My Artistic Side

Those of you that know me know that I am a very analytical person. As a software developer I have to have a good knowledge of the technology I use and be able to make logical decisions on how best to solve any problem or create any type of software. There are rules and patterns that I have to understand and apply so I have to stay within certain guidelines. This doesn't mean there isn't some creativity to what I do for a living as there are multiple ways to solve a particular problem or manage the team to get the required results.

Even in what I do in my photography is more technical than art as it is more about capturing some astronomical event than creating something artistic.  However as part of the last lunar eclipse that I took photographs of I managed a few good sunrise pictures. They were good but did not represent what I really saw or even felt. That lead me to join the photography club in our community to help me become better. Most of the people in the club are really good photographers and a few are even good enough to be professionals. I have learned a lot from them and picked up a few techniques I can use to take a better pictures.

However the main thing I learned about photography from the people in the club it that photography is more than taking at good picture. It is about telling a story, exposing some interesting feature of nature or life. The composition of the shot and making sure it has a clear subject that inspires some reaction is more important than any technical aspect of a photo. There is a lot more creativity and art require to take a good photograph so that is something I have to work on.

In March I decided to upgrade my camera to a DSLR. It's a entry level mirrorless camera from Canon. It's the EOS R10. The main different from my old Canon Powershot 740 is a real sensor and an interchangeable lens. Even though my Powershot 740 had a couple of different manual modes it still had some limitations especially for depth of field and focus. With the R10 I have a lot more control and flexibility on how to frame and capture what I see. For example I can finally do some macro photography and capture the details of a flower and blur the background.

Here is another example. 

I still have a lot to learn both technically and artistically but the more pictures I take and the more I talk with the people in the photo club the more confidence that I get that I can get a lot better and produce some spectacular photos like they do.

Once a year in the community I live in there is a photography and art show. There are some really good artists here. I mean painters, sculptors, and photographers. 

There is even a guy who does some amazing carvings. Theses are shoes carved and painted from a single block of wood. Only the shoe laces are real.

It definitely takes a lot of patiences. 

There were over 60 photos submitted by people in the photography club. There was a good range of landscape, portrait and macro shots.

 

I originally wasn't going to add any of my photos to the show as I didn't think any of my were good enough but the president of the club had seen some of my photos and encouraged me to submit a couple.

The first one was a picture of a Flamingo that I took on my phone and through some photo shop work it turned in a pretty good picture.

 

The other was a sunrise picture I took in Manasquan in November. 

When these were printed out and framed they actually looked better than expected. I got a lot of good comments at the show even from some of the other photographers. These are good photos but I know I can do a lot better. It was good talking to the other photographers and artists at the show and I now how some ideas of how I can improve my photography. I don't know how good I can get but I am enjoying it and gives me an excuse to explore something more artistic.

 

Teamwork

One of the most important questions I need to answer every week is where am I going to ride and do I want to lead. I usually have a couple of ideas of where I wanted to go. This week I wanted to do a hilly ride but wasn't sure where. Laura emailed me to say she wanted to go to the Fuel Factory in Flemington. I had route from Rocky Hill that would have worked but Laura also wanted to visit Lower Creek Rd which had been fixed an repaved after the flood took out the road a couple of years ago. I didn't want to go over the Sourlands to Flemington then down to Lower Creek and back over a couple of hills to get back to Rocky Hill. It would have been too many miles and too much climbing for this early in the season. So the solution is to start from Prallsville Mill. 

 I told Laura that I would work on a route but was busy at work and had to spend a day at my fathers so by the time I started to come up with a route Laura already had sent me one. It would go straight up to the top of Federal Twist. If it was later in the season maybe but I don't have the legs to do that so I said a definite NO!

Here next try had us going up Warsaw which is one of the easier ways up the hill from the Delaware so I took that route and made a few changes to my preferred roads and listed the ride. 

On the day of the ride Jim got to Prallsville Mill first because he is always a lot early. He found that the parking lot was closed for a private event. He called me and I decided to move the start to Bulls Island which is just up the road. He stayed at Prallsville Mill until I got there and directed people to Bulls Island. When I got there a few minutes later Jim and I made a few phone calls to let people know of the new starting point. With out much trouble we were able to get all of the people on my ride to Bulls Island and only started the ride a few minutes late. 

We did this route which was hilly but about as easy as I could make it in the area we were riding. Even though I haven't done a lot of hills I didn't have a problem going up the hills. I was just a little slower than the rest of the people. The weather was almost perfect with bright sun and 60 degrees and for once there was not a lot of wind. 

Fuel Factory was busy and made a good stop. I used to the roads Laura suggested to get into and out of Flemington and it was we didn't run into the normal traffic we usually do so I will use these road again if we go back that way. 

On the way out of Flemington we went through a couple of neighborhood roads that were a little steep but quiet. For once on one of my rides there were no road closed or bridge out adventures. When we got to Lower Creek the road was nicely paved. I think they moved part of it farther away from the creek so that the next flood won't take it out. 

So although I led this ride I had some help from Laura and Jim to make sure we had a good ride.