Archive of ‘Personal’ category

Earth Day

Greenhouse flower - ©TimeLine Media

I am a day late on the Earth Day celebration of our planet and the efforts of the modern environmental movement. Similarly to other photographers, photos of nature from flowers, and landscapes are a popular subjects. Take Ansel Adams, Galen Rowell for example. These nature photographers have inspired and continue to inspire those that are passionate about capturing their world. Moreover, these images are made to preserve scenes for future generations.

Greenhouse flower - ©TimeLine Media
Greenhouse flower – ©TimeLine Media
Washington DC Cherry Blossoms - ©TimeLine Media
Washington DC Cherry Blossoms – ©TimeLine Media

Spring Blooms

Our world needs to be conscious of how we are affecting the natural systems with advances in technology and our growing population. With all the coverage of the missing airliner in the Indian Ocean, the search has been complicated by so much floating trash that confuses humans and satellites that are combing the area. Undoubtedly, there is need to find, refine, and deliver fossil fuels. However, there are impacts to the environment that needs to be managed by companies, governments, and everyone concerned with preserving a healthy planet.

Daffodills blooming - ©TimeLine Media
Daffodills blooming – ©TimeLine Media
Washington DC Cherry Blossoms - ©TimeLine Media
Washington DC Cherry Blossoms – ©TimeLine Media

I admire the many nature photographers that are capturing environment today to help illustrate the effects that we are having on the world around us. With this in mind, John Paul Caponigro and James Balog come to mind. Their images of animals, glaciers, and alien-like landscapes really give you a sense of how diverse, connected, and beautiful Earth is. It makes no doubt in my mind that their work will influence decision makers of all kinds. There has been so much progress in my lifetime, but clear that this is a drive that needs to continue. The continuing observance and support for Earth Day initiatives is encouraging! Here is hoping for more good decisions for a healthier world.

Flowering cactus - ©TimeLine Media
Flowering cactus – ©TimeLine Media

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Creating a Facebook Cover photo – Tech Thursday

Sunrise Tidal Basin and Jeffeson Memorial - ©TimeLine Media

The use of a good cover photo in Facebook is something I have underestimated in my social media marketing. I do not change my profile photo very much. However, I am thinking that the cover photo can be changed more frequently. Hopefully it will not change how visitors recognize and remember my photography site. Recently, I used some images from my cherry blossoms photo walks to create a new cover page for my personal Facebook page. Here are the steps I used to make it.Looking through the Facebook help files on cover photos, they give the exact dimensions that the application uses:

At this time, cover photos are 851 pixels wide and 315 pixels tall. If you upload an image that’s smaller than these dimensions, it will be stretched to this larger size. The image you upload must be at least 399 pixels wide and 150 pixels tall.

Looking at this ratio, I know that it will be a panoramic photo – one with very long dimensions left to right compared to the dimensions top to bottom. Consequently, there were two photos that immediately came to mind:

Social Media Templates

Sunrise Tidal Basin and Jeffeson Memorial - ©TimeLine Media
Sunrise Tidal Basin and Jeffeson Memorial – ©TimeLine Media
Sunrise Tidal Basin and Washington Monument - ©TimeLine Media
Sunrise Tidal Basin and Washington Monument – ©TimeLine Media

These two were taken with the X100s which has a fixed 35mm lens. It is not very wide, and I wanted to get the entire Tidal Basin from the Washington Monument to the Jefferson Memorial. However with all the other photographers setup there at the time, I needed to work quickly. So I just made some photos looking straight ahead to the Jefferson first, then panned my camera to the left to get Washington Monument. I checked the camera to make sure there was a lot of overlap between the two photos before moving out of the way. After processing the photos in Lightroom, I brought them both into Photoshop CC which has some nice automated tools for combining photos into a panorama. This is the result:

Photos combined by Photoshop CC - ©TimeLine Media
Photos combined by Photoshop CC – ©TimeLine Media

The crazy bend in the perspective comes from the movement of the camera focal plane with respect to the horizon. Photoshop combines all the important elements seamlessly in the middle of the frame. I then brought this combined PSD file back into Lightroom because I like how the crop tool works there.

Cropping in Lightroom for Facebook cover photo - ©TimeLine Media
Cropping in Lightroom for Facebook cover photo – ©TimeLine Media

For cropping, I entered in a custom dimension of 8.51 x 3.15 to match the settings from Facebook. When you do this, your photo will look its best as a cover because there is no stretching or converting being done before it is displayed.

Cropping settings in Lightroom - ©TimeLine Media
Cropping settings in Lightroom – ©TimeLine Media

After uploading, it looks great on both the PC and mobile versions! Let me know if you have any other tips for making these.

Cherry Blossom Facebook cover photo - ©TimeLine Media
Cherry Blossom Facebook cover photo – ©TimeLine Media

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703-864-8208

Peak Blossoms – Washington DC Photography

Photographers at sunrise Washington, DC - ©TimeLine Media

Yes this blog post is very late today. I do have a good reason, though. The cherry blossom trees in Washington, DC are in peak bloom! Being a native northern Virginian, this has been an annual outing for my family for a VERY long time! The earliest photo that I have of my swaddled very well was less than a year after I was born. The crowds were a little less packed that the ones today, but there were already a flood of people walking the Tidal Basin with their best cameras in tow.

Nanay and GGB at the Cherry blossoms - ©TimeLine Media
Nanay and GGB at the Cherry blossoms – ©TimeLine Media

I am about the same age today as my mother was in the photo on the left. She still enjoys walking through the blooms, and taking lots of photos! It has never become cliché, and if anything, the event has become more popular than ever. It is inspiring to see so many photographers out there! And I don’t just mean at the peak times in the middle of the day. You have to carve out a spot even an hour before sunrise! That is another testament to digital technology making photography more accessible.

Photographers at sunrise Washington, DC - ©TimeLine Media
Photographers at sunrise Washington, DC – ©TimeLine Media

Yes it does look like there is a lot of competition for photographers out there – and there is. For me, though, this is something I would do whether or not this was my main profession. But knowing what people do for photos out there really pushes me to make even better photos! There are just as many visions for capturing images as there are people behind the camera. The tools may be similar, but they can be manipulated in an almost infinite number of ways!

Portrait at cherry blossoms peak - ©TimeLine Media
Portrait at cherry blossoms peak – ©TimeLine Media

Get out there this weekend before the blooms blow away! They are already starting to fall from the trees as of Friday evening. I have lots of editing to do with the many photos made over the passed few days. I’ll be sure to update the blog as I finish them. Happy Spring!

Self Portraits at cherry blossoms peak - ©TimeLine Media
Self Portraits at cherry blossoms peak – ©TimeLine Media

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703-864-8208

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