Micah's Photography

Wilson County Fair Entries

2011-08-07T13:41:00.000-07:00

The photos below have been submitted into the Wilson County Fair. Be looking for them in the youth section. Yes I'm still a youth. Even next year when I'm eighteen I'll still be considered a "youth."

Winner - 1st Place -

Winner - 3rd Place -

Winner - 1st Place -

Winner - 1st Place

Winner - 2nd Place

Mountains Panorama via my iPod

2011-06-16T14:50:00.000-07:00

Since my SLR was destroyed while parasailing, I was forced to use my iPod on the Honduras mission trip this past week. You might notice that the blurs in the trees/grass are not consistent. Well, the iPod's camera is low quality and only captures a small amount of the area you want to photograph. Therefore, in order to get this wide-angle-looking photo, I took many photos of the scene and stitched them together in photoshop creating a panorama. The blurs are not consistent because at the time of photographing this scene, I was in a moving bus. The change in the direction of the blur was a result of different blurs from different pictures being stitched together in photoshop. It's not perfect but I think it's not to shabby considering I took this with my iPod.

Parasailing

2011-06-16T14:48:00.000-07:00

This was one of the very last photos I took with my Canon EOS Rebel XS digital SLR camera before it was submerged in saltwater and rendered kaput.

Parasailing

2011-06-16T14:47:00.000-07:00

Florida Panorama

2011-06-16T14:45:00.000-07:00

While parasailing, I took about ten pictures of the coast and stitched them all together in photoshop.

Funky Trees

2011-06-16T14:43:00.000-07:00

Sailing to Sunset

2011-06-16T14:34:00.000-07:00

Tripod

2011-06-16T14:33:00.000-07:00

Something to Try

2011-03-30T16:34:00.000-07:00

Something to try: Take the subject of your photo and place it in front of a really bright light. Like maybe the sun, or just a lightbulb. Then let the light pass through an opening in the subject. This creates a most interesting effect. It adds life and vibrance to the subject, so I encourage you to try this. You might need a wide aperture (smaller F-number) so that the light behind the subject is more blurry and bokeh.

In this case, I used a lighting umbrella with the lightbulb at that brightest point in the photo - where the light bleeds through. To get some more ideas, here are some other photos with this effect: CLICK

Photoshop - Panorama

2011-03-29T11:52:00.000-07:00

Here's just a quick tip for amateur photoshopers.

Among of the many features in photoshop elements, there lie tools and features that even the great CS5 does not have! One of these features is Photomerging. I had probably been using photoshop elements for about a year before I even realized you could do this.

In photomerging, you can take any number of photos and merge them together in different ways. One way is to do a panorama.

Go to File/New/Photomerge® Panorama,

Select photos,

Then select how you want them to be pasted together. I used auto. It gives me the least trouble.

Each picture will show up as an individual layer in your layers panel.

Then you have to crop it.

It's painfully easy and you can have a lot of fun with it.
Another fun photomerge to try is "exposure." It's basically an HDR merge. There are no limits with photoshop!

Joy

2011-03-27T10:06:00.000-07:00

On the first warm day of the year, my little sister reunites with the trampoline... jumping for joy.

In the Night Sky

2011-01-27T21:00:00.000-08:00

Fenced in the Snow

2011-01-21T09:54:00.000-08:00

Plunge of the Light-bulb

2010-12-20T22:12:00.000-08:00

Shade

2010-12-05T11:53:00.000-08:00

This is another one I snapped in the cow field this summer. The focal length was set to 18 (as far out as my only lens will zoom) to include all clouds around the tree. The clouds curve inward towards the tree giving it some composure. I'm using it as my desktop wallpaper as of now. Click on it for wallpaper size.

Ice Blood

2010-11-18T14:51:00.000-08:00

Looks like the ice is bleeding. Ok, so it really just looks like blue food coloring.

Wounded and About to Fall

2010-11-03T13:11:00.000-07:00

200th Post - Water

2010-11-03T08:10:00.000-07:00

2nd hundredth post! Come a long way since my hundredth.

