Tag Archives: photography

Photo(s) of the Day – Purposely Lost in the Highlands of Scotland

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Aside from my latest post on the Cliffs of Moher, my focus has been primarily on Scotland because, admittedly, I was completely awestruck the entire time we were driving through the country. From Edinburgh all the way up in to the farthest reaches of the Highlands, I was amazed at the scenery, the people and, of course, the photographic opportunities. Don’t get me wrong, I have several hundred photographs to sort through from Ireland, which is also an amazingly beautiful country in it’s own right but my focus in the last several days has been taking a trip down memory lane and sorting and editing those from Scotland.

One of the things I loved the most about Scotland was driving through remote areas where a small cottage or thatch roof fishing hut would suddenly pop up. There was nothing or no one else around for miles but there was this little structure smack in the middle of the very rustic landscape.

Tracey Capone Photography © 2012

Not all structures were remote. We came across one very beautiful home when we got a bit lost in Dumfries, in the northern most Highlands. To me, this was quintessential Scotland. Beautiful rolling hills, of course complete with sheep, surrounding a farmhouse, in this case the beautiful blue sky complementing the butter yellow of the house’s facade.

Tracey Capone Photography © 2012

There was no shortage of amazing scenery in Scotland, that’s for sure. Even a run down little shack made for a good subject…

Tracey Capone Photography © 2012

I look forward to going back to Scotland to explore more of this amazing country. In the meantime, I’ll have to settle for reminding myself of my wonderful trip with my photographs.

Enjoy!
*tracey*

Tracey Capone Photography © 2012

Photo of the Day – Mini Farm

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Mini Farm – Tracey Capone Photography © 2012

I’m on 487 of 1200 photos in the review/editing process and decided to take a little break and “play” with one of my photos. Using what I dare say is the “wickedly awesome” new tilt shift blur filter in Photoshop CS6 I added some tilt shift action to a photograph I took of a beautiful Scottish farm nestled in a beautiful valley I was able to shoot from above on the drive to the Isle of Skye.

If you didn’t get a chance to download and try the beta version of CS6, it is now available for purchase (as either an upgrade or new purchase) at Adobe.com. Applying the tilt shift (as well as iris and field blurs) are easier than ever if you don’t feel like whipping out the tilt shift lenses (or didn’t bring them along like me :) )

Enjoy!

*tracey*

Photo of the Day – The Flock

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The Flock – Tracey Capone Photography © 2012

One of my favorite memories from the trip happened in our first full day there. We were heading up towards Inverness, from Edinburgh, in search of castles along the way and ended up on this very windy, desolate, single track road. Now, there is no shortage of sheep in Scotland, in fact you would be hard pressed to go for more than two minutes without seeing one (and you’d be surprised where you’ll find them). These sheep, the subject of today’s Photo of the Day, “The Flock,”  however, were either the friendliest (or the most aggressive, however I am going to go with friendly for the purposes of this memory) I have ever encountered.

When we pulled over so that I could photograph this flock, the second they spotted us, they started running, in unison, towards the fencing. When I put the camera up to take the shot, they stopped running immediately and watched me with the most intense stares; they almost looked like they were preparing to perform a ballet.

Again, as I prefer not to conjure up images of “Children of the Corn” as played by Scottish sheep, I am sticking with the idea that they were so excited to see people, and of course have their photograph taken, that they ran over excitedly to check out what was happening. :)

Enjoy!

*tracey*

Photo of the Day – “Eilean Donan Castle”

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"Eilean Donan Castle" - Tracey Capone Photography ©2012

It’s been a whirlwind few days here in Scotland, trying to see as much as possible in a 24 hour period while traversing tiny one track roads and remembering “on the left, on the left, on the left.”

I have to say, of all the trips that I’ve taken, Scotland, so far, has been my favorite for breaking out the creative lenses. On day three I’m already up to about 450 photographs to sort through and edit and I can’t wait to sit down and dig in to them.

In the meantime, today’s Photo of the Day is of the Eilean Donan Castle a picturesque castle nestled on an island in the middle of three sea lochs on the west coast of Scotland. Travel a little further up the A87 and you will end up crossing the Skye Bridge on to the Isle of Skye. (more photos to come from that amazing adventure)

Today will be a visit further up in to the highest west coast point in the Highlands. I know the trip will be well worth the white knuckle driving along the one track roads.

Enjoy!
*tracey*

Photo of the Day – “And Then There Was”

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"And Then There Was" - Tracey Capone Photography © 2012

The fact that I love dogwoods is a well established fact. :) I covered it here, and here and here and here. Is it any wonder that, if I love the actual bloom so much I’m going to love the dogwood bud as well. They remind me of a beautiful little package all ready to be opened to uncover an even more beautiful surprise.

This will be the last post for a few days. Heading off to my hometown of Philadelphia today and then off to the UK on Monday night! I hope to post photos throughout the road trip but if not, then there will be plenty of UK goodness upon my return.

Enjoy and have a wonderful weekend!

*tracey*

 

Photo of the Day – “Sonata”

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"Sonata" - Tracey Capone Photography

“In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect. Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways, and they’re still beautiful.”  - Alice Walker

Photo of the Day: Platinum

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"Platinum" - Tracey Capone Photography 2012

I promise… last dogwood photograph! They’re sort of becoming like mac n cheese. I LOVE mac n cheese, but, if I were to eat it every day for several weeks, I would slowly but sure grow tired of them. I don’t want that to happen with my favorite dogwood so I promise, I am stepping away from the computer… slowly. (I promise this now but, in an effort to procrastinate while getting ready for my trip, I may just get struck with a very coincidental urge to work on another of the 200+ photos… but I promise, I will try!)

