My Hobby - Photography.

By Jon Marrelli

Today I received my copy of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2, which is a photo organizing and editing software.

I am very excited about this. As most of you know, photography has become a big hobby of mine recently. I have been having a lot of fun taking pictures, which I generally upload to my Flickr account. (see top right corner of the blog for a sample from it.) Moving forward, Lightroom will let me organize much better, and my Flickr feed will be more of a showcase for my best efforts. Right now it is kind of a catch all for my photos. 

Tonight I was able to use Lightroom to take two "okay" photos and turn them into something a bit better. I just wanted to share these, as I'm really excited about getting a little bit better at photography.

This has gotten me wondering what everyone likes to do for a hobby or for fun. Please post about what you have a passion for, and interest in, or just have fun doing. 

Bountiful Sunset on 6/25/2008

By Jon Marrelli

Tonight in Bountiful we had a really fun sunset. I was out with my Cannon G9, and stopped on the street to snap some photos. The haze in the air made the sun very red as it set over the lake. It did not turn out as red in the photo as it really was, but that is probably my failing as a photographer. I took these photos in fully manual mode on my camera; controlling the focus, shutter speed and other variables.

As the sun set, it went behind a group of clouds. It threw a golden light up, and a red light down.

Then as the sun came back out from behind the clouds, it seemed to sink right into the lake.

I have set up two locations to show my photos, if people are interested in them.

jonmarrelli.photoshop.com

and

flickr: www.flickr.com/photos/marrelli/

I would really appreciate any feedback on my photos that people would care to give, as I am actively trying to become a better photographer. Right now photography is my main hobby, as work does not leave me much extra time.

Jon

Philadelphea Museum of Art

I recently took a trip to Philly with the family, and while I was there I took almost 1,000 photos. I am going through them (slowly) to find the good ones. Once I get them organized I will be posting them to a photo site, so that everyone can see them.

I am also considering trimming the photos down to a small enough number to print in a photo book. Maybe I can find a way for the family to vote on which ones should be included. I will update on this once I have a better idea of what I want to do.

One photo I took at the Philly Museum of Art is this:



It is called "Jungle Orchid." I had never seen it before, but I really like it. It is an oil on canvas, which gives it that interesting textured effect.

I also visited the Rodan Museum while I was there and really enjoyed myself. I have found that I like good sculpture more than I like paintings or photographs. As I process images I will be posting a number of photos from there.

The first thing you see when you approach the Rodan Museum is the famous Thinker



Rodan used him to symbolize all creative force, and I now have a print of him hanging on my cube wall.

If anyone is interested, the camera I used to take these pictures is the Cannon Powershot G9. It has a large number of features, and takes 12.1 megapixel photos. I have been very happy with it so far.

More Philly stories to come, and an official image gallery where they will not be compressed (if they look bury on your monitor in this post, its cause they got compressed)

Jon