Ostrich

2010-10-30T10:04:00.000-07:00

This is the Animal Kingdom Ostrich.

Misfit Fruit

2010-10-26T13:34:00.000-07:00

Found an apple mixed in with the pomegranates at Walmart.

Ater Avis

2010-10-25T21:19:00.000-07:00

Took this in the animal kingdom of Disney World on the safari.

Sinking Seconds

2010-09-27T19:25:00.000-07:00

Here's something for you to try:

I will say, this one took a lot of fine tuning. From the time I started, to the time I finished, the minute hand was probably halfway round the clock. However, the results were satisfying.

To create this image, I had to rig a flashlight that would only shine a horizontal line of light onto my subject (the lines of light is noticeable in the lower part of the clock and on the wall). I painted the top part of the clock with my light beam while it was laying flat on the table. Then, I painted the lower part of the clock while it was tilted downward. I then painted some parts of the wall and background.

The photo needed more in it than just the clock, so I chose some of my books from school. It brings to light the meaning of this picture: Time flies when you're having fun, but time seems to droop and creep along when your doing school.

F-number - 7.1, Exposure time - 20 seconds, ISO 800, Focal length - 27, Mode - Manual, WB - tungsten (for a bluer effect)

Refleggtion

2010-09-26T20:22:00.000-07:00

Broken egg on both sides. A stream of egg leads to the unbroken egg giving it a reflection.

To the Shining Moon

2010-09-26T11:55:00.000-07:00

The grass is not so green on the other side..

2010-09-23T06:58:00.000-07:00

Just had some fun with photoshop. All I did was set the paintbrush to "Hue" and colored in blue for grass and green for sky.

Another Purty Nightfall

2010-09-14T12:23:00.000-07:00

Here's you another sunset pic... Ain't she purty...

Light Waves

2010-09-13T09:02:00.001-07:00

I took this one while camping. So I set a flashlight on the ground, and waved a colorful piece of paper up and down across the picture in front of the flash light (you can see my hand).
Exposure Time - 20 seconds, ISO - 400, FNumber - 5

Eventide

2010-09-12T14:29:00.000-07:00

Water Explosion

2010-09-05T16:17:00.000-07:00

This is a photo of a rock being dropped into the shallow waters of a lake. Amusingly, the hole in the center of the splash is shaped like the rock.
Taken at 1/650 of a second. ISO - 800. F-number - 5.6.

Photoshop - Remove Unwanted Elements

2010-08-27T18:59:00.000-07:00

Let's say you were taking a picture of a tourist attraction like a mayan ruin. At the moment of shooting, there may be about three tons of people crowding the shot and there's nothing you can do about it because you don't have all day to wait until the three tons of people move on out of your way. Your only option may be to give in and use photoshop. It's actually a lot easier than you might think and you might already know how.

We will be changing this:

To this:

I will be using the Spot Healing Tool Brush (easiest), the Recompose Tool

and the Clone Stamp Tool (advanced). Which of these you use just depends on the size and placement of the object you are trying to remove.

Spot Healing Tool Brush

This tool is the quickest and easiest to use.

It even got rid of the two people on the steps:

Just click on this buttonin the tools panel. And in one click, highlight the unwanted person as shown above. And BAM, she's gone! Photoshop uses other parts of the image to fill in where the unwanted element was. If the object is small and does not have very many pixels to it, then you will get a better result. It may take a few tries to get it to work right. Try spot-healing just sections of the undesired article at a time.

Recompose tool
NOTE: the recompose tool is only available in PSE 8 or later.
The recompose tool should not be used if the unwanted element is in front of a needed element in the photo. For instance, this wouldn't work with the people on the steps of the mayan ruin. This tool is actually a crop tool. When you crop the picture, instead of just taking off the corner, it just takes out the unwanted elements by squeezing them out as you resize.
To use the recompose tool, go to Image - Recompose. You can also access it in the tool bar. If you click the crop button, there will be another option.

Now, there should be a box like this in the top left corner:

Click on the red brush and carefully highlight the unwantedness:

Just grab a corner and pull it inwards to rescale the image and the unwantedness will disappear right before your very eyes!