Today’s Photo of the Day is “Platinum.” I wanted to try something a little different today as I have been focusing on the color of the dogwoods in other photos and wanted, instead, to bring focus to the beautiful patterns they create instead.

I suppose I should get back to knocking things off the ever growing list of things to do before I leave next week. I don’t know at what point it actually starts looking like I’m making a dent in it but hopefully that will be soon!

Enjoy!
*tracey*

Photo(s) of the Day: Crimson & Cornouiller Rouge

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"Cornouiller Rouge" - Tracey Capone Photography

Guilty as charged… more dogwoods. I’m sorrrrrrrrry. I can’t help myself. Remember my post from a few days ago where I mentioned that I took 200+ shots of dogwoods on my outing on Saturday? I wasn’t kidding. Don’t worry, I don’t plan on sharing 200+ dogwood photographs (maybe just 199?) Thankfully, my trip is coming up so there will definitely be a change of scenery, if you will… well, unless I run across a bunch of dogwoods on the drive between Manchester and Shannon.

Today’s Photos of the Day are “Crimson” and “Cornouiller Rouge.”  I love the patterns that clusters of dogwoods form, especially when they are a colorful butter yellow or red.

I promise to find new flowers to obsess over… or hey, maybe I could actually try taking more photographs of my wonderful city?

Enjoy!

*tracey*

"Crimson" - Tracey Capone Photography

Photo of the Day – Sun n Sand

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"Sun n Sand" - Tracey Capone Photography 2012

It’s coming down to the wire… this time, two weeks from now, I’ll be driving from Manchester, England to Edinburgh, Scotland on the first of many legs of the UK Road Trip between Manchester and Shannon, Ireland. That said, with a couple of wholesale orders to complete, money to exchange, an International Driver’s License to obtain, and turning a packing list in to a reality, the next week and a half is going to be pretty crazy. I’m thinking time out with the camera is going to be few and far between but I’m hoping to step away for a bit over the next few so I can continue to enjoy the beautiful Chicago weather and the ever changing scenery.

In honor of the upcoming road trip, I decided to make my Photo of the Day one from my last trip, driving from Santa Monica, CA to Tulsa, OK on Route 66. The Sun n Sand motel was one of the many wonderful, retro motels we came across along the way. I loved the orange and yellow of this sign, especially against the grey sky from that day. It was, quite literally, a bright spot in the final leg of our tour.

That road trip was full of so many fun memories, I can’t wait to create more in a couple of weeks! (and given we will be driving on the other side of the road and car, something tells me there will be LOTS of laughs to remember… and that will only be in the parking lot of the car rental facility) I will, of course, be sharing along the way!  Do you have a favorite memory from a road trip you’ve taken? 

 

Enjoy!

*tracey*

 

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Photo of the Day – “Cherry Bokeh”

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"Cherry Bokeh" - Tracey Capone Photography

Today’s Photo of the Day, “Cherry Bokeh” and the bonus photo, “Lush” were a result of spending an entire day inside working on new wood photo blocks and the online shops. After getting tired of the smell of adhesive and varnish and feeling like my eyes were about to pop out of my head if I had to look at the computer screen any longer I decided to grab the camera and head out to play with some light. While it’s still quite cold here in Chicago and yesterday was especially windy, I still came away with some shots that I was very pleased with.

Not sure what bokeh is? Are you sure you want to know because once you do, you’ll likely become as obsessed with it as many, many others, myself included, are. (there are entire Flickr groups dedicated to bokeh lust) OK, I warned you!

Bokeh, from the Japanese term, boke, meaning blur or haze, is the aesthetic quality of the background of a photo. One of the common misconceptions is that bokeh is the actual “little discs of light” in the background of a shot, such as this one. In actuality, bokeh exists wherever there is blur, regardless of whether it’s playing with specular highlights or blurring a darker background. Bokeh, being that it’s an aesthetic, can either be distracting or helpful to a photo. It can be coarse, such as the bokeh in these two photos or it can be creamy and dreamy like the bokeh in “Ethereal” from yesterday’s post. In other cases, bokeh can just be a slight blur to the background, neither coarse nor creamy but just enough to draw attention to the main subject while keeping it in the setting as a whole like in “The Grove” from the post, “Photo(s) of the Day: Out and About“.

Want to try your hand at it?  Get out the camera and play with your depth of field. The more shallow the DOF, the more out of focus your background will be. (if you have a DOF button on your camera like I do, you can get a preview of the end result before shooting) “Cherry Bokeh” and “Lush” were both shot with my Nikon 24-70 2.8 at f4 and I ended up with the coarse, round discs of color which I loved as part of the overall photos. (I wouldn’t necessarily love those discs in other photos)

Remember, in the end, you’re playing with light. You can’t break it so do with it what you will. Try different settings, use different subjects, get creative and you might be pleasantly surprised with the results!

Enjoy and have a wonderful weekend! (and for those celebrating, have a wonderful Easter!)

*tracey*

"Lush" - Tracey Capone Photography 2012