Project 52 - Week 04 - Contrast theme

Week #4's theme is "contrast." It's been a busy week for me as I've been spending quite a bit of extra time learning new APIs and backends for work. Since there wasn't much time to go out and explore, I had to make-do with what was at home. Anyway, here are the results (probably not so spectacular):

Original photo before processing:

The giant orange in the middle is a blood orange. It's pretty delicious. Tastes like grapes and oranges combined. It's much sweeter than a regular orange. The surrounding oranges are "cutie" oranges. When you cut a blood orange open, you get a dark-looking orange in the bottom row (the top row are Clara Clara oranges).

Project 52 - Week 03 - Modern theme

Week #3's theme is "modern". This week, I struggled to find a subject to shoot since everything in my apartment is old, and taking pictures at work would be a bit difficult.

It just so happens that one of the teahouses I got a chance to visit over the weekend had a modern look to it:

Original photo before processing:

The above ceiling lights belongs to Snowflake Teahouse in Union City, CA. If you're looking for a good Taiwanese dessert place, I highly recommend it. It's a bit pricey, and it does get crowded, but it's a great place for Taiwanese desserts and hot tea. We spent an average of $9 per person at the place, but the shaved ice and hot tea was terrific!

Project 52 - Week 02 - Vintage

This week's theme is "vintage". I just got my Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 lens and wanted to play with the wide-angle. This picture was taken at 24mm, f/2.8 ISO 100. I'm still trying to figure out how to take advantage of ultra-wide angle at 14mm. For those of you with experience and have example photos to show off, please do share and leave a comment with a link. Thanks!

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Project 52 - Week 01 - Action

Week 01 of Project 52.

The goal of the project is to take one photo a week with a set theme. My wife and I, along with a group of friends have agreed on a set list of 52 themes for the year. This week's theme is to take a photo of something in action. I thought I'd start a blog documenting where each photo was taken and the before/after effects of Lightroom processing for each week. I'm just starting to use Lightroom, so bear with me if my Lightroom skills are terrible.

This photo was taken at Natural Bridges State Beach. If you decide to park there (and support the maintenance cost of the beach), parking is $10. Otherwise, there's plenty of street parking outside. You'll have to walk in about 0.5 miles (~5 minute walk).  Follow the road in to the visitor's center. There's a walking path to the right side of the visitor's center (facing visitor's center). A sign at the front greets you as to where to go.

The butterflies are there from October to February. I went on January 5, 2014. The butterflies are high up in the trees, so your camera phone won't cut it. You need at least a 200mm lens (I used a 28-300mm zoom lens with the zoom set at 300mm).

So, here is week 1's results.

Processed:

And before any editing:

Original:

Location:


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