Monday Morning Field Trip

This Monday, I thought I'd take you on a field trip. It was all Turkey's idea, I swear.

I have noticed, as I am learning photography and editing, that there are certain locations and lighting situations that I really struggle with. The number one "trouble" situation is usually when I feel hurried or am trying to sneak a picture like I did here:

This was just a random shot, that sort of cracked me up, so I grabbed it through the car window.

Definitely not great photography. We'll call that photo journalism. ;)

When I go on these "field trips" it is tempting to just toss the results when they are less than desirable, but since my blog is a record of my own journey, I am going to post some of these here...before I toss them.

Don't get me wrong, I am not going to post every picture I take. You don't have that much time!

I am a big believer that some shots should just be deleted. But, some shots, even grainy ones...*ahem* can be worth playing with, if only to improve your editing skills.

That is the only way I know how to learn: practice.

Anyway, on with the Field Trip. 

Turkey thought it might be fun to take a trip to our downtown to Del's Popcorn Shop.

There are very few shops left in this town that have stood the test of time, unfortunately, but the Popcorn Shop is one of them. It is truly an icon in our town. Turkey loves their popcorn...and their candy. He thought you might like it too, so won't you join us?

This is the outside. I did a little retro thing with the picture because it reminded me of the 70's, 

when I grew up.

Turkey is a great big ham, (<=I crack myself up!) so he insisted on getting his picture taken right there with his favorite snack.

These are their FAMOUS caramel apples. So far, this Halloween season, they have sold over 40,000 caramel apples. Yes, they are that good. 

What's that you say?

You want one?

You can go here to buy them... 

but hurry because they STOP making them at Halloween and we won't see them again until next year.

Here are some of the other sights we saw during the field trip.

Yum!

Here's one I did just for the purposes of this trip:

This picture is a result of over-cropping...which is another way to say that I took a normal picture and tried to extract a teeny tiny section of it, then blow it up to look like I got this shot on location. I did not.

I should have noticed this opportunity while I was there, not waited until I got home. Over-cropping usually results in grainy images because you are blowing something up way more than it should be blown up.

I used to do this a lot when I got my very first digital camera. But I try not to do it at all now.

My rule:

Always try to frame your shots in-camera.

Generally speaking, I am really aiming for reducing the need to edit.

I prefer to edit for fun or to add artistic value, 

rather than to correct silly mistakes like setting my ISO too high.

Could we say that the grain is giving it a "newspaper" feel? Ummm, yeah, I totally did it on purpose. ;)

...or letting the auto focus set up on the wrong thing. 

THAT one frustrates me, so I am pretty careful to avoid it these days.

I still use manual focusing quite a bit for certain shots.

Are you hungry yet?

LOL

These last two shots made me a little nutty because the color was off. I did some cropping and tweaking, but these are not making me happy. I think there were just way too many reflective surfaces fighting for my attention here. And the not-so-great lighting.

I think sometimes it's just better to re-do the shot.

If these pictures were for an album, that is what I would do if possible...or skip them altogether.

In the interest of science, I may have to go downtown again and buy some Witchy Corn and 

take it outside to photograph it in natural light. 

Then of course, I would need to eat it, because I hate waste. ;)

ditto for the Jelly Belly Buckets. Aren't these cute?

What do you do with shots like this? Keep or Toss?

Thanks for joining us on our field trip! Turkey is awfully glad you came along. Have a great day!