Given that the trip passed through some pretty nice looking mountains, it would be a shame not to include a landscape shot. Here goes.
I chose this photo because of the trees in the foreground. I think they really stand out. I'm very happy with their sharpness, as well as the variation of tones and hues. I'm not sure how I managed to pull this off. The right lighting (bright sunlight above and to the right) as well as accurate focus were contributing factors. In processing, I mainly upped the saturation and contrast. Too much? You be the judge. I like it for now. Maybe next week I'll take another look and think it's too gaudy.
The next shot is my friend gearing up in his tent in the morning. Technically, I don't have much to say about this photo. I just like how it captures what I would call a camping mood. With the warm sunlight filtering through the tent fly, which frames the scene to give the impression that we're peering into the tent. He's happy, bright eyed and his hair is a mess. Ready for another day outdoors.
Had to give the stacked lens macro thing another try. Here's a flower about to bloom. I really like how the shallow depth of field causes the background to be a single wash of colour (I've also got a shot of a purple flower with green background). I don't really mind how much barrel distortion is going on. This was taken with my 18-55mm zoom set at 55mm, with my 50mm prime reversed on top of it.
Here's the trail of a jet that passed overhead. I think it turned out pretty crisp.
I believe I once heard someone say not to put things in the corners of your photos. The heck with them, I think it works out well here. I really like how the sunlight projects through the image, as if it's a spotlight aimed at the little cloud. Again, some may argue that the colours are overly saturated, and that the sky doesn't look this way when you look at it with your eyes. To them I say: your eye and my camera differ in how they see the sky, and this image is my camera telling your eye what the sky looks like in its opinion.
Lastly, here's a long exposure (6") near dusk of our raft pulled up on a bank of river rock.
The raft itself is a little unsharp. Either because of slight movement of my camera, or because the raft was moving a bit with the water, or both. Given that the rocks on the bank are fairly sharp, I'm guessing it was mostly the latter. I like the colours in this photo. Lots of grays, with a few small splashes of yellow and green. I think it gives the photo a tranquil (as opposed to depressing) feel. I left the saturation as is, and lowered the contrast to go along with this theme.
