Last Film Pictures for a Long time

I got the NIkon D40! It was... awesome having that box in my hands walking out of the store... but It's going to be worth it. I've got a 2GB memory card, a UV Filter, and an extra battery to go with it! So I won't be having to pay to develop a roll of film for a long time! Besides, I can't really afford the film or developing it right now anyway. So, without further ado, here are the highlights of the last pictures I'm going to take on film for a really, really long time:

Trail Into the Distance...

Overhanging Tree

Dead Tree in a Clearing

Digital SLR Camera

Well, I'm going to be getting a new SLR camera for my photography class next year. It's going to be a digital one, given that film is nice, but developing it and buying film all the time is a pain, and on top of the already unreasonable gas prices, it eats away at my budget. So, after looking around at digital cameras, and checking out the list of cameras that my photography teacher recommends, I liked the Canon Rebel XTi, but honestly the Nikon D40 is a lot better priced, and even the editors on this website called digitalcamera-hq.com calls the Nikon D40 the "Best Affordable SLR". Honestly, that's just awesome. I only have about $300 right now that I've saved for a while, and I wanted to use that for other stuff, but now I see a very practical use for that money! Honestly, I'm going to Alaska in a couple weeks, and I don't want to have to buy 50 rolls of film and then have to pay to get them all developed! I want to take a bunch of pictures, and I think that having a digital camera will help out with that. Plus, uploading pictures will be far more easier! The library where I scan in my pictures blocks deviantART on their computers, so I have to e-mail the pictures home to upload them, but e-mailing pictures decreases the quality, so the quality will be a lot better!

Well, gotta run.

Peace out!

P.S the Renaissance Faire was closed when I went to it a week ago, since it was only when we saw it was closed that we figured out that it was only open on weekends. Oh well, no pictures coming out of there...

New Pictures

Sorry I haven't been posting recently, backed up with stuff, you know? Summer job and all that... here are a few pictures that I want to highlight out of all the ones I uploaded, and you can check out the rest at my deviantART gallery.

Here they are, in no particular order:

Oak Knoll Overlook

Sidewalks

Sunglasses study

Wildflower Garden House

Field Landscape

A likely location for more pictures

Well, according to my local newspaper, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Renaissance Faire (the "e" at the end of "Faire" was intentional, since it's a medieval thing, and old English doesn't spell things the exact same way as modern English) started today and will continue to June. It's basically a place where there's this Medieval village set up and there are a bunch of people as characters such as the King and Queen of England, the Queen of France (and their guards, of course! Those are who I remembered from last year...) and others. There will also be some other stuff such as jousting tournaments, complete with crowd chants, cheering and booing, and even swordfighting! (however, they don't let you take swords into the place unless you tie it to the sheath so it prevents you from unsheathing it...) so there will be all that, and other entertainment stuff such as... I don't know, musical stuff, like drinking songs, small musical theatre stuff, and the like. I could go on and on about this, but I'd probably bore you all. I think it would be better if I told more about it when I actually got pictures back from that.

PhotoShop Effects

Well, I've been doing some effects with PhotoShop in Photography class today, and I gotta say the effects on this particular picture was wicked awesome!

It was done using a few variations of the Find Edges filter and layer masking, and I really like how this came out!

Link

I may start to do some more of these in my free time (If I get any, that is...)

Toy Figure Pictures

Here are three of those pictures from the photography class project involving those plastic army men I mentioned earlier:

Window Sniper
A perfect place for that guy, isn't it?

Around the Corner
Nerves tense as two soldiers creep around the structure...

Hold the Line
Six soldiers prepare for an attack.

Got Pictures!

Ok, so I finally scanned in the ones from Shaw Nature Reserve! Well, I put them on my deviantART gallery, so I'll just link to those pictures. Anyway, so here are some of the best ones I scanned in:


I can do anything...
Probably my most favorite picture that I took there! Yeah, the smudges on the library scanner ruined it... but I still like the composition. That is me in the picture, BTW.

Two Trees
Yeah, it can be difficult to find trees just standing by themselves... this is the closest I could get.

Dried up Creek
You would think that a creek with water would make a better subject, but not all the time...

Wolf Run Trail
I really like this picture for some reason... not sure why, but maybe it has something to do with the arrangement of the trees in relation to the trail.

If you want to see all the pictures I posted on deviantART today, then my page there is linked to on my profile as my homepage.

Photography class project

Well, before I get to scanning in my pictures from Shaw Nature Reserve, I've been assigned a project for photography class. Basically, I'm going to take pictures of these toy figures in certain... hm, I guess you could say... artistic ways. (maybe... can't really think of anything else). So I chose to use a bunch of those plastic army men. I don't really know where I can take good pictures of them since it's raining really hard right now, and it's not supposed to stop anytime soon, but I'll try to think of something. I recently listened to the song "The War" by Angels & Airwaves, and since music is a major source of inspiration for my photography, I've been getting some ideas. I'll post them when I take them. I don't know if I'll use digital or film, though.

Shaw Nature Reserve

I'm heading to this place called Shaw Nature Reserve today once I finish my homework. I'll post the pictures here once I take them.

Edit:

Well, in case you didn't read this blog's description that says I only take film pictures, well you know now that I only do that, and only take digital when I can't bring my FTb. Well, once those pictures are developed, which means 2 rolls of 24 exposure, 400-speed Kodak film at a sort of nearby camera place (which is not Walgreens or Wal-Mart... those places and grocery stores are only for when I'm in a hurry and have no other choice... meaning when I'm on vacation or something). Enough ranting... so yeah, I saw some awesome views from overlooks and observation decks and some trails and interesting stuff! So... I'll post the best of those pictures when I get them developed and scanned in.

Interesting things that happened there:
-As I sat down on a bench at the trail house, and began to load my first roll of film, a family came by, and I heard one of the kids (two boys about the age of 10 or younger) ask to take a picture of the house, and the parents walked by and saw me loading the film in, and they said "Oh look, a real camera!" Of course, I laughed. She was probably refering to how the kids were using one of those point-and-shoot digital cameras, and I had an old, 100% manually operated film SLR.

-There was this kid and his Mom that seemed to be going on the same trails I was going on for a while, and the kid convinced me to get into this teepee thing that was set up off the side of one of the trails, and good thing I went in there, because I saw some interesting photo opportunities in there! He was cool, the kid.

Initial Entry

Hello blogging world! I can't believe that I'm here! Well, I guess I don't really need intros, since you can find all the info you want about me (except my name) on the side of this page. So getting down to business, I'm in school, and I've got about three weeks left! Can you say, "Score one for the Republic"? (Yeah, get used to that. I may be saying it often. I played Star Wars Battlefront II and I really like that line.) So, good stuff: School's almost over, school's almost over, and... school's almost over! Not so good stuff: ah... exams, exams, and did I mention exams? Yeah... kinda like that. Well, I've gotta get off. I can't even believe how late it is, and I like getting a good amount of sleep on weekends, but conversely, I like to have as many hours of daylight on the weekend at my disposal as possible. I'm more of a daytime person, and that comes with being a photographer, even though I'm technically an ametuer, even an ametuer photographer knows you get the best results on sunny days. Yeah, you can get good effects in less-than-perfect conditions, but I don't want to be getting my Mom's 1975 vintage Canon FTb ruined in the rain.

Why do I keep rambling like that? Ah, first post syndrome or something like that.

Later people! I'll head off to dreamland now.