National Geographic Ain’t Got Nothing On Me

I have most of my New Zealand photos up now. (Well, I took over 400 photos, but I have what I think are the best ones up)

You can view the New Zealand group here.

I had a hard time taking photos in NZ because of the overcast skies. The good photos either didn’t have any sky in it, or there was some sunlight that managed to peek through.

One goal I have is to be able to decorate my house with photos from my trip. I hope to get at least one really good photo from each location that could get printed and go up on the wall. I think I’m about on track so far. Please feel free to add a comment on any Flickr photos you like. All my photos are distributed under the Creative Commons license. That basically means, if you want to use it for a wallpaper or whatever, go ahead. If you use it online, just give attribution. You just can’t sell any prints….like that is a big worry.

3 thoughts on “National Geographic Ain’t Got Nothing On Me”

  1. I just came back from trip to India, I had an amazing time there and hats off to the travel Company who planned my itinerary, that allowed me to see most of India my allocated period of 3 weeks.

    In North India I covered Delhi – Shimla – Manali – Chandigarh – Delhi ,then we headed to South India where we visited Kerala & Trivandrum-Kovalam-Kumarakom-Thekkady-Munnar-Cochin . In East India we visted Calcutta – Darjeeling – Gangtok – Bhubhaneshwar – Puri and finally my trip ended in West India after taking a Grand Tour of Rajasthan .

  2. I’ve learned a helluva lot about photography in the last three months.

    I’d answer you with the following:

    1) The Milford Sound photos are good because it was raining before I got there which made for lots of good photo opportunities. You can only shoot with what you got. For the exact same reason, my Mirror lake photo is going to have ripples because there was rain. You can’t make a photo happen if it isn’t there. The main thing that makes a good photo is lighting and you have zero control over that. As much as I like the Milford Sound photos, many of the other photos I took in NZ were really nothing special because of the overcast sky and poor lighting.

    2) All photographers take a ton of photos. I took about 250 photos in and around Milford Sound. A National Geographic photographer would spend more time, take more photos, and end up with fewer that would actually be printed (they’d be better too). Its very hard to just put up the camera and get all the exposure settings right the first time. With a digital SLR, I’ll often take a photo at an EV stetting of 0, then look at the histrogram and adjust accordingly. The end result might be 3-5 photos of the same thing with different settings till I get it where I want.

    In the case of Milford Sound, it was a cloudy day and lots of running water made for a lot of dark and light areas. I had to adjust a lot and wait for the sun to be just right. Yes, I had a lot of garbage photos with the exposure not right, but I wouldn’t say its just statistics. I’m not just taking lots of random photos, I’m adjusting after each shot.

    3) I’m getting to know my gear better and what it can do. I expect some much better photos as I continue on my trip just because I know what I’m doing.

  3. I’ve got a better one of the “Mirror Lakes” sign. On yours, there are some ripples. The one from Milford Sound (at least I think it’s Milford Sound) is plainly AWESOME. In fact, many of your photos are. Now, the question is – is it purely statistical (given that you take so many), or is there something else? Just asking. Keep up the good work!

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