During a break in photography assignments, we took a trip to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. It is an easy drive from northern Virginia and is a nice break from our regular routine. Anytime you can be close to ocean waters you can really breathe a different kind of air for a nice recharge.
Creatively the ocean shore give so many possibilities.
This is one place where getting up early before the sunrise will yield fruitful
results for your photos. The far distant horizon will almost guarantee that you
will have some glimmer of morning light even during over overcast mornings. A
few mornings, I got up before the sun just to get a feel for what the light was
looking like. It was enjoyable just to be out there before the crowds arrived,
and when animals passed by both under and next to the breaking waters.
During our trip I found the beautifully set Bodie Lighthouse
a favorite subject. It had a minimal setting from where the structure was set.
The symmetry of the lighthouse and the clear backdrop made for some memorable images
that I printed for my walls at home. At night, we made a trip to the site long
after everyone else had left for the day. It was the perfect time to try a long
exposure photo. I got what I was looking for, but I left quickly after all the
snake warnings scared me from staying too long!
The time for the cherry blossoms decorating our streets has now passed. I had a note to go back and post more from this time since I made a lot of images by the Tidal Basin in downtown DC. It was the latest that the blossoms reached their peak with the extended winter that we had in this area. Luckily, we were treated to a great display that was perfect for photographers from sunrise to sunset.
These images were from sunrise by the Jefferson Memorial. There were many other photographers right around me, but everyone was very careful to stay out of everyone’s shots. I staked out a place high on the hill in between some cherry trees to attempt the often-done Memorials through blossoms. This is the first time I had attempted it so early in the morning. I will be making an effort to do this every year from now on!
The golden light just before sunrise was especially strong in this area. With the height restrictions on buildings in Washington, DC, it allows for sunlight to reach the monuments and memorials without being obstructed. This particular morning, the clouds were kind to stay away for a little while after the sun broke through the horizon so everyone that was there this morning had perfect light. The strong orange sky was complimentary to the pink blooms making for a different color combination.
Later in the day, the blooms are against a bright blue sky background. Most cherry blossoms images have this combination – classic and very good on film!
Now different flowers are starting to bloom in the area. Azaleas, dogwoods, and soon the roses will start to bud. I’ll be sure to have my camera lenses cleaned and ready for them!
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:
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:
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.
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.
