The first was taken about a month ago, the last two a few days ago. Each of these are on the Blue Ridge Parkway near Boone, NC.

Shot in raw with a Canon Rebel XSi (450D) & kit lens. Minimal post processing (WB, distortion correction, cropping, rotating, etc.) in PS Elements. Comments and constructive criticism welcome. Enjoy!



( Three: 467 KB )

Crossposted to a few communities and personal journal.

Last night we were supposed to get 1-3 inches of snow. Turns out, we supposedly got around a foot, although I think that's a bit generous. Can't be too sure, though, because the wind has a way of moving it around and making it impossible to get a truly accurate measure. In some places I was walking in two inches, in others it was getting close to my knees.

Anyway, whatever it was, it was enough for Appalachian State to cancel all classes, which hasn't happened in (I think) 4 years. So today I slept in, then made the trip to campus with a camera.

Shot in raw with a Canon Rebel XSi (450D) & kit lens. Minimal post processing (WB, distortion correction, cropping, rotating, etc.) in PS Elements. Comments and constructive criticism welcome. Enjoy!



( Nine: 1.57 MB )

Cross-posted to a few communities and personal journal.

Last night it rained off and on. During one of the "off" phases, I grabbed my camera and drove to campus. It started raining again before I got too many; I got scared off because I'm not sure how good the XSi and its kit lens are in wet weather.

Anyway, here's some of what I managed to get. Shot in JPEG with a Canon Rebel XSi (450D) & kit lens. Comments and constructive criticism welcome. Enjoy!



( Four: 580 KB )

Cross-posted to personal journal and a few communities.

Today I had planned to take some pictures around the Appalachian State campus, but since it was cloudy I decided instead to go to Linville Falls, about 25 miles down the road. I kind of wish I had gotten out there a few hours earlier; there are miles of trails that lead to several viewing points. I only made it to one before the light started to fade, so I'm planning on going back one cloudy morning in the not-too-distant future and spending the whole day.

Some were taken along the trails, others are of the waterfall itself. The second time out with my new XSi was definitely better than the first; reading a few online resources about it and learning what it can and cannot do certainly helped out a lot. But anyway, on to the pictures!

Shot in JPEG with a Canon Rebel XSi (450D) & kit lens. Comments and constructive criticism welcome. Enjoy!



( Six: 861 KB )

Cross-posted to a few communities and personal journal.

A week ago I bought a Canon Rebel XSi after playing around off and on with a point-and-shoot for a couple of years. For the first trip out with it, I went to Price Lake, which is located on the Blue Ridge Parkway near Blowing Rock, NC. I took around 200 pictures on the 2.3-mile trail, but was only happy with a handful of them. Some were too cluttered, some had bad exposures, some had a terrible white balance, still others had bad contrast. Even the ones I am posting probably could have been better. Fortunately, the ASU library has some resources on the camera, which I'll be looking into soon.

Anyway, here they are... comments and constructive criticism welcome. Larger sizes available upon request. Enjoy!



( Six: 1.41 MB )

Cross-posted to several communities and personal journal.

This past weekend I went to the speedway at Rockingham, NC because my uncle was racing on the infield the road course there. By the time we left I had taken more than 400 pictures in two days. There are a few with really blurry backgrounds (such as the teaser below), but for a lot of them I couldn't get a slow enough shutter speed to make them as blurry as I would have liked. Oh well.

The first cut contained more than 75 pictures that I felt were good enough to share, but I have narrowed it down to 20 because they'll probably start to look the same after a while. If there are any in particular that you like and want to see similar photos, let me know and I'll see what I've got.

Shot in JPEG with a Kodak C875 point-and-shoot. Comments and constructive criticism welcome. Enjoy.



( Twenty: 2.99 MB )

Yesterday I went out on the Blue Ridge Parkway in Watauga County, NC between US-421 and Price Lake (just south of US-321). I don't think these turned out quite as good as the last two Parkway sets, probably due to the lighting in some of them, but a few of them came out decent.

Shot in JPEG with a Kodak C875 point-and-shoot. Comments and constructive criticism welcome. All of the panoramas are clickable, which will lead you to a version that's 1024 pixels wide (the maximum allowed by Photobucket). Comments and constructive criticism welcome. Enjoy.



( Fourteen: 3.03 MB )

Cross-posted to several communities and personal journal.

Just one for now. Shot in JPEG with a Kodak C875 point-and-shoot. Comments and constructive criticism welcome. Enjoy.


Click for larger size (the snow shows up a little better).

So today it was 50 degrees and sunny. You don't waste a day like that in the middle of winter in the mountains, so off I went onto the Parkway. This time I started at US-421 in Watauga County, NC and went about 15 miles north.

Shot in JPEG with a Kodak C875 point-and-shoot. Each of the panoramas are clickable, which will lead you to a version that's 1024 pixels wide (the max allowed by Photobucket). Comments and constructive criticism welcome. Enjoy.



( Twenty-three: 5.26 MB )

Crossposted to several communities and personal journal.

The other night I went out and took a few shots of various places on campus. I do plan on taking some more sometime with a better idea of what to photograph (buildings, art, etc.). On this trip I just went around taking pictures of what I thought looked good.

Shot in JPEG with a Kodak C875 point-and-shoot. Comments and constructive criticism welcome, in particular with regards to the lights. Any tips on how to take night photos without overexposing the streetlights, neon signs, etc. would be greatly appreciated. Enjoy.




( Six: 1.64 MB )

Cross-posted to a handful of communities and personal journal.