Mid/end summer always brings out the full-grown crops. I have a weakness for many things in terms of photography subjects, and one of them is wheat. For many reasons.
One of those is that it’s perfect to play around with depth of field (DoF). Even though it’s probably one of the most cliché things ever to photograph, and there probably isn’t a single angle or point of view left that it hasn’t been photographed from, it just never fails to entertain me.
I guess I’m just happy with the small things Life has to offer

For all 4: D700, ISO200, Nikkor 70-200mm. 1) and 2) 1/6000 sec @ f/2.8 -- 3) 1/350 sec @ f/13 -- 4) 1/45 sec @ f/22

Place your orders for prints, posters, cups, etc. etc. now, before any one else has the chance! You’ll be one of the first ones with a poster over your bed like this!
I’d never seen a pink grasshopper before, so I googled it and there’s a stack of results coming up saying this is a rare thing. I remain sceptical until the orders come in

Ok, all jokes aside… When out with the Better Half (I guess I won’t disclose the location to prevent news teams showing up at the place ) I took a stroll through the garden when my eye caught a glimps of an out-of-place color. At least for the part where I was looking. I checked in closer and saw the cutest little creature sitting on a leaf.
Needless to say I went for the camera to shoot a couple of pictures. I did have the macro lens on, but that didn’t really turn out too good, so I went back to the car to get my bag and the extension tubes, expecting the little bugger to be gone by the time I came back. But lo and behold: it was patient, and and apparently experienced in modeling, because it had turned around, head up, facing right up in to the light (if you lean in closely you might even catch a catch light or 500 ). So I set up the tripod, which I also brought, put the extension tube on, stuck it in the face of the grasshopper and even then it didn’t move.

D700, ISO200, 1/250 sec @ f/4.8, Tamron 90mm macro + 24mm extension tube

WOA! That was exciting!
Not that I haven’t seen thunderstorms before in my life, but still. This was one of the better ones we get in this -usually- thunderforsaken place. It all started when things got really, really dark really, really fast.

D700, ISO1600, 1/4 sec @ f/8, Nikkor 50mm

Usually I’m quite fast with taking out and setting up the stuff, but this time I was just so in awe about the power of the whole thing that I stood there on the balcony with the Better Half just watching it unfold. Then I quickly ran back inside, grabbed camera, tripod and remote shutter, put a plastic bag over the camera (it had started to rain really badly), set everything up on the balcony, put the camera on C-high with the remote shutter locked and a long exposure time. And then I continued to stand there with the Better Half watching it unfold (I even missed -like- an hour of Star Wars Return of the Jedi – which I’ve never seen before in my life!).

It was just too cool, literally, after having been fried in plastic balcony renovation plastic, which they took down only two days ago!

D700, ISO200, 10 sec @ f/19, Tamron 28-75mm

D700, ISO200, 10 sec @ f/27, Tamron 28-75mm

D700, ISO200, 30 sec @ f/16, Tamron 28-75mm

I’m part of the Worth1000 community and a couple of years ago I participated in a Surf and Turf competition for which the idea was to combine a land animal and sea animal into one being. Lots of hilarious things come out of that. Mine was called the Seahound and it looked like this:

Seahound

Courtesy obligates me to mention that neither of the two images I used to create the above one were made by me. See below for the two sources. I have no way of retracing who the original photographers of these pictures were. I found them through a Google search when I came up with the idea of making a Seahound. Uses like this, non-commercial, supposedly fall under the creative commons license, meaning (in short) that, as long as the user doesn’t sell the derivative image onwards and doesn’t use it for commercial purposes, it is okay to use the source images. This image ended up 8th (out of 73) in the contest, with seven even more hilarious ones going first.

Seahound sources

Occasionally I do a Reverse Image Search on my work (typically the stuff that IS my own and COULD be used commercially) through Tineye and see if anything comes up. Several times something did come up, but nothing close to the results that were returned on this particular image. Together with a good number of other images from this competition it came up on a wide variety of sites, among which websites that sell backgrounds for cellphones and such.

