Project 5 - Timelapse

Project 5 - Timelapse

So I'm late... I'm late putting this up on here.  I've had it done for a while (except the music).  I figured I should add music and since I don't normally have to put my work to music and it was a little tough.

Project 4 - Smoke Photography

For my 4th photography project I decided to do smoke photography.  I had a lot of fun doing this but there were some issues that I ran into.  First, it is really tough to control smoke.  If there is any draft the smoke will move to wherever it wants to.  It's also tough to focus on smoke in low light.  I found that the first 10 shots were not quite in focus when I reviewed them to see what I was getting.

Project 3 - Photowalk?

Project 3 - Photowalk?

I know, I know... I said this would be more about the projects than photowalks.  That is true and it will be.  Let me clarify a little bit.  When I was doing my 52 photowalks of 2010 I felt like I was unable to do anything else photographically speaking.  I am generally a busy person and photography is something of an outlet for me, not a money-maker.  That's why I am fairly loose with my goals and my rules.  Since there are a lot of photo ideas I would like to try and I don't have a ton of time to try them I figured this time around I would try 52 photo projects instead of photowalks.  Some of the photo projects will be photowalks as I still really enjoy getting out in nature and other surroundings to photograph what ever catches my eye.

Project 2 - Toy

My daughter came up with the idea of doing a toy photo for this project.  At first I wasn't too keen on it but as I thought about it I liked the challenge.  Isn't that what a project is supposed to do, challenge you a bit?  So off to figure out what I could take a picture make a photo of.

A fresh start - 2013 - 52 photo projects

I know I know... Last year I said I would be doing a 52 project.  I intended to and then got overwhelmed with other stuff quickly, then I lost my drive to photograph anything.  After a rather busy and stressful year I am now back with some new gear and a renewed desire to enjoy photography.  This year my oldest has decided she would like to do the 52 project too.  We have already come up with a list of projects and some ideas of when and what to take photos of.

Welcome 2012 and another photo project

Well 2012 is upon us already and after being fairly stagnant with my photography and blogging during 2011 I have been trying to figure out how to revive that passion.  I will say that 2011 particularly the end of it was quite busy, but I do enjoy my photowalks.  They are a great way to get away and see some cool places.

AdoramaPix Photo book review

So I got my first AdoramaPix photo book last week and I must say it is very nice.  I've been meaning to get a book through them for a while now and I finally had some time while the weather was being not so pleasant.  I decided to throw together a book for my 2010 52 Photowalks project.  I felt this was a good way to show off some of my favorite works for my first major photography project.  Overall it took me probably about 7 hours to go through all of my photos, pick my favorites and organize them into the book.  I will say that first off the online book creator was very easy to use.  I used one of the templates available on the site then I just had to add in photos and text.  I customized some of the pages to suit my needs which was very easy to do.  I had a tough time figuring out where to put each photo so I tried to group all the pages into mini themes.  I had a spread for my Disney walk, a beach spread, flowers and bugs, etc... I think that really helped to make the book flow nicely.  The quality of this book is phenomenal, a nice hard cover that lays flat when you open the book.  This is very nice since some of my layouts had photos that covered all or part of both pages.  This made the photos that expanded over both pages still look very nice with very little seem to get in the way.  The page quality is also outstanding.  The pages are nice and thick and really show off the photos beautifully.  I've shown this photo book to many people and all of them have commented on how nice the quality of the book is as well as the prints themselves.  The price of these books are not real cheap though.  Don't let this turn you off.  I wouldn't use one of these books for vacation snapshots or just a generic photo book of simple snapshots.  These books are meant for showing off great works of art.  I am already working on ideas for new book ideas for them.  Another thing to note is a lot of times Adorama seems to give credits for books when you spend a fair amount of money in the photography store.  It's great for both you and them, hopefully they keep doing that.  I'm considering for my next photo book doing all of the page templates in gimp and uploading the whole pages to their site.  I hope this will help me to appreciate the patient and skill template designers utilize when making their designs.

I am very glad to have this book, it will be a great sense of pride for years to come and an awesome coffee table book for my guests to peruse when they are over.

If you would like to take a look at my book you can check out the preview here. This preview does not do the printed book justice.  As always I am open to CC, feel free to leave me a comment.

I may post it for sale at some point, I've had a lot of people ask me where to buy it and how much it is.

DM|ZE Check out my flickr or google+

Back to some photography

I haven't really left photography but I did loose some of my passion for a while.  In March of 2011 I went out and bought a nice new tripod and head (Vanguard Alta Pro 284CT Carbon Fiber Tripod and the Vanguard GH-100 Pistol Grip Head) .  Soon after that I lost my drive to want to go out and photograph things.  I had a lot going on in my life and sadly photography wasn't a priority.  I think in part I was a little burnt out after doing the 52 photowalks of 2010 and the 50/50/50 for 2011.  Then over the summer I was eagerly awaiting the World Wide Photowalk.  I got out and shot some but not as much as I did the year before.  Finally the WWPW came around and I had a ball getting out and shooting, editing, and talking to other like-minded individuals.  I got my groove back if you will. See my WWPW 2011 images here.  I entered this shot   and ended up winning the local Wilmington, DE walk by default.  I couldn't believe no other shots were entered, but I wasn't going to complain too much.  My image moved on to the finals, it didn't get picked in Scott Kelby's top 10 list and didn't do awesome in the viewer choice awards but it was something. I'm not in photography to get prizes or win awards and that is not why I do the WWPW.  I go to the WWPW because it's a chance to explore an area and meet new people.  I always have a lot of fun doing the walk, and maybe next year I will lead a walk.  I just got my copy of Kelby's book, Light It Shoot It Retouch It in the mail yesterday.  Although I use gimp and not photoshop this book has a lot of info on the whole process and so far is a good read.


