Expeimenting with silhouettes

This week Gizmodo is trying a new photo challenge called sillhouettes. I want to participate, but it also got me thinking about some cool photos I took last month while in Michigan during the sunset at a pier on Magician Lake. I can't use them in the contest because they have to be current photos from this week, but I thought that they might inspire me. I wanted to post them here to share them with anybody that might be interested in checking them out. You should also check out Gizmodo, one of my favorite sites of all time.

The top shot is probably my favorite. We were right on the Marina and I snapped a picture of a pylon with this light on top. I didn't realize how much it would stand out against the darkening sky (I think this was about 15 minutes after civil twilight began). The settings are 32mm focal point, f/4.2, 1/25 exposure time, 600 ISO.

The second and third shot are shot with the same settings, only on the second I used a manual focus from much closer to focus in on one of the plant stalks. I am pretty happy with how the manual focus came out, though, I do wish that I had timed the shot or gotten the idea about 30 minutes earlier to get some more blues in the background. Settings used are 38mm focal point, f/ 4.5, 1/100 exposure time, 400 ISO.

I have another picture to share with my one follower (SWEET!). I took this picture at the Chicago Half Marathon this past Sunday. My roommate and girl friend ran the race. This is a picture of my roommate overtaking a girl in the last mile. I like the way they are in focus and the crowd is not. This shot was kind of lucky to get. All morning I had to keep adjusting the film aperture and shutter speed to compensate for the sun. I took over 100 shots and this is the best one I got of him I think. Camera Settings as follow: 1/160 sec at f/9.0, ISO 200 66mm focus

Here is my first attempt to use my camera to create a series of shots of cloud cover over my family's house in the suburbs of Chicago. It is nothing special, just a test run of my intervalometer that came in the mail!

My first few pictures.

So I am adding a few pictures that I took with my new camera. Some of these I actually took before the blog was created. But, I thought it would be fun to show them anyway. I have some details about the settings on the camera for you to look at too.

The top left picture is a long exposure shot using my 18-105mm lens at 18. The iso is set at 200 and the f/ at 3.8. The exposure was for 30 seconds. I also used a high power LED light to paint the foreground a bit. The sailboat picture was taken at 1/340 of a second at ISO 400 with an f/ of 8. The final picture was taken at 1/400 of a second on my rooftop at ISO 400 at f/ 3.5

Hello and Welcome

Hello. I have decided that I am going to start blogging about my photography journey. I recently purchased a new camera, a Nikon D90 with a 18-105mm zoom lens. I will be sharing pictures, sharing techniques, as well as looking for advice and sharing advice along the way. I hope to remember everything I have done by using this as a chronicle of my journey. Wish me luck!