 15-30 minutes. However, these two just got approved at ShutterStock and Fotolia, so I guess they were somewhat successful, I guess I'll find out if anyone downloads them!!

One of the issues that I have with the images is that the sky is getting too dark. I wanted a little more of the Dusk look, which is what I was looking at, but it didn't come across in the image. Noise was a big issue that I had to deal with, I am shooting on a Canon 30D, and even at ISO 100 and trying the long exposure noise reduction, the sky was terrible!! I ended up duplicating the layer in photoshop, using the median filter to remove all noise, and then with masking just the sky, lay it back over the original at about 70% opacity so it brought back a little texture. I'm hoping that if I catch it a little earlier, there will be enough light in the sky to get some nice rich color, but not too early so that the lights aren't visible.

The moon was rising during the shot as well, but with needing the wide angle, it didn't fit well with the photo so I removed it.

First Download from Dreamstime

Had my first download from Dreamstime, still nothing from Fotolia or iStock, however iStock as only reviewed three of my initial 15 photos in the past week.  They seem to be taking the longest to review images, plus the approved photos have not shown up in their searches yet... It is funny what passes at one agency but not others...

Revisited

After speaking with my Father on Father's Day, I am going back and revisiting a few of my older posts based on his critiques.  At the same time, I just heard back from iStock, I didn't realize they worked on the weekend, too much noise in the images, I can try again in 3 days.  Shutterstock also has slowed down since Friday, last week it stayed steady through the weekend, but this weekend nothing...

This first image is fairly recent, but as my Father pointed out, there was too much empty space above his head, so I re-cropped it, placing his right eye two-thirds up, which feels a bit better.

The original post was on April 13th, 2009 titled "Qutub Shahi Tombs in Hyderabad"

The following two images were from an old post, "Dirty Laundry" July 30th, 2008.  My father critiqued these a while ago, I just hadn't gone back to revisit them yet.  The critique was regarding the harsh white door frame on the right edge of the image.  Originally I left it in, trying to find some sort of balance, and contrast to the soft reflected light, but was never quite happy with it.  After cropping it out, the door frame seems to add enough balance and it helps the sliver of light on the laundry basket with not having it have to compete with the edge of the frame, but I'll let you judge for yourselves!

Cruisin' on the Bajaj Avenger!!!

I was approved at Shutterstock today and currently have 8 photos up, will be adding more soon...

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Forlorn Traveler

Morning at the Taj Banjara

Dhurika

Waiting for a new car in Bangalore

It was 11:00 at night, just flew into Bangalore and our driver got a flat.  He fixed the flat, but there was still an issue with the spare, so we waited in the warm Bangalore Night at a truckstop for a new car to arrive...

Nobody likes Bangalore Traffic...

Qutub Shahi Tombs in Hyderabad

We visited the Qutub Shahi tombs, the tombs of the Dynasty that built the stone Golconda Fort and founded Hyderabad.  

This is the tomb of the Daughter of the 4th King, Wife of the 5th and Mother of the 6th ruler of Golconda and Hyderabad.

The preparation room where the bodies are preserved for burial.

This is the Tomb of the 3rd ruler, who founded Hyderabad.  This sarcophagus is empty, there is an exact duplicate on the story below that contains the body.

Big Bear

We took a trip up to Big Bear last week, along with the dogs and hiked a bit on the PCT.  Missy and KD had a blast chasing each other around, vying for control.



Tested a couple of Long exposures with the 30D, the long exposure noise reduction did a much better job than anticipated, however battery performance in the below freezing wind was horrible as expected.  While there is the instant feedback and lack of development needed for digital, I still like not having to worry about battery life with an old manual camera and just bracketing and experimenting with f-stops, films, and time.

A couple of star trails and an image of the Orion Nebula, shot at ISO 1600 f2.0 for 1 second.  With only having a static tripod versus a telescope mount with tracking, I was impressed with what the camera got.