In this edition of In The Eyes Of A Photographer I will be looking back at my favorite photos from 2018. Like everyone else at the end of 2017, I set a New year resolution for 2018 and that was to take better photos – to take an A+ shot and to take photos of waterfalls the way you see online.
At the beginning of 2018 I was extremely busy with sports photos, and being it was so cold outside (who can forget that end of year cold snap where if we ware lucky it would get to 30F?) I held off on my goal for 2018 for a little bit until the weather warmed up knowing I was going to be outside for a long time. As it got closer to spring and I had some time I started to do a lot of research online and read blog after blog, watched YouTube videos on how to shoot photos of waterfalls and how take photos of water. while researching, I discovered that each blog said something else. what I did take from all the blogs and You Tube clips was you have to use a high aperture and a slow shutter speed.
if you are new to my blog or don’t know much about photography you might be asking “What is aperture? What is Shutter speed?” Aperture is a hole within a lens, through which light travels into the camera body so in simply terms it’s how much light is coming in; so the higher the aperture the less light that’s coming into the Camera. SS is shutter speed, which is the length of time your camera shutter is open, exposing light onto the camera. So, after doing long research and as the weather warmed up I decided I take my camera over to the park and go over to the waterfall. What a great place to try and take a photo of a waterfall and practice taking photos of water and …. splitting my jeans! OK – not my finest hour of 2018, in fact a moment of 2018 I would much rather forget. After a day of practice, I decided it was time to try this for real. Now we got the intro out of the way like Casey” Kassem used to say on radio “On with the countdown”.
My 1st photo I am going to talk about is one I have picked as one of my runners up photos of 2018. Now I have many photos, so picking for runners up is not easy. In fact, if I was to do 3 runners up photos we might be here until 2020. But my runner up photo of 2018 is a photo I took back on May 1st on a nice spring day when the trees was starting to pop, and the sun was out for most of the afternoon and temps was just above 70F. At the time I had just got myself 2 new wide angle lenses; a Tamron 17-50MM and was lucky I got a good price on a Canon 10-18MM lens 2 lenses that are both great for taking photos of the NYC skyline. So, on May 1st I packed my backpack up with the 2 lenses and my camera and got a Mainline train out of Glen Rock and headed to Governors Island for the afternoon to give the lenses a workout. For me there are many things that just scream NY. It may be the Subway or traffic and the wonderful NYC skyline. But this photo just screams NY for me what I love about this photo is it shows the City from a park setting. You get the NYC skyline along with some lovely trees that look set to pop any day, along with people who are sitting on the wooden benches maybe reading or watching the boats as they go by. for my setting I used the Tamron 17-50MM lens with my camera on manual, so I am in charge of every setting. I set my ISO at 100 with my SS set at 1/320 and my aperture set at 7.1. Another thing that grabs me about this photo is if you look towards the water at the back of the NYC skyline you can see what New Jersey in the background could be, maybe, Jersey City – so there just so much to look at in this photo and that’s why it’s my runners up photo of 2018.
Moving along to now my top 3 photos of 2018. It was not a hard call for me to decide which my top photos were. The only hard call was in which order? Which photo is my number one, which is my number 2 and which was my number 3 of the year? Truth be told I can’t make my mind up they all are so good in their own way.
My 1st number 1 photo of 2018 is a photo I took up at Cadillac Mountain that’s located in Acadia National Park. That’s part of Mount Desert Island located in Down East Maine. I took this photo back in July on a vacation to Acadia. For those who have been to Acadia National Park you will know that the weather up there is funky. it changes so often you one minute it could be overcast or foggy and the next it could be lovely Maine sunshine. And that’s almost what I saw on this day in in Acadia National Park. In the afternoon it was A+ weather; sunshine, warm, some clouds in the sky, but over the water and sitting over these small Islands was fog the fog was a extremely interesting to watch. It was jumping from island to island but never came inland until later in the day. What makes this photo just standout and makes it one of my top photos of the year is that there so much going in a small way it looks like a painting with how the lovely blue sky just pops right at you along with the rocks and with the green. Add into all that what looks like a painting of the gulf of Maine, add in the fog and the valleys that are in the background all around – there’s just so much to love about this photo. It even looks interesting in black and white. To take this photo I used my Tamron 17-50 zoomed out to 17mm 1st off I decided I put the camera on auto just to get an idea and a reading on what kind of setting I should start at. After that I put my camera to manual and put it to the settings but changed some settings played with my aperture, played with my SS but left the ISO alone. Settings ISO 100 SS 1/320 and a aperture set at 8.0 gave me this lovely photo one that I spent good money on getting printed. Read my blog post about this photo here
My 2nd top photo of 2018 is also up at Cadillac Mountain this time its Sunset. This photo was luck. After reading online how everyone loves going to Cadillac for sunset and how many photographers go up to take photos reading this, I knew that’s something I had to do, and I wanted to get the best sunset photo I have ever taken. When I started shooting it was not working. I could not get the settings right and nothing worked! I was starting to think this is a lost chance and I will be going home without that photo I wanted. What I did not know was my luck was about to change and I would be heading home with a photo that I would not stop looking at. In fact, it was the kind of photo that I to this day I still say I will never top that photo. My luck changed when I got talking with another photographer who had a Canon camera and knew the kind of camera I had. I told him I am having so much problems getting my photo, so he said, “Let me see what your settings are.” I gave the guy my camera and he asked if I had it set to back light settings or SCN on my camera. At that point I was lost. I had the face of like “What the heck are you talking about?” I said “I am not sure. I have never heard of that before.” So, he told me put the camera on SCN so I did and started to shoot. Now at first I am thinking OK, this is not going to help, but then after the camera took about 4 quick photos I looked at what the camera did and saw this shot. At that point I was lost for words. I did not know what to say! I’m thinking should I tip this guy? My mind was all over the place at that point so I just side thank you I just took the best photo I have ever taken along with the daytime photo this photo also I spent big money getting printed.Read my blog post about this photo here
On to my 3rd top photo of 2018, and the last this photo I took at the brook right here in Glen Rock. this photo was not much of a challenge as it was to get the sunset. This one just came down to playing the setting. Over the summer months I would walk into town and after some rain I started to take note on how the water was flowing and started think this could make for a interesting photo, but I needed to get into the water to do it after talking with some people who lived along there telling them what I wanted to do and was told its ok I came back with my camera and with some swim trunks on I went in, right over to where I wanted to shoot, and started playing around with my camera. Then I started to think what would happen if I pointed the camera close but not to the point it would get wet and putting my SS at ¼ of a second and the aperture at 8.0 and my ISO at 400 I knew this was tricky without a tripod so I just went with it and what comes out comes out after I took the photo I looked at it the photo looked nice but the question was – would it pass on the laptop? After getting what mud I had on me off I put the photo on the laptop to look at it and was amazed how great it came out, so I ran it on photoshop to make it pop more. After that I posted it on FB and could not believe the response I got! many people said it looked like a painting. Read my blog post about this photo here
I thank you for reading and I wish you a sweet and happy new year. What do you think is my best photo of 2018?
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