Dilemma, then. What to do?
This is my image, I created it. But it it’s not completely my image, because I used source images that aren’t my own. Should I pursue this? Should I find out what I can do about it? Someone out there IS making money of images that aren’t his/her.
Kind of frustrating it is. And the biggest problem is that most likely the servers that host these images are based in some obscure country where the laws in these matters aren’t taken too seriously. And if for whatever miraculous reason they would reply to emails, or if for whatever miraculous reason the websites would be taken down, then they would simply set up another website within a couple of days.
Carrying water to the sea, that would be.

So… as you’ve noticed before in some of my posts I’m a big fan of Jim Carrey, and I’ll quote that favorite quote of mine from Liar Liar again:

…so what I am going to do is piss and moan like an impotent jerk, and then bend over and take it up the tailpipe!

You’ve got something stuck….. (discretely pointing at teeth)

D700, ISO200, 1/2000 sec @ f/2, Nikkor 50mm, on-camera flash (fill)

Being a native Dutch, and a photographer, pictures of one thing you MUST have in your portfolio.
Coffeeshops! Marihuana! Red Light District!

Yeayeah… I know us Dutch people have a reputation to uphold, but I don’t do those things! Yeayeah… *LOL*

Of course I’m talking about tulips!
I started wide and then went all the way in close. Wondrous world out there!

D700, ISO200, 1/250 sec @ f/5.6, Nikkor 70-200mm

D700, ISO200, 1/250 sec @ f/5.6, Nikkor 70-200mm

D700, ISO200, 1/750 sec @ f/3.8, Tamron 90mm macro

D700, ISO200, 1/350 sec @ f/3.8, Tamron 90mm macro

D700, ISO200, 1/1000 sec @ f/2, Nikkor 50mm, Kenko extension tubes 12mm + 20mm + 36mm

D700, ISO200, 1/180 sec @ f/3, Tamron 90mm macro, Kenko extension tubes 12mm + 20mm + 36mm

I’m proud to say that one of my pictures has won the gold medal in the Bulgarian “The Wild” photo competition. Check out also the other winning images. Great stuff there!

D200, ISO100, 1/1000 sec @ f/2.8, Nikkor 70-200mm

Here are some pictures that every photographer should have in his or her portfolio. I think
One of those images is a very cliché image of birds sitting on an electricity wire. Where I’m currently residing, obviously birds aren’t all that keen on sitting on an electricity wire in big numbers, and I’ve been looking out for an image like that for I don’t know how long. Over time I’ve seen some sitting here and there, but I never wanted to take the shot, because, cliché as it already is, I did want to have a version that stands out from the pack at least that much.
During our holidays in Oregon I finally came across a scene that could fit the description. And when I moved in closer, camera at the ready, and the birds got restless and started flying away, I think I finally got my shot.
Below a few of (a good number) of the images I shot and the last one would be my favorite…

D700, ISO200, 1/180 sec @ f/8, Nikkor 50mm 1.4

D700, ISO200, 1/180 sec @ f/8, Nikkor 50mm 1.4

D700, ISO200, 1/180 sec @ f/8, Nikkor 50mm 1.4

D700, ISO200, 1/180 sec @ f/8, Nikkor 50mm 1.4

Usually I know it instantly.
I see things in black and white when they “need” to be in black and white. Or at least when I think they “need” to be, since that’s a personal taste matter.
But this particular image was one of those ones of which I wasn’t quite sure. And I do think it works very well in both color and black and white…

D700, ISO200, 1/250 sec @ f/11, Sigma 10-20mm

Same camera settings, converted to black and white in Photoshop with some dodging and burning in the sky

Boy, is that a milked cow, or what?
These days the whole HDR thing is SO overdone! It seems like people don’t seem to understand the true meaning of this technique anymore.
True, you can do some funky stuff with it (although then it’s not really called HDR anymore but cross-processing), but some people really just don’t know when to stop and go waaay overboard with it.
So here’s a little 1-2-3 on HDR:
1) the abbreviation HDR stands for High Dynamic Range
2) the meaning of this High Dynamic Range is to capture a range of contrast with a series of exposures of the same subject, which your camera wouldn’t be able to capture in a single exposure
3) the result of of a true High Dynamic Range image is a believable image which doesn’t have HDR written all over it.

The exposures:

Left: D200, ISO100, 1/3 sec @ f/11, Sigma 10-20mm. Right: D200, ISO100, 1/30 sec @ f/11, Sigma 10-20mm.

The outcome:

Compiled from 2 images shown above