brookie...

May, week one:
This beautiful brook trout is the first fish that I caught with my new fly rod. It is a native brook trout (not stocked by the state), and had amazing colors. This is a reasonable followup to my previous blog entry, although photographically it is not the greatest shot. However, keep in mind how hard it is to get this shot! It would have been nice to have my 30d with me, with a circular polarizing filter, but since my 630 ended up sliding off some rocks into the water while i was carefully removing the fly from the fish, I think it's better that the dSLR stayed at home. The fish was then released, and swam back to his little feeding hole (catch-and-release with gentle handling and barbless hooks are important to preserving this beautiful fish).

The processing was simple, but it was also delayed (May is now almost over). It got delayed because the day before this shot the hard drive on my laptop crashed. Then, I had to start working nights for a little while. Once I finished with my night shifts, I focused my time on resurrecting my hard drive and reconstructing all of the data from various backups. I've also since purchased several additional external hard drives and have set up a comprehensive backup schedule. I also use Mozy for online backups, and I strongly recommend this service (free 2GB backups) to everyone. Public service message: don't forget to backup!

Image details:
Date and location: 5/4/7 at 14:45 EDT, Rapidan River, Shenandoah NP, Virginia
Equipment: Canon SD630, handheld
Settings: 10.09mm, f/3.5, 1/100 sec
Processing: cataloged in Aperture v1.5.3 -> monochrome mixer (20, 80, 0, 0) -> contrast +50 -> resize -> USM (150%, 0.5, 0) -> border + text
Photo-a-week goals addressed: #1 (b+w), #17 (wildlife)

angler...

April, week four:
A little change of pace from previous entries. FIrst, I didn't take the picture (my fly fishing instructor did). Second, it's with my point-and-shoot (I didn't want my 30D going for a swim). And third, I hate the composition... but, I love the subject, a feisty little rainbow trout that I caught just as I was getting ready to finish up for the day. Shortly after this picture, I went home smiling and the fishie swam back to the part of the stream I found him in. I was doing an Orvis fly fishing school, coordinated by the Albemarle Angler here in Charlottesville, and it was one of the most fun days I've had in a while. Even though I got some better pictures that day out on that farm when I was wandering around with my dSLR, I thought I'd use this picture since fly fishing is all I've been able to think about for the last week or so :-)

For the processing... simple black and white conversion, resize, sharpen, and that's about it. I know it's a stretch to list this as addressing the portrait and wildlife goals, but otherwise all it accomplished was vertical orientation. Anyways, hopefully I'll get some better nature photos on some fly fishing outings in the near future.

Image details:
Date and location: 4/28/7 at 17:14 EDT, Rose River Farm, Madison, VA
Equipment: Canon SD630, handheld (by fly fishing instructor)
Settings: 5.8mm, f/2.8, 1/100 sec
Processing: cataloged in Aperture v1.5.3 -> monochrome mixer (30, 30, 40, 0) -> resize -> USM (125%, 0.5, 0) -> border + text
Photo-a-week goals addressed: #1 (b+w), #2 (portraits), #3 (vertical orientation), #17 (wildlife)