I am so far behind on blogging that I’m writing about week 3 while thinking about taking photos for the week 5 assignment. Maybe I’m not THAT far behind.

So week 3 was about color surprises. I had some existing pictures that I thought would be good examples but using them would defeat the purpose of taking the course. Instead I decided to combine taking pictures with our trip to Boston for a wedding.  This means I would have to use an opportunistic method of photography since we don’t heavily schedule our trips based on my photo plans and this one was about a wedding and seeing friends.

However, I did get some good pictures from the trip including the picture to the left.  This photo was taken from the pier at Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art.  For those not familiar, it’s the new museum cantilevered over Boston Harbor.  There was a floating barrier and the orange of the barrier provided a nice contrast to the dull ocean.  You also got a nice contrast of textures from the ripples.

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In 2004 I took a course with Better Photo. I was very happy with the experience but have not taken another course until now. Since I now have some time on my hands (due to my employment change) it seems a good opportunity to improve my skills.

The course I took previously was Creating Visual Impact (Brenda Tharp) which I found very rewarding. The course works by reading instruction and then going out and taking pictures that use the lesson. You then upload the images to a community page where the instructor and other students provide feedback. The whole process is a great way to learn.

The picture on the left was taken at a park in Great Falls, VA. A smaller park called Scott’s Run Nature Preserve. There’s a great trail to the Potomac and at one point there are stepping stones across a creek. What I didn’t capture was how the water was smooth on one side and disturbed on the other. I want to go back to this park and take more photos.

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So…. I had a little change in my life last Friday.  My company did some reorganizing and I was left on the outside looking in.  In a lot of ways this is a good thing but it still sucks!  So I should have more time to blog about photography and get out and take pictures.  We’ll see since I spent today replacing closet doors in my basement.

So it’s been a few days since I posted a blog entry but I have a good reason. I was in Tampa at my brother-in-law’s wedding. Everything went incredibly smooth and it was great. I’m not going to go into details here about the wedding but I do want to share a few pictures I took with my Canon Point & Shoot.

One of the stops was a visit to the aquarium with my daughter.

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The galleries from the old design are now working. While I am going to continue improving them they are already better than on the old web site. Read more

Those of you who followed AginPhotography in the old design know that updates have been few and far between. I had no way of telling stories or making small updates. By adding this blog I am able to add postings in a very small amount of time. Some will be about photos I have taken, others will be my thoughts on different aspects of photography. Still others will have a personal nature although I plan to create a separate website for that. All will be from the perspective of the photography amateur.

As I add to this blog I will be balancing many priorities for my time and the picture above shows two of the biggest. My daughter and wife. Given everything else in life I am aiming to average at least one post per week. Some weeks will be more and some less. As long as this blog provides me an avenue to show my photos and tell my stories I’ll be happy.

I started my web site primarily to display some galleries of photos I have taken over the years. Using Adobe Lightroom made it very easy to create the galleries but required me to make large galleries with multiple photos. I realized I wanted a way to post small numbers of photos. A blog made sense.

I quickly decided that I could use WordPress to build the blog. As I started using WordPress I realized that it should be the engine for my entire web site, hence a complete redesign within 24 hours.

As you will notice the galleries are not yet working. I need to experiment with the best way of embedding a Web Gallery from Lightroom within WordPress. Any ideas would be welcome.

One feature I’m looking forward to having used is the comments. Please use them so I know that someone is looking at my website.

Life is too short to be running from home to work to home to work…

We all need a way to express ourselves and capture the beauty
in our lives, I channel these efforts through a camera lens.