I went to visit my parents over the holidays in Naples, Florida. Here’s a few shots from the trip. The bad news was that my camera died on January 2nd, but the good news is that it gave me an excuse to upgrade to the Canon 7D. More thoughts on the 7D coming soon …
This past weekend, the Washington DC metro area was hit with one of the worst storms in the past decade or so. We got about 2 feet of snow where I live just outside the district. I took these shots during the middle of it.
And this was a nice way to get warm afterwards!
A few months ago, my good friend Brady at “Capture My Utah” project to my attention. In a nutshell, the idea was to hold a photography contest sponsored by the Salt Lake Tribune, and to publish the winners in a Hardcover “coffee table” photo book. Over 12,500 images were submitted, and roughly 300 photos made the final cut. Brady went to the release party in Salt Lake City two nights ago, and I’m pleased to say that three of his images were included in the book, as well as two of my shots. The book is available for purchase at the Barnes & Noble website for around $30.00, and you should be able to get free shipping as well. You can also order directly from the “Capture My Utah” website if Barnes & Noble happens to be out of stock.
I’m finally taking some time to work on the infrastructure of the website. I’ve updated the “About” and “Portfolio” sections, and am currently working on the official Jon Tyler Photography Store! Stay tuned …
My project that started early last spring has finally been completed. I was in the right place at the right time, and it landed me my first major publication in the Washington Times!
The online version of the story can be found here: http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/sep/06/national-park-seminary-history-preserved/
I just realized that I’m working backwards chronologically with my photographs from Brasil. These shots were taken in a little town called Itacaré, in the state of Bahia. We arrive midday on a Friday, and spent the afternoon on one of the nicest beaches I’ve seen. During my breaks from taking pictures, I spent time getting chased by the lifeguards because I wanted play in the really big waves. I haven’t finished processing all of the beach shots yet, but here’s a small sample from Itacaré.
This little boy is my new, 2 year old nephew, who is cute beyond words!
Sorry for the brief hiatus from the site. I got married two weeks ago, so I’ve been a bit busy getting things ready, traveling to Brazil, going on a honeymoon, etc. I’ve started going through my photographs from my 3 week trip to Brazil. These first two shots are from a small island in the Camamu Bay in Bahia, Brazil. My wife and I took a small boat tour to five different islands in the bay, and this one was our favorite.
I went to visit a cousin in New Market, Virginia last weekend, and stumbled upon a Civil War reenactment of the Battle of New Market. The battle was fought on May 15, 1864. Even though the Union forces had the Confederates outnumbered, they were the victors. I shot a full memory card, and pushed some of the shots through an “Aged Photography” filter in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. I tweaked the lighting and contrast a bit on the photos, and these are some of the results.
According to Wikipedia, Bokeh (derived from Japanese, a noun boke, meaning “blur” or “haze”) is a photographic term referring to the appearance of point of light sources in an out-of-focus area of an image produced by a camera lens using a shallow depth of field. Different lens bokeh produces different aesthetic qualities in out-of-focus backgrounds, which are often used to reduce distractions and emphasize the primary subject.
This past weekend, I got back into some of my explorations of abandoned buildings. There’s only so many shots you can take of empty hallways, so I decided to take a slightly different approach and use some bokeh techniques to get a different feel for my pictures. I took some time with my 50mm f/1.4, and opened up the aperture all the way. It gives a very tight focus on a small subject, and the rest of the image gets very fuzzy and out of focus. Here’s a couple of shots that I really like:
I also really like this shot, which is essentialy a “reverse bokeh”. I set the focus on the chair in the back of the room, and blew out the focus on the door frame, hopefully dragging the viewer into the middle of the picture.
I was out in Salt Lake City a few weeks ago, and on Saturday night, my friend Brady and I went out to the Great Salt Lake for sunset. These two photographs were taken about 15 minutes apart, but obviously they had much different results. It didn’t take long for the sky to change from a really bright orange just moments after the sun dipped behind the mountains. Just a few minutes later, I got the second picture, which is dominated by pinks and purples.
More pictures from my Salt Lake City trip can be seen here.