Photo of the Day

,

Photo of the Day: Warrior and the Wolves

,

What a magical morning we had at the The Hills Country Club in Arrowtown, New Zealand. This exclusive place, owned by Sir Michael Hills, is impossible to get into but thanks to Trey Ratcliff we arrived at sunrise to stunning skies. 

ir Michael's golf course has many gorgeous sculptures scattered around the course but this may be the most impressive. Over 100 large wolves encircling a three meter high Chinese warrior. 

I have so many shots of this sculpture from every conceivable angle. I loved this one because the red sky was just washing over the warrior like a sea of blood was impending. I shot it with this amazing lens by the way.

 

 

, ,

Photo of the Day: A Lone Tree on Lake Wakatipu

, ,

I've started going through some of my first day images from my New Zealand trip. I decided to play around some tight versus wide crops. This is a fun tight crop across Lake Wakatipu in the heart of Queenstown. Thanks to the Nikor 28-300 lens I was able to get in nice and tight on this copse of trees. 

This is an HDR shot but instead of using the 5 images I shot I decided to only use 4. The +2 exposure shot was too blown out. I did a multiply layer and then masked back in some of the darker trees that I saw that misty morning.

It's fun to see some of my first day images versus the images I was starting to shoot by the end of the week. It's amazing what some intensive learning can do to a person.

 

 

​Lone Tree on Lake Wakatipu, New Zealand

, ,

Photo of the Day: Baby Learning to Crawl

, ,

Sure I've got some nice newer cameras but occasionally I like to grab one of my old ones and have some fun. I found my older camera and popped on a nice 50mm lens and had some fun shooting my daughter as she tried to crawl. I really love the depth of field on this one.  

I've also been enjoying Color Efex Pro 4. I used a soft focus filter and then dropped it back into Lightroom 4 so that I could add some clarity to her eyes and clean up a tiny piece of food on her mouth. Hey that's how babies roll!

Derrick Story had some similar advice this week about digging out an older camera. I shot this photo back in January but his idea holds true: Reinvigorate your photography by using one of your older cameras. 

​Baby portrait 50mm, f/2.0, 1/30 second

,

Photo of the Day: Red Rock Canyon at Sunset

,

Red Rock Canyon, Nevada

Yes the rocks are really this reddish orange. I wish the sky was better on this particular evening but sometimes you get what you get and then have to add something in post processing. I didn't do much to the sky here but I did add a hue saturation layer in Photoshop and masked in a little more color.

Also I ran it through Nik Software's Viveza, a great plugin that my friend Scott Kublin recommended. It lets you pick a targeted area and really play with the structure, brightness, contrast, saturation. I tweaked the structure a tad bit and also played with the contrast.

I used my Sony NEX-7 on a pretty terrible tripod. I did a series of 3 bracketed photos. Boy have I learned a lot since I took this photo in early January. 

by Clayton Morris

,

Photo of the Day: A Path to the Sun

,

Here's another from The Hills golf course in Queenstown, New Zealand. It's funny how you can find unexpected shots is you just turn around sometimes. I was joined by Trey and a group of fantastic photographers for the week. On this particular morning we were plodding on and on through this beautiful golf course but often I'd stop and turn around to find an unexpected spot. This was one of my favorites. 

A Path to the Sun. The Hills, Queenstown

,

Photo of the Day: The Hills Golf Course in New Zealand

,

Morning on The Hills Golf Course. This place was beautifully peaceful, I'm glad I didn't ruin it by playing golf. Trey took us there before sunrise and I think I shot close to a thousand photos. This taken about an hour after sunrise so that just goes to show you how many amazing spots there were out there.

I shot this with my Nikon D800 using a 28-300mm lens. I found this lens to be more useful on the golf course because it let me compose tighter shots than my 14-24mm. I'll be posting many more photos from this morning. 

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

 

 

The Hills, Queenstown