AMAZING!
Now for the Clone Stamp Tool

If the other two tools just don't give you the results you want, you may have to try the clone stamp. This tool is like the spot-healing tool-brush, only you do it manually. The spot healing tool-brush takes pieces and parts from the photo to fill in for where you draw. With the clone stamp, you choose where the filler comes from manually.
This is an example of how the spot healing tool-brush can fail miserably:

Photoshop tried copying their feet to cover up their faces. This happened because both halves of their bodies were overlapping different textures. This is a perfect opportunity to use the clone stamp tool.

Once the clone stamp is selected, find a part of the picture that you could use as a filler for where you highlight, press alt/option, and click that area. Now where ever you draw draw will be based off of where you clicked. It may be hard for you to understand what I mean until you try it for yourself. It's really self-explanatory once you start using it, although this method is more difficult. To remove these people, I clicked on various parts of the steps (while holding alt/option) and then drew over the people. NOTE: When you use this tool, you usually need to have your paint brush set on a "soft mechanical" rather than a "hard mechanical" so that where ever you draw will fade out from the middle.

Results with clone stamp tool:

For the sake of humor, I could have left it like this! But that's pretty unprofessional. After making the steps look believable, I could then use the spot healing tool-brush for their other halves in a flash.

So weather it's people on a mayan ruin, dust on the lens, or president Obama, you should be able to clear it out of your photo with these three tools! Have fun. For more on photoshop, Click Here.

Smiley Drops

2010-08-19T15:15:00.000-07:00

I have been experimenting with water lately. I set up a water dropper and a bowl under it to take pictures of the splashes when the drops hit. Then I saw that a book behind the drops could be seen in a warped kind of way through the drops. I drew a smile emoticon that looked like this :| on a piece of yellow paper and set upside-down behind the water drops. It took a lot of adjusting but I finally got something blogworthy :)

Water Drop

2010-08-14T14:58:00.000-07:00

I've said before, water is my favorite thing to photograph. There's no limit with what you can do with water. What I've done here is place a dripping water source in front of some blue and green paper. The subject is clear and the background is bokeh. You can see the paper more crisply through the drop while the background is just all blurred out.

Sunned Flower

2010-08-13T08:37:00.001-07:00

A macro of a crispy looking flower. I think it might be a cotton plant.

At Sea

2010-07-29T12:10:00.000-07:00

On our way back from our CA trip, the plane went out over the pacific and curved back around eastward. And luckily I had a window seat. This gave me the chance to take some arial photos. The boat, clouds, and plane lined just perfectly for me.

Golden Pacific

2010-07-25T18:36:00.000-07:00

Taken the first night of our trip on the west coast facing the pier.

A Seagull

2010-07-25T18:28:00.000-07:00

This bird is about to get hit by a wave..

HOLLYWOOD

2010-07-24T10:53:00.000-07:00

I didn't have a lens that would zoom in enough to even see the sign. I used on of those binocular machines they have where you put in a quarter to look through. I zoomed in through the binoculars and snapped a shot of the hollywood sign. This added a mild vignette and gave me a nice zoomed in shot.

Santa Monica 66

2010-07-23T09:30:00.000-07:00

The end of route 66

Dolphins

2010-07-22T12:49:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite dolphin pics we took that day.

Dolphins

2010-07-22T12:48:00.000-07:00

This was taken on the whale watching excursion. Dolphins are actually classified as whales. But that's all we saw... Just Dolphins... No big whales.

People on the Peir

2010-07-21T12:27:00.000-07:00

This was also taken with my mom's point and shoot on the Santa Monica Pier at sundown.

Roller Coaster Silhouette

2010-07-21T12:22:00.000-07:00

LA - On the Santa Monica Pier July 17th at sundown.

