Flowers of Spring

It's still very early in spring, although we have already have our share of summer-like weather in the northeast U.S. There is always a sequence to the blooming of flowers: Crocuses, daffodils, tulips, forsythia bushes, magnolia trees, cherry trees, then small wildflowers, then onto the larger trees and flowering plants. I'm generalizing, but that's what I see as I drive around the neighborhoods in my area.

At my local nature center there is not much blooming except for a few types of small wildflowers. They are no more than 10 inches off the ground at this point, so I had to employ my tripod that adjusts for low-level shooting (and of course I was using my macro lens). Here are a few examples of the kinds of shots I was getting - adjusted with Adobe Lightroom.





Main Website: Photography by Matt Schrier

Foggy Morning

I was a bit late to get out of bed this morning, but when I did I found a nice fog-cover surrounding the house. Since the start of spring is just around the corner the birds were also active. Here are a few shots from this morning.







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Show Schedule for 2012

I have updated my website with the shows that I will most likely be attending this year. There are six shows at this time - I may add more as the year goes on.

Show Schedule

May 6 - Chestnut Hill Home and Garden Festival
June 3 - Arts in the Park - Elkins Park, Pa.
July 14-15 - Tinicum Arts Festival
August 11 - Lititz Craft Fair
September 15-16 - Doylestown Arts Festival
October 20-21- Crafts in the Meadow - Tyler Park (Newtown Pa)

Finch

Below is another bird photo from my recent shoot at Churchville Nature Center.

Winter Lace

This winter is completely different than last winter. We have had little snowfall, and the temperatures have been above freezing for most of the time. So when we had a bit of snow last weekend I was eager to get out and photograph. But I had a time constraint where I literally only had about 30 minutes of good morning light to catch the snow before it would melt and/or fall off the trees within hours. So I did not expect to find a "keeper" in this short time span, but I tried.

This scene was found at Tyler Park. Normally (i.e. without snow) I would look at this scene and say "What a mess". But with snow it takes on a completely different feel. What I like about this image is the "busy" nature of the trees and branches, pointing in all directions, contrasting with the calmness of the fallen snow and soft morning light. Do you get the same impression?



For sale at my Etsy Store

Snowbirds

It snowed yesterday, and for me that means either dramatic landscapes or birds. I chose birds, so I headed over to my local nature center to catch the activity.

Click on the image below to take you to a slideshow of a selection of nice photos I captured in the span of about an hour.



Main Site: Photography by Matt Schrier

Ocean City Morning

It was a beautiful morning last weekend along the New Jersey coast. I like the winter trips to catch sunrises because the sun rises so late. A 7:15 sunrise allows me to wake-up as late as 5:00 and still get down there in time to position myself for a nice sequence of shots.

This morning the pre-sunrise color was not that great, even though I thought the light cloud cover would provide very nice colors. But I got a good 30-40 minutes of a fantastic post-sunrise sky. I was very glad to have this because it took me much longer than I thought to locate the old 59th Street pier. I thought I was going to completely miss any good shots but I was able to get a couple of very nice ones.

Below are two choice photos from that morning.







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Adobe Lightroom

I have been a Photoshop user for years. Although I am not an expert I am able to execute most of the image processing that I need to do for my captures. But as powerful a tool that Photoshop is almost everything you do is tedious. Despite the fact that this software has been around for so many years it was never tailored or tweaked for ease-of-use. For example the image adjustment actions that are most frequently used (e.g. curves, contract, color balance, etc.) are always at least 2 clicks away in the menu structure. (Image -> Adjustments -> etc.)

I have known about Lightroom for a while, but never decided to actually purchase and use it. So when I saw this package for sale at a deep discount around Thanksgiving I just had to bite. I've just installed the software and have only used it for a few days, but I think I'm going to be very happy (and productive) with Lightroom.

For example Lightroom allows you to make quick B&W/monotone conversions of your color originals, as seen below. The process took me only a few minutes, and I had much more control over the process than I ever had before.



This is what the editing panel looks like. Each section contains nicely arranged groups of controls that make adjustments a breeze. All of this can be done with Photoshop but you need a lot of experience and/or training to get the same work done.



Original image files are not modified during the editing process. The adjustments are applied on top of the originals. This reduces excessive disk-space use, and prevents accidental over-writing of original files (which I am guilty of doing on occasion)

Lightroom has organizational tools that allow you to label and locate images much more easily even if your library includes many thousands of images.

There are many other benefits that I have not explored yet. I'll be learning these over the new few weeks and months. I expect to be more productive and to create a larger variety of images during this process.

Intimate

It is now past the fall foliage season, and although we are not yet into the cold, barren months of winter the scenery has mostly lost its color and the morning air is very cold. On this morning I was on the lookout for some macro shots that required me to get "up close and personal" with the subject matter, possibly something involving frost.

After driving aimlessly for a little while I ended up at a small local pond that usually does not offer much besides the occasional heron or egret. I played around with different compositions and focus variations until I was able to create some interesting images of the wild growth along the water's edge in combination with the sun's reflection on the pond. I like the abstract feeling of these shots.







Main website: Photography by Matt Schrier

Prallsville Mill

This is an iconic pair of buildings in Stockton NJ, right along the canal. A storm was brewing, and the lighting was perfect for just a short time. A few minutes later the dark clouds make this shot impossible.



(Click on the image to enlarge)