So todays image came from after the farewell dinner of the Jay and Varina workshop. Most of the workshop crew went back down to the beach near Brent's place and shot the sunset and the night sky. We all went out separate ways to do sunset shots and then joined back near some rocks to do some star shots and light painting. Now it wasn't the usual kind of light painting with various colors and light trails, more just accenting the foreground to even out the exposure with the stars. 

I wasn't too keen on the composition that we all had started with, so I made my way down to a different spot to find something that complimented the milky way better. I shot down at a lower level with Simon and Dianne for a bit and was able to eliminate the midground and light pollution and get some nice foreground rocks with the milky way (a very modest milky way) shining between the rocks. 

Night sky photography is one of my favorite things to shoot. This was a bit noisy and a tad less impressive than I was hoping but I thought it may want to be seen so it is todays pic of the day :). One of my goals for my photography is to teach a night photography workshop in the future. I love stunning milky way shots and creating time lapses and star trails. So hopefully all the time shooting, processing, and learning will pay off some day :)

I hope you enjoy todays Pic of the Day :) Cheers

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"you don't know what you've got till its gone" - I never knew the meaning of that saying more than when I was in Australia and I didn't have access to the apps I use for tracking the sunset, stars, moon, and milky way for photography.

So last I left you, I was leaving for holiday vacation to Oklahoma, followed by a trip to Philly for work, followed by a trip to Australia for a workshop with my fellow F Stop Lounge Contributors Jay and Varina Patel. Alas, I have returned. So let's jump back into the pic of the day posts with this shot I took at Jay and Varina's workshop.

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The unpredictable sun

This shot was taken at a place called One Mile Beach. Leigh and I awoke at 4am, drove to this location, and met the crew to shoot the sunrise. Upon walking down to the beach I noticed that the clouds were very heavy, and to me, didn't seem likely to break up for a sunrise shot. So I immediately went of into the woods looking for an interesting vantage point of the beach. Unable to find one, I went back down to the beach, took a look at the sky again to make sure there was not going to be a decent sunrise, and then pointed my camera down to shoot some interesting rocks and rock pools as the waves came in and out of them.

After about 15 minutes of wandering around away from everyone else, shooting different things that caught my interest, I noticed that everyone had made their way half way down the beach to a certain spot. This made me wonder if I had been wrong about the clouds, and perhaps they would break to let the sun peak out for a second. 

So I hurried off down the beach to get to a point where the sun would no longer be behind this land mass you see on the right. And as soon as I got in view of the sun BAM... The God rays appeared. Which goes to show that you should never assume anything when it comes to clouds. They like to get your spirits down and make you think there wont be any light to capture. But if you are lucky, they may give you a quick peek at glory.

I got dozens more shots from this location that morning that morning that may make pic of the day sometime in the future. You can also go check out my facebook or instagram to see some quick jpegs and cell phone shots I uploaded that morning. 

Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you enjoyed todays Pic of the Day :)

So unfortunately (for the website) I am going to be doing a lot of traveling in the coming weeks/months, and I do not have a laptop that is able to efficiently process my images. So Pic of the Day is on hiatus for a little bit. :( It makes me sad but until I can save up for a macbook to do my editing and web site stuff on the road, I just don't have the means to produce the images until I return home to the office :/

I love taking, editing, and uploading my daily photos so this is a downer for me but hopefully soon I will be able to get the proper equipment. So I will leave you with a few images I took this month that didn't make the cut for Project December, but they were still okay images. 

Project December has been a collaborative adventure with a couple of my fellow F Stop Lounge contributors Carly Gill and Suzanne Clements. Be sure to click on their names to check out their Pics each day and continue along as they finish out the month. 

I am so happy that I got to take part in this challenge, even though I am not able to complete it. It pushed my photography and has changed the way I go about my days. It sucked at times, but putting my creative mind and photography skills on a deadline each day made me grow and it is something that I recommend every photographer try. I will take plenty of photos while traveling, so I will be uploading them daily when I return. Until then, enjoy these shots that didn't make the cut :)

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I got a little lazy today... My sunset shot was out of focus... Not much else to say :/ I failed.

Here is a pic I got while playing around and waiting for the sun to set. It's not great but I guess it's better than nothing. Hope you enjoy

Project December is a collaborative adventure with a couple of my fellow F Stop Lounge contributors Carly Gill and Suzanne Clements. Be sure to click on their names to check out their Pics for today :)

Well today is a little different. I recently got the newest version of my favorite xbox racing game, Forza 5. So I don't game a lot, mainly just a way to hang out with the guys after the wife goes to sleep on the weekends. But I find myself drawn to this game for one, well maybe two reasons. The first is that it is the most realistic racing game I can get on the xbox. I love cars and so this is obviously fun for me. But the big reason is because Forza features a photo mode. 

So this allows me to do anything from pose my cars in different landscape or garage settings for photos or pause the game in the middle of any race and go into photo mode live. I find myself playing around in photo mode much more than actually racing in the game. While its not exactly perfect, it is pretty darn close. It gives me everything from exposure to shutter speed and live editing options. 

Since I LOVE automotive photography, this is literally like a dream. Set up any car in any scenario and freeze time to get any shot my mind can conceive. It is literally the best thing ever for an automotive photographer. Which is why I am so drawn to it. 

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So to change things up a bit, I decided to do a Forza photoshoot for todays pic of the day. Of course it couldn't just be snap a pic and upload it, that would skip all the fun parts ;). So I took three bracketed images and then converted and tonemapped them into an HDR. Then had my phun in fotoshop and tadaaaa. Todays pic of the day :) A Newtography edited, Forza 5 HDR :). I had a lot of fun making this, and I am sure there will be more pics to come from this game. If you are on xbox live feel free to friend or follow me, my gamertag is "Newlun". Hope you enjoy todays pic :)

tonemapped HDR

Newtog Edit :)

Project December is a collaborative adventure with a couple of my fellow F Stop Lounge contributors Carly Gill and Suzanne Clements. Be sure to click on their names to check out their Pics for today :)