Point and Shoot in the Park

2010-07-21T09:54:00.000-07:00

I am now In Los Angeles CA typing the first of many to come posts of the pictures I have taken on this trip. I am just now starting on the 5th day of my trip because I've been pretty over labored with all the shopping and site seeing lately and I have just now gotten a break. These next few photos were shot with my mom's canon point and shoot on the first day. After we got all settled in the CA home, we went to the Santa Monica Pier to see the cold Pacific for the first time in about 7 years.
This shot was taken at Pacific Park on the Santa Monica Pier.

Butterfly For Sure

2010-07-14T08:34:00.000-07:00

This is the follow up picture of the butterfly when it finally decided to open up and show the other side of its wings. I have decided that it is definitely a butterfly because of the bulbs at the end of it's antennae.
I found this thing stuck in a web flipping and flopping around. I tried to take a good picture of it while it was fixed and confined to the web. Because I knew how hard it would be to get a good picture of it if it was free to fly off the second I got near it. Butterflies are too skittish. But of course that didn't work, the background wasn't good at all (Just plain white ceiling), and it was hanging upside down flapping. So after taking several frustrated pictures I liberated the lepidopteran thinking it would head for the hills directly after. But it flew right down beside me, for a moment, then onto the brick wall next to me near eye level. I then snapped and snapped but got nothing special. It still wouldn't open it's wings. So I sat on the porch-swing, and looked up waiting for it to open its wings. Then, It flew down onto the porch-swing and flapped its wings open and closed. We sat there for a few while I snapped some more. It flew off a few photos after I got a satisfying shot^^^
F-number - 6, Exposure Time - 1/50, ISO - 200, Focal Length - 55, Exposure Program - Manual,
Shot in RAW and unedited.

Lepidopteran

2010-07-13T18:59:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure if it's a moth or a butterfly, but I think it's probably a moth...Maybe it's both! I don't know. Anyways, "Lepidoptera" is the class of both the moth, and butterfly.

The greek word "lepis/lepidos" means "a scale" and "pltera" means "a feather/wings"

Night Hill (summer)

2010-07-10T08:28:00.000-07:00

THIS OTHER PHOTO mirrors ^this^ photo which was taken in the winter. ^This^ photo has a lot more of a sepia look to it. The one taken in the winter when it snowed had a very purple and more colorful look to it. It's amazing how different the sky looks in the two photos.

My theory for the difference in color is that in this picture, the light reflecting off of the clouds comes from the street lights which are tungsten colored. And in the other picture, the light reflecting off of the clouds was coming from the white snow, giving it a more pure clean color.

F-stop - 3.5, Exposure time - 20 secs, ISO - 1600, Focal length - 18, Exposure Program - Manual.

Firework on the Lake

2010-07-05T14:48:00.000-07:00

We went camping for the 4th of July and on the 3rd, they had a fireworks show by the lake. So we hopped in the boat and watched from the middle of the lake.
You might have noticed the lights on the shore are all pointing at the firework. I did this with a shutterspeed of about 1/2 second and a big aperture. As the firework was exploding, moved my camera so the firework was at the center of the shot, and snapped it as I was zooming out. I did crop this photo so the subj. would not be SMACK in the center of the shot, and also because there was nothing but black on the right side.

Reflection

2010-07-05T14:33:00.000-07:00

Another way for you to take a picture of yourself taking a picture.

I Love Water

2010-06-29T18:16:00.000-07:00

Water is my absolute favorite thing to photograph.

After a Rain

2010-06-29T18:10:00.000-07:00

Drops

2010-06-28T16:47:00.000-07:00

Little globules of water sprinkled on a leaf.

Where Flies Should Stay

2010-06-28T16:41:00.000-07:00

I call him "Swat". This is Swat the fly.

Blowing Bubbles

2010-06-21T10:31:00.000-07:00

Dark Drop

2010-06-21T10:22:00.000-07:00

Leaf-climbing Ladybug

2010-06-17T12:05:00.000-07:00

Ladybug Chillin' On Its Leaf

2010-06-14T15:58:00.000-07:00

Just an untroubled red bug that has nothing to do but chill out on its perfect leaf.

Lake in the Afternoon

2010-06-08T12:52:00.000-07:00

Taken on the lake of the defeated creek late in the afternoon...

