same angle, different light

I was coming back from lunch today and noticed the sky was very grey and mottled with dark and light.
I had my camera in the car and took a minute to snap 9 bracketed shots (camera on a tripod).
I ran three of the exposures through photomatix and then opened the image in photoshop.
I retouched dirt spots in the grass and then used the dodge and burn tool, alot, to create some dark and light areas and give it the feel i wanted.
I was very tired tonight after a very long week but i could not stop on this one till it was done.
I am glad i stuck with it and was able to stay awake.

watching the light

I was mowing the lawn last night and noticed my neighbor, who is a very talented artist, working on a wood carving.
The sun was high and not in the right spot but was moving in the right direction. I would mow a strip and look at the sun, mow a strip and look at the sun, etc, etc. It was still probably 20 minutes from being where i wanted it but my lawn was done and he was about to mow his, so i was going to loose him. I grabbed a 50mm f1.4 and my 80-200 f2.8 and started shooting. The long lens was ok but the 50 set to 1.4 was where i wanted to be. I shot a bunch more to the front of him and was pretty well done when i thought i would try a side angle into the sun. Flare was an issue of course and i had to use a bit higher angle than i wanted and hold my hand above the lens as a shade. I was waiting for him to hold the carving in a way that i could see it a bit better but i didn't want to instruct in any way. I wanted this shot to form up all on its own.
In photoshop i did a couple curve adjustments, a couple vignettes, retouched a bit with the healing tool, and used the burn and dodge tool quite a bit. I dodged, set to highlights, around his right eye and the highlight on the front of the birds face. I wanted to try and create two points that would attract the viewers eye.
As usual i was very glad i grabbed my camera or it would have been another one of those shots that got away.

one light after dark

I haven't shot much lately and have been itching to get the camera out.
A new profile photo for facebook is always a good excuse and it worked tonight.
I set up one light (sb flash) bounced into an umbrella and up fairly high placed to the left of frame.
I wanted to capture some blue in the sky and there was not much there so had to shoot at f1.4 with a 50mm lens.
I set the flash to its lowest setting and used a long shutter speed, 1/10 sec i think to bring up the sky.
Hardest part was focusing as it was dark out and camera was searching alot. I had a couple shots that i really liked that were out of focus.