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I’m trying out smugmug’s post to wordpress feature! I figure I’ve neglected this blog enough, something’s better than nothing, right?! And incase this is the only place you look for my new photos, check my website www.AndyCalnan.com for fairly regular updates!

The falls, leading up to Castle in the Clouds. Wolfeboro, NH.

EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM @ 20mmISO 100, f/11 at 1/4, 1, and 4 seconds

As always, click here for higher resolution sizes. The detail in the tree branches is quite nice on this one.

A few weeks ago I was driving up to see Lynne after work, and I happened to have my camera with me. There’s a back road to her house from the highway that’s a little less direct, but cuts through a swamp that has a very “New England” feel to it. I’ve photographed it before, but never felt like I did it justice. There was a nice sunset as I was coming off the highway, but what really surprised me was just how foggy it had gotten, especially in the swamp.

The combination of the sunset, reflections, and how the trees slowly disappear into the fog all come together for quite the shot. I’m very happy with this one, and I’ve sat with it open in Photoshop for atleast a week and a half, making small tweaks to color and saturation. I’m quite pleased with the final product. It reminds me a little of the cover art from Opeth’s Blackwater Park album, but with more color.

On a related note, I ordered some prints from SmugMug here, and I’m quite thrilled with the results. I ordered a 12×18 metallic print (the metallic finish really does justice to the HDR, it’s pretty great), a large Aluminum print (super glossy, and very easy to hang) and I was most impressed with the quality of the 20×30 Giclee canvas print. Having worked in a print shop, and having done all of my prints up to now has left me with a fine eye for detail and color, so I was a little anxious to see how Smug Mug would hold up. They met or exceeded my expectations completely. I will be ordering a print of this one soon, the question remains… what finish to pick?

EF 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5 II USM @ 28mm
ISO200, f/13, 3 30 sec exposures through auto bracketing

Click here for larger views!

Today we take a peek at the first of hopefully many photos from our most recent trip to Stonington Maine.

The area was beautiful, and for the most of it, we had good weather. When it wasn’t raining, it the sun tended to be very bright. Maybe it’s the locations, but I’ve never had so many problems with lens flares before in my history of photography! Trey Ratcliffe of www.stuckincustoms.com seems to leave his flares in. Maybe he likes them, then again I’ve seen some of his more photoshop centric tutorials and his skill isn’t with PS as much as it is with a camera and photomatix. Either way, I plan on removing what I can. The one small red hexagon that showed up in here was a bit of a pain, but over something innocuous enough, most of it was just blending color, not repainting.

Some other shots that I was very excited about got some bad streaking, but they’re rainbow streaks, and we’ll cross that bridge when I get to it though!! Wide angle lens hoods are no match for coastal sun apparently!

This one was taken along the walk from our vacation house to the “center” of “town”. I put both words in quotes because it was such a little fishing village, neither word is appropriate! Lynne has said before that she wanted to be placed in some pictures like a Where’s Waldo. She was unaware that I was taking a picture of her at the time. Lucky for her this one came out great. Talk about some fun clouds! The remnants of some rain clouds were drifting away on the right there (that darkness isn’t a result of my processing).

EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM @ 10mm
ISO 100, f/22 at 1/180, 1/45, and 1/10 second

Click here for larger views!

Lynne and I were back in lovely New Hampshire a few weekends ago, and while driving around, I spotted this magnificent gate. It was part of a residential house, and was very odd given the neighborhood it was in (there was a nice horse farm right up the road, which I’ll be showing shots from soon, I hope). Anyway, my real estate work has made me more brazen in my pursuit of the perfect shot. There were some undesirable objects in the way, and rather than photoshop them out later, I moved them. Low tech, but very effective! There was some front lawn trespassing after this shot, but nothing invasive. Such a cool looking house too. If any of those turn out, they’ll get posted too.

I really liked the varying light and shadows cast by the trees, and the light coming through the door. It kind of reminds me of something from True Blood, specifically Sookie’s coma/dream land.

EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM @ 10mm
ISO 200, f/11 at 1/15, 1/60, and 1/4 second

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Lynne and I spent the 4th of July this year in CT. My excellent friend Max was having a house party, and before all the guests finished spreading out, I snapped this HDR of a guitar in the Library.

EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM @ 10mm
ISO 100, f/11 at 2, 6, and 15 seconds

Click the here for larger views!

So here we have the Lincoln Memorial, from my trip to DC last year. I’ve been saving some negatives (RAWs) from the trip to process later. This is one of them. White marble really pops when you run it through Lucis/Topaz Adjust. Good ole’ Abe’s never looked better!

Lynne and I had a great trip to CT this weekend, I’ll have atleast one photo from there to upload later.

EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM @ 22mm
ISO 800, f/4.5 at 1/60 second

Click here for larger views!

I’ve been updating my portfolio of images over @ AndyCalnan.com, via smugmug. There’s lots of real estate photography that hasn’t been seen here, in addition to this and other photos. I’ll still update this blog, just not as frequently as I used to.

For the past few months, driving around Rowley,I’ve been noticing the wonderful abundance of swampland they have. I’ve wanted to capture them for a while now, and over the weekend, I not only found 2 decent viewing spots of a good area, but there were some great sunsets! This is from my first evening, which had better sky coloring than the second.
As a side note, I’m now using Windows 7, and I finally upgraded to the latest Photomatix. I’ve also made the switch from Firefox to Chrome. I highly recommend all of them! Now if only CS5 would come out and complete my upgrade!!!

EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM @ 10mm
ISO 100, f/11 at 1/8, 1/2 and 2 second exposures

www.AndyCalnan.com will redirect you there, while blog.AndyCalnan.com will guide you here

Thanks for your support, and I’ll modify this post to include some new photos soon, I promise!!!

Another photograph from a fruitful outing in Roger Williams Park Zoo in quaint Rhode Island. I had no idea what the heck this structure was, but some judicious use of Google has turned up that it’s a Bandstand. A pretty ornate bandstand, if you ask me! And if it enhances your enjoyment, know that I was probably stepping in goose poop while I was framing this shot.

2 notes from a technical standpoint. My 30 day free trial of Topaz Adjust ran out, so I am proud to announce that I purchased a copy. Use coupon code STUCKINCUSTOMS ala the fantastic Trey Ratcliffe to save 10% on this fantastic piece of software. I think I’m done with Lucis, which was a much more expensive piece of software. The second tech note, is that upon checking this image at work, it actually looks like it did on my monitor at home. GREAT SUCCESS! This means my monitor profile was worth the hassle. My monitor still bites, but atleast I can work on it now This will probably also be the last image stamped with 2009 on it, I guess. Great now I’ve got to redesign my watermark!

Happy New Year!

EF-S 10-20mm f/3.5-4.5 USM @ 22mm
ISO400, f/14 at 1/320 sec exposure

Another image from the trip to DC. This one was taken on our first outing into DC proper. The weather was great that day, and we got to some great places right as the sun was setting, so the light had that magical twilight-ish quality to it.

This image practically made itself, but I still used some Topaz Adjust on it to make the detail pop a bit.  I got some great shots around this memorial, so I’d be surprised if this was the only shot I uploaded. Expect to see more of it soon.

“It is evil things we shall be fighting against, brute force, bad faith, injustice, oppression and persecution.” – Neville Chamberlain 1939

EF-S 10-20mm f/3.5-4.5 USM @ 16mm
ISO200, f/7.1 at 1/125 sec exposure