Ocean Sunset

2010-06-02T11:25:00.000-07:00

This photo, like THIS one, was taken on the school cruise to Mexico.

Look closely to see a tiny Cozumel skyline.

Spiky Tree

2010-06-02T11:13:00.000-07:00

This tree has some kind of spiky thorns in place of leaves. Found it in Progresso Mexico.

Mayan Stone Carving

2010-06-02T11:05:00.000-07:00

This was taken on our excursion to see the Mayan ruins in Progresso Mexico. We climbed down into a little narrow room that soon lead to this carving and a little slit for light to come down onto it.

Walk Into White

2010-05-28T08:57:00.000-07:00

^^^ Carnival Elation

Carnival Triumph ^^^

This was on our way off the Elation and into the washed out whiteness that is Mexico.

Sailing Along

2010-05-28T08:47:00.000-07:00

Took this on our school cruise to Mexico just next to the cruise ship.

Clovers

2010-05-28T08:41:00.000-07:00

Photoshop - Layers

2010-05-18T14:56:00.000-07:00

Original -

Hmmm.. It's dull. The composition is there, but it needs more contrast and a color boost. One of the many ways to achieve this in PSE is to play around with LAYERS. This is one of the best techniques to boost color and contrast, because you have so many options and ways to do this.

Start by Grabbing the layer that should be named "Background", and dropping it over this little symbol.

>>>>
Or just press Command + J for mac / Ctrl + J for PC with the background layer selected.

This simply makes a duplicate layer over the original. Once you have your duplicate layer, highlight it. Now all you have to do is click on "Normal" under where it says "Layers", and change it to whatever effect you want as seen in the drop panel.
once you have chosen one, try adjusting the "Opacity"
Usually, the default 100% is too strong.
Here are a few variations of the photo with different layer effects... (all effect layers set with an opacity of about 80%)

Soft Light-

Set on about 80% soft light just ads a nice all-round boost without over-processing things.

Overlay-

for a little bit more use overlay.

Color Burn-

For even deeper and darker, go with color burn.

But wait! There's more. You don't have to use a duplicate of the picture when you add an effect. You can create your own or use a different picture. I wanted a little more yellow towards the sun, and darker around the edges. So I took the duplicate layer, and changed it into a radial gradient.

With these two colors selected:

I clicked on the Gradient button:

Then the RADIAL gradient button up at the top:

(with the duplicate layer selected) The next thing I did was to click on the center of the sun and drag the gradient line from that point to the point on the canvas I wanted the gradient to end; And thus, my gradient was complete. This picture should make sense of all that:

This layer covered the picture of the sun, like this

in place of the duplicate layer. Then I just selected different effects like I did before. This is what I got:

Overlay with Radial Gradient-

This One is my fave.

Pin Light with Radial Gradient-

Kinda cool. It has a nice overly processed look, and I now see a brownish rainbow around the sun.

Vivid Light with Radial Gradient-

Awesome...

Well hopefully (if you didn't already) you now have the basic skills you need to add your own custom effects, be creative, and experiment with your photos using layers in PhotoShopElements. Go try it now!

Flower Trail

2010-05-18T11:45:00.000-07:00

And yet another flower.. I like how there is a trail of white petals leading to the subj flower.

Deep Red Flower

2010-05-18T11:41:00.000-07:00

Flowers flowers flowers....

Grannysmith

2010-05-06T09:00:00.000-07:00

Sunset #16

2010-05-04T14:42:00.000-07:00

Taken out on the driveway to Greg Armstrong's house.

Webworm

2010-05-03T14:28:00.000-07:00

I found this tiny worm hanging out this morning from the trellis outside the kitchen window. He's a lot smaller than he looks. Almost a centimeter long.

Puffy Webworm

2010-05-03T14:22:00.000-07:00

Flood

2010-05-02T19:48:00.000-07:00

The most rain we have seen in decades. Not that I've lived that long yet...

