Full galleries may be viewed here – http://ashleyzphotos.com/cars/events/

Took my motorcycle and car out to Marysville, PA for some quick shots with my two flashes. I like to call the Sony HVL-36AMs my nuke ‘em flashes now that I have a Vivitar 285HV (MANUAL!!!! YAY!). The sky had lots of clouds to work with, and the light was okay even though I went out later than I wanted too.

I’m not sure if I need to start exploring other focal lengths, but I’m starting to feel like I shoot certain angles only and I don’t want to get in a rut quite yet! Any suggestions for new angles, etc. are welcome!

On Friday night, I took some of my frustration with the work week and channeled it into some photography. My husband was delighted to let me photograph his baby (haha, imagine Rob delighted ;) ), his Triumph Daytona 955i Centennial Edition motorcycle. The sky was really awesome so I worked that into my exposure calculations; I really wanted that ambient light! I’m still working with full-power Sony HVL-36AM so I left them bare and moved them as I wanted the light adjusted.

Some post-production in the sky (burned it a bit) and evening of light tones. I thought it came out alright for my first motorcycle lighting project! Best viewing is the larger version on my Flickr - you have to be a contact though.

I also tried a profile shot of the bike which turned out okay. I was working in our driveway so there are some reflections I could have done without. I’m not sure if a polarizer would have helped my case here.

Comments and criticism always welcome!

I think the hardest thing about being passionate about photography is editing your work for general consumption. Tim Gruber offers some solid advice on breaking down your portfolio and showing off the best of your work.

I really would like to get something together that I can refer people to when they ask to see more of my photos, but I don’t know how much effort an amateur like myself should put into it. I really don’t have any desire to be hired at the moment (why? laziness, for one, and the notion that I still have a lot to learn!); I like shooting what inspires me when I’m inspired. I don’t even like the idea of “photographer” under my name, because I think it instills an expectation that I don’t believe I satisfy.

I think there are a lot of other photographers that do far better work than I do and work harder towards that end. I also think there are a lot of wannabes at my level trying to break into an oversaturated market. For now, I’m content to just sit back with my four-year-old camera and capture what I think is interesting.

Photo – Shackleford Banks, N.C. – black and white conversion, cool blue filter, levels and some contrast work.

I hope to do some darkroom work soon, but I’ve found the CS3 black and white adjustment to work fairly well. It’s a lot more versatile than the CS2 desat option. My proposed workflow once I have my darkroom running is to develop the film, scan it and work with the images that way, and then, if time permits, process the best ones in the darkroom.

The only thing I need is more time – I think an extra couple hours in the day would be sufficient. :)

This shot was taken one night while we were in Atlantic Beach. The day had been a washout, but the sun started to come out as sunset approached. The sun cast a very weird yellow glow on everything and a rainbow appeared. Seeing the rainbow, I ran and grabbed my camera and what I thought was my wide-angle lens (turns out I grabbed the 50mm by accident!) and dashed to the beach.

Although I had a hard time getting the rainbow in the photo with the beach (below), I really loved the effect of the sun on the eastern horizon. The colors from the sunlight really accented the blue sky and the orange sand, creating a pretty unique scene of shades.

In the top photo, I edited levels and slight desaturation on the waves where a magenta cast interrupted the flow. Bumped up the sand color slightly, but left the sky to speak for itself.

Long story short – my laptop hard drive crashed containing the only copy of my Shackleford Banks photos; I had been transferring it over, deleted the folder from my card and had made a mental note to back up the folder the next day. Sensing my complacency, the hard drive decided to fail. The next day the computer attempted to boot off of the ethernet card, which is when I realized my dilemma.

I think something physically went wrong in the drive, because attempts to use it with an enclosure were futile.

Although I was resigned to the fact that my photos of the colt (above) were gone, I happened upon a forum post that talked about image recovery and that it was possible to run eImage Recovery on an empty card and dredge up the recent photos that were deleted.

Unbelievably, it worked!

So here is the newest addition to the Shackleford Banks herd (as of our visit at least). Minor post-processing to even out the stark lighting a bit.

Yep – too many damn flowers on this blog. Oh well, have to stick to it. :)

…or perhaps it’s just a so-so image without any real footing for someone to base a critique on. I think I’d prefer someone to say they’ve seen a photo like this so many times that it would make them physically ill to see another flower macro than post no comments at all. I submitted it to a couple forums, my Flickr groups, Facebook and Twitter and gained two ‘I like it!’s (which I most definitely appreciate, but I’d love to get someone saying – more aperture to let in the flash, or needs more DOF!!).

Anyway, for the wayward soul that sees this via my blog – it was shot with a Konica Minolta 7D, Sigma 28mm f/1.8 macro, ISO 200, f/13, shutter speed approx. 1/90, flash to the camera’s left with small softbox. Any criticisms, comments, suggestions are most welcome!

Update: Got some nice criticism from the DPS forum. One told me to reshoot at a different angle and another offered some post-processing advice. I tried both; here is the pp version. I have not uploaded the other pics yet.

Finals week has kept me from reviewing my new monitor and ranking Sigma warranty service, but I managed to dig up a flower shot for ya’ll. This was taken on Maryland’s Eastern Shore in my aunt and uncle(in-laws?) spectacular garden. Their waterfront property was a treat to shoot around – plenty of cool light, botanicals and interesting bugs.