After a year and a half of including a ‘pic of the week’ at the end of my weekly training summary, I’ve decided to let it stand on its own.  I’m also implementing a rule that the Friday Foto needs to have been taken sometime in the last week.  No recycling.  I am doing this to keep me engaged in building my photography skills, and to make me work harder to get fresh shots.  Click here to see my previous Friday Foto posts.

I took 795 pictures on Monday!  Lots to choose from this week.  Since I’m shooting in RAW+jpg that came out to around 18GB worth of data.

There were a couple of shots I really liked, but they were more of a candid nature.  For these posts I’m trying to emphasize something I actually planned and set up for.

Malcolm’s graduation ceremony was really nice.  They held it at Sports Authority Stadium out in Parker.  Seating wasn’t too cramped, and we had a good view of the proceedings.  Towards the end I started making my way down to get ready for the cap toss.  I stood in an area that I had gotten booted out of earlier (but I did check to make sure I wasn’t blocking anyone’s view – all clear behind me).  Such an outlaw.

As an added bonus, Cori got this shot of me while I was getting ready to take mine.

ThunderRidge Class of 2012
f/6.3, 62mm, 1/640 @ 100 ISO

After a year and a half of including a ‘pic of the week’ at the end of my weekly training summary, I’ve decided to let it stand on its own.  I’m also implementing a rule that the Friday Foto needs to have been taken sometime in the last week.  No recycling.  I am doing this to keep me engaged in building my photography skills, and to make me work harder to get fresh shots.  Click here to see my previous Friday Foto posts.

The Belted Galloway is a somewhat rare breed of cattle originating from southwest Scotland.  We call them Oreo Cows, for obvious reasons.  Apparently, the global population is only 10,000 individuals.  They are highly prized as quality beef for eating (placing at the top when compared to eleven other breeds), and are very hardy.  They thrive on coarse grasses and rough pasture land that other cattle would shun.

I took my daughter to a pasture a few miles from our home to watch them graze for a while.  I was focused on the baby and it’s mother when I moved over and caught this other cow in the frame.  In reality, it was just nibbling at its leg, but I think the photo makes it look like the cow is jealous and wants to get some milk, too.

Oreos Love Milk
f5.6, 300mm, 1/400 @ 100 ISO

After a year and a half of including a ‘pic of the week’ at the end of my weekly training summary, I’ve decided to let it stand on its own.  I’m also implementing a rule that the Friday Foto needs to have been taken sometime in the last week.  No recycling.  I am doing this to keep me engaged in building my photography skills, and to make me work harder to get fresh shots.  Click here to see my previous Friday Foto posts.

You’ve probably seen more than a few Supermoon photos by now.  It was a pretty cool event to try and capture.  I lucked out in a few ways – the true full moon wasn’t until Saturday night, but I shot this on Friday with perfectly clear skies.  Saturday turned out to be rainy and overcast in Denver.  I was already camping on Lookout Mountain without even realizing the Supermoon event was taking place.  Once I saw it, I bolted about halfway down the mountain and spent an hour and a half shooting photos.

This is a HDR composite of 3 exposures (3 sec, 13 sec, 30 sec).  I should have taken the brightness of the moon into account, but didn’t realize it was going to flare that badly.  Live and learn.  I tried to fix it and insert the moon from another pic I took that night, but it ended up looking completely faked.  I think next time I’m in a similar situation, I’ll take another shot with a properly exposed moon and sky, then mask that back into the final result.

What I like most about this shot are the added elements.  The radio tower and maintenance shed are interesting, and during my longest exposure a car drove past on the road below.  It is invisible, but the headlights painted the guardrail nicely.  I like the light and detail I was able to pull out of the far hillside, and I love how the city lights turned out looking like some sort of lava flow.

Lookout Supermoon
f/8.0, 18mm @ 640 ISO