I've been heavy into google+ lately, there are a lot of great photographers on there.  One of my favorites is Trey Ratcliff, but there are so many inspiring images and nice people on there.  You can check me out on google+.  I will try to post there more than I blog here.  


Recently I shot a senior portrait and had a ton of fun doing it.  I generally don't enjoy shooting portraits too much.  I think I'm very picky about it and I don't have a lot of experience doing it.  I will post some shots and a write up from it as soon as I get a chance to go through and edit them.  


I'm still running linux, ubuntu, for the time being.  I'm not sure I'm happy with where ubuntu is heading with unity but for now I still use 10.04 LTS.  With that I am running gimp, qtpfsgui (Luminance), hugin, rawtherapee, playing with darktable since it was just released.  I'm also considering buying bibble pro, if anyone has any comments on that please let me know.  I'm going to throw together a little raided server soon to make sure my pictures have a nice safe home in addition to backing up to DVD for short term storage.


I just got my book printed from my 2010 52 Photowalks.  You can view it here, please note the book quality is far superior to the preview on the screen.   I will write up a review for the book from AdoramaPix soon.


Hopefully I will be posting a little more regularly again.  I'm considering doing another 52 photowalks or something similar in 2012.  I like a nice steady project to keep my motivated and keep me trying new techniques and finding new places.  I've been geocaching and bike riding some lately and that has led me to some new areas that I would like to explore photographically.


Subscribe to my RSS feed and/or my G+ to keep up with what's happening.
DM|ZE Check out my flickr

Photowalk 43 of 52 - Killens Pond (Some long exposures)

BHL On Black


Photowalk 43 of 52 - Killens Pond (Some long exposures)

I know I know... another photowalk at Killens Pond. You may not be saying it but I am. I really enjoy Killens Pond, it's close but there is a lot to be explored there. I'm trying to catch up on photowalks and posting. When I was trying to decide on whether I wanted to try a full year photogrpahy project that I couldn't pull off a 365-project.

Photowalk 38 of 52 - Lavender Fields - POTW

Photowalk 38 of 52 - Lavender Fields - POTW, originally uploaded by dm|ze.

Photowalk 38 of 52 - Lavender Fields
For this walk I planned to go to Lavender Fields in Milton. I saw this vendor at the Lewes Photowalk back in July and I've been meaning to go and check it out.
The lavender was a bit bland looking but I think I came away with some great shots. I will try to go back here during prime lavender season.

Photowalk 15 of 52 - Earth Day at Killen's Pond???

I see a pattern in my photowalks, no matter how hard I try I can't seem to just do a walk without some issue coming up.  This time I was planning on going to the earth day celebration at Killen's Pond.  We did, and it was cold and windy.  I didn't feel like carrying around my DSLR so I took my Canon Powershot A620.  I like this camera because it can fit in my pocket.  Also, like my DSLR it has the flip out lcd screen.  When I went to look at my shots at the end of it none were on there!!!

Photowalk 14 of 52 - A day at the beach

So over easter break we went to Cape Henlopen to enjoy one of the unusually hot days.

Photowalk 13 - A walk with my wife

My original thought for this walk was something more easter oriented.  It just didn't work out that way. 

Photowalk 12 - Silver Lake... maternity shots

This week I went to Silver Lake in Dover.  To give you an idea of how little I explored my area

Photowalk 11.1 and 11.2

So, I've been a bit behind on posting my POTW.  But I'd much rather be out their getting shots than worrying about whether I've gotten my post done.

The weather is really starting to get much better here and I'm trying to get out an enjoy it.  On this day I ended up taking two photowalks instead of one.

Photowalk 10 of 52 - Rehoboth Beach, DE

So we were down at the beach for the polar bear plunge (plugede.org) We had a great time as usual and enjoy the weather even though it wasn't great. We generally go down to the beach on the night before the plunge and stay the night at a hotel. We hang out for a good chunk of the weekend so my photowalk for the week consists of shots taken anywhere in that time frame.

POTW - Bombay Hook - Photowalk 9 of 52

POTW - Bombay Hook, originally uploaded by dm|ze.

I had a chance to do two walks in one week, so I took it. It was pretty hard for me to get up early on both of my days off over the weekend but it was worth it. I have never been to Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge until now. It was pretty cool, I will definitely be returning.

Photowalk 8 of 52 - Historic New Castle - POTW

Photowalk 8 of 52 - Historic New Castle - POTW, originally uploaded by dm|ze.

For my eight photowalk I was going to be in Northern Delaware. So, I figured while I'm up there lets take advantage of a change of scenery. I was up in the area taking some shots for a friend. They so happened to be of his re-modeled bathroom and how bad of a job the company did. While I'm on the floor taking shots of the tile work I hear a camera shutter???

POTW - Marshland Walk 7 of 52

POTW - Marshland, originally uploaded by dm|ze.

Okay, so after my hiatus last week I'm feeling much better and it was good to get out and have a walk.

This week the plan was to go somewhere and put on the headphones and just enjoy my alone time. Well, things change.

Photowalk 7 of 52??? or not... (a revised 2010 photowalk project)

So here goes...  I hate to say it but this past week I didn't get out and take any shots.
Before I continue I want to say a few things.