Photography

I am part of  a photography group in my area ( I may or may not have mentioned this before) and each month we meet and come up with a homework assignment for the next month. Last month we were to work with HDR which is a program in Photo-shop (or other image programs out there)  were you take multiple shots of the same photo at different shutter speeds and combine them together to form a new image with deeper detail. The result can be anything from super realistic almost 3D to something that looks like a pastel art project or cartoonish. Having never used any sort of photo tweaking program I was really nervous about this assignment but I went home downloaded a trial version of Photo-shop and started taking pictures. In the beginning I was very frustrated because the photos I took I liked and really had a hard time tweaking them to something that was no longer the original. I felt like I was screwing with my ability to take a picture and turning it into something unrealistic. I felt like I was cheating but I got over that because art is a variety of things not just what I think it is. Some people consider HDR art, some people consider photos that are tweaked beyond recognition of the original shot art, and who was I to decide that I was above this sort of experience. I ended up driving past the graveyard in my town and it had these rows of trees covered in red and orange leaves and they were beautiful. Now being the chicken I am I drove around for about half an hour before I finally talked myself into pulling over getting out of the car and taking some shots of the trees. I did not know what the proper rules are with a graveyard. I have always had a fascination with them and think there is a lot of beauty in them but I did not want to offend someone by walking around taking shots. I ended up taking about 30 pictures of the trees and the lane that circles the grave yard and then came home and stared playing with the HDR some more. By the time I submitted my pieces for the group viewing I think I had 9 total HDR photos completed. I was actually very proud of some of them. At the meeting I got pretty good feed back from the group and then I was surprised to find out that in April as a group we will be hosting some of our pieces in a gallery for the public to view….. my first though OH CRAP! I was a tad freaked out but once I calmed down I realized this is an amazing opportunity and I should be excited. I am not sure what the photos are going to be of yet or how its all going to work out but I did join the committee that is going to arrange the entire things so that I can be in the loop and once I know what I need to be shooting pictures of I will be out there circling around for hours convincing myself to get out of the car and get that shot that I am looking for. I am way excited and cannot wait for the new year. So many amazing things are starting to happen and I cannot believe how incredibly lucky I am. I will try to keep you posted on the events and the process…. hope everyone has a wonderful holiday

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