I headed out to take some photos of Rochester’s Skyline at sunrise yesterday. It turned out to be overcast, but in the end it didn’t matter all that much. While this wasn’t the photo I was envisioning I did capture the skyline fairly well using two long exposures with a 50mm lens and a really tight aperture. The tight aperture required a long exposure but gives the star effect on the lights. The small aperture also gives a really deep in-focus range. The resulting image actually has a lot of details which are hard to see at this resolution but are in the full size one. There are antennae on the tops of buildings, stones on the shore, branches on the trees, details in the arches of the Plummer building and more! This was definitely an improvement over my first skyline shot of Rochester but I still want to improve it.

I also grabbed a few images of the local goose population at Sliver Lake Park. The camera had hard time metering the exposure correctly and the resulting shots needed much more manipulation. It was really fun to be so close to the geese while they paddled around in the stream. They didn’t like me around but generally ignored me. Hoping next time to be better prepared to get some action shots of them – it was simply too dark to be able to capture motion.

There are a couple more photos on Flickr, but these give you a good idea of what I accomplished. Noticeably missing – pictures of Gretchen and the kids! I did get one of Oskar… Doh! Next time…

We hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful Winter Break (assuming that applies to you!) Everyone has left the Alyn Family residence and we’re back to school today – just in time for the temperature to get really cold! Over break we visited, ate, laughed, Xavier made some funny faces and we all made some art. We had a really great time!

For those who aren’t aware, the images on Flickr are marked as “Copyright” so people don’t use them in magazines etc, but you can still get the high resolution photos. Click on the photo page on Flickr and then in the top right it says “View all sizes.” For the photo above, it will open the photo in a window with a listing of different available sizes, including “original.” You can open that version and save as you normally would. That’s the highest resolution available. The first photo of the boys above is one we took a few weeks ago using a fancy schmancy 50mm f/1.4 lens I rented.

If anyone is thinking of getting me something from that list, please let me know who I have to thank! I really have been enjoying it. I’m working through the composition chapters and advanced techniques. These are a few of the photos I’ve captured – more to come!

Thank you again!

If you want to support my continued learning, this is a list of gear I’m interested in buying.

Happy Thanksgiving!