Photos Don't Edit Themselves

May 27, 2017

Personally, the easiest part about taking photos is taking the photo. It's easy to go out on a drive and snap a good number of shots to share, but it's not that easy(at least not for me). My photos are a reflection of me, and I want them to be as much like me as they can be.

This past week I've taken a good number of shots between the meets and shoots that I've had. So the past couple of days have just been me playing catch up. Since transitioning from landscape to portrait photos, I've prioritized reducing my turn around time for photos. Before I was able to take photos and go a week without touching them, but portrait photos are more than just for me.

A quick shot from the top of the hill. I don't know exactly what the name of it is but it is off of Skyline Boulevard about 10 minutes north of the highway 9 intersection. I captured a good amount of sun rays before the clouds completely blocked out… — A quick shot from the top of the hill. I don't know exactly what the name of it is but it is off of Skyline Boulevard about 10 minutes north of the highway 9 intersection. I captured a good amount of sun rays before the clouds completely blocked out the sun from hitting the hills. Although in the distance I could still see the ocean being hit with the rays.

Layers from the sunset up on Russian Ridge.

More sunset photos from the #bdsanfrancisco meet

When I edit photos, I make sure that they look good on my phone screen more than my computer screen. People look at their phones nowadays so I find it better to edit photos for my phone. The screen on my phone does give photos a warmer look so when I edit I always adjust them little cooler when finishing up.

I do also have 5 presets that I am working on. They need constant adjustments to work over a large range of photos. A preset that works for only a couple of photos would not be a good preset.

I'll have more blogs about my edits soon, maybe a couple of tutorials too. More shoot blogs coming soon too.

Locations:

Russian Ridge Open Space Preserve

Mount Tamapais State Park

Santa Cruz, California

Links

Not in Yosemite #bdsanfrancisco

May 24, 2017

I was mentally prepared to go to Yosemite, but at the same time, I was hoping not to go because of how tired I was. After scrolling through Yosemite Instagram tags, my brother and I decided we did not want to go to Yosemite because of the amount of summer traffic there was.

So we headed north. He wanted to just go to the Beautiful Destinations Meet at Mount Tamalpais, and I wanted to head to Point Reyes before. We decided to head to Point Reyes beforehand. We decided to go to Point Reyes first to just see how it was, not expecting to be there for long. Because of Bay to Breakers, there was also a large amount of traffic in San Francisco when we were heading up.

I have not had a lot of luck in Point Reyes. I have nothing to show from the past few times I've gone to shoot there because of a lost memory card and broken hard drive. Any goof photo would've make this trip worth the time.

The cypress tree tunnel looked good but also flat because of the fog. There were also a lot of people also taking photos while I was there, making it difficult to get a clean shot. Even in the photo above, I had to edit some people out. The fog at the lighthouse the lighthouse was even heavier, making it impossible to look down to the shoreline, which was one of the photos I wanted to take. I had to be patient to take the shot I wanted because of how many people there were, which was expected on a Sunday. I managed to snag the shot shot below in the small amount of time when it cleared up(shot using a 35mm lens). I realized that point Reyes really is a location where you have to there at the right time in order to get the "good" shots.

After finishing up we decided to head over to the meet, we were already going to be late, so we weren't in a rush. The meet was slow to start like they all are. There was an initial meet up spot to talk and connect with other people before everyone started to shoot. I took the shot above from the location where everyone was socializing. My lens of choice for the meet was the 85, like always, to get a good amount of compression and to take nice sharp photos.

Photo of Derrick. Even though this was a landscape type of meet, I brought my reflector and was ready to take some portraits if needed. The tracks for really helped against the hard sunset light. It also made a cool moon looking reflection off of Derrick's glasses.

Quick time lapse while waiting for the sky to pop. The fog also wasn't high enough to take good photos of it in between the trees. After this, I focused on taking photos of the clouds and of the hills. I had my doubts when we first saw out into the horizon but it ended up being an amazing and colorful sunset.

Last attempt at rolling fog and last photo of the day.

Location:

Mount Tamalpais State Park

Links:

instagram.com/de_troy

#meetupiara

May 22, 2017

This past Saturday I attended a meet up hosted by Ashleigh, yes Ashleigh who I worked with last week. The drive over from Los Gatos was long and tiring, because of the heavy beach traffic. After spending more time finding parking and walking over from the boardwalk, I finally made it to the location. Ashleigh was by far the most prepared meet host I have seen, with a sign in desk, changing tent and multiple products for models to use.

I did not start shooting right away because of the harsh sunlight(the meet up started 2 hours before sunset). So I just sat and relaxed for a while, helped Danielle with a couple photos before even thinking of the first ones I'd take.

Taylor was the first model I worked with, who I hadn't worked with before the meet. The flowers in the photo above were really dense and nice to lean against. Steven came in with the assist, which I did not realize I needed until seeing the photos in Lightroom.

Managed to sneak in a photo of Ashleigh.

Steven crossing the river to shoot where the reflection was much clearer. We didn't end up shooting on that side because he was the only one to cross.

After shooting a bit more with Taylor, then just sitting and talking to other creatives, I picked up the powdered chalk and worked with Deny on a few shots. The chalk did not work the way I thought it would, but the after effect was amazing. The colors were nice and bold in the sunset light.

Met Danielle towards the end of the meet. Took out my light strings along with a couple from other creatives, whose names I cannot remember(sorry D:). The boardwalk in the back created a really good amount of bokeh along with the light strings in the foreground.