Bridge to Terabithia

2010-04-28T12:55:00.000-07:00

Within the Lens

2010-04-14T07:30:00.000-07:00

This is a picture of me holding the camera up close to the mirror. In the mirror was a reflection of my camera, and in my camera was a reflection of the mirror.

Yellow and Pink

2010-04-08T08:22:00.000-07:00

A yellow-bloomed flower tree in front of a pink-blooming flower tree.

Petals Everywhere

2010-04-08T08:12:00.000-07:00

This is a dandelion I found near the road with bradford pear petals surrounding it.

Bradford Pear Blossom

2010-04-08T08:07:00.000-07:00

Japanese Cherry Blossom

2010-04-08T08:03:00.000-07:00

I wasn't 100% sure, but I think this is the Japanese cherry blossom.

Pink Petals

2010-04-07T18:46:00.000-07:00

I thought this picture look a lot like it was painted. But it has been unedited to look that way.

One Little Dandelion

2010-04-07T11:53:00.000-07:00

Lots of Bokeh in this pic. I like.

Dandelions

2010-04-07T11:51:00.000-07:00

Dandelions

2010-04-07T10:05:00.000-07:00

Eye Movement

2010-03-28T16:18:00.000-07:00

This is a photo taken at 15 frames per second of my right eye moving from my left to my right. It makes my eye look like a cat's eye.

Black & White Daffodils

2010-03-27T10:19:00.000-07:00

Daffodils

2010-03-27T10:11:00.000-07:00

Black Sunset

2010-03-26T14:21:00.000-07:00

Sparks

2010-03-20T20:00:00.000-07:00

Looking down from above the fire after kicking it to make the sparks fly!

Light at the End of the Cave

2010-03-15T09:36:00.000-07:00

Sunset #14

2010-03-14T14:01:00.000-07:00

Chill Cave

2010-03-10T12:30:00.000-08:00

I got this blue colored effect by setting the white balance to tungsten (the little lightbulb)

The Sun

2010-03-10T12:27:00.000-08:00

You can see where it is darker around the edges. This is really only going to happen if 1, you have a bright light source near the middle the picture and the right camera settings, or 2, you use photoshop. As you can see, the light fades out to dark more, and more in the picture the further you away from the sun you look. The more you shrink the F-stop, the smaller the bright circle around the sun gets. You can get this effect with a combination of a low focal length and higher F-number, In this case-
F-stop: 13, ISO: 800, FPS: 4000, Focal Length: 18.

Tree Set Ablaze

2010-03-10T12:11:00.000-08:00

This picture is similar to the one I just posted of the moon. Same tree with a distant light shining through it. I particularly like this one as it shows the black silhouette of the tree and sun striking though. It looks almost like the tree has the sun in a head-lock, then again it looks like the sun is setting the tree on fire.

Tree Flair Silhouette

2010-03-10T12:04:00.000-08:00

I set the focus on a tree looking up through to the moon one night a while back, giving a silhouette of the tree in that one spot and making the moon look "bokeh".

Bricks

2010-03-10T11:56:00.000-08:00

I like how in this picture you see a zig-zag pattern going up and out of sight.

Open Field

2010-03-01T20:38:00.000-08:00

Water Land and Sky

2010-02-28T21:15:00.000-08:00

Three layers of God's creation... All in one picture

The Plant...

2010-02-28T21:13:00.000-08:00

Not just ANY plant... It's "THE" plant...

Crazy Waves

2010-02-28T21:05:00.000-08:00

This would be a picture of the sun shining down through the trees reflecting off of the ripply water creating a crazy mosaic shatter like wavy pattern with a rainbowish ring around the sun. I think I see the letter 'M' in there too.

Sparkling Water

2010-02-28T20:56:00.000-08:00

You can see a bunch of teeny little suns reflecting in the water.

Little Brown Flowers

2010-02-28T20:52:00.000-08:00

Wait! Don't step on that plant... Take a picture of it... Now you can step on the plant.

Kick in the Dirt

2010-02-28T20:45:00.000-08:00

^^^Taken when hiking in the woods with Jordan and Jack along the cliffs that are right near the river.