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In my ever continuing quest for learning more about photography and the digital darkroom, I subscribe to my fair share of photography blogs (of which I probably should post a list someday). With so many great posts to read each day, it never really takes that much to find inspiration to try a few new things in my own work.  In reality, it happens a lot more often than me finding time to try any of them.

My latest such inspiration that was lucky enough to find a few late, late night hours to play around with came from this post from the very stunning photo blog, The Windy Pixel.

Here are a few of my early, not-as-stunning-as-theirs, creations.

As with anything in photography that involves good composition and exposures with strong skills in post-production, the sky is the limit, and for me it will be something I will only get better at as my skills in both areas improve.

Here are the source images that were used for the my creative works above.

Nicolet Beach in Peninsula State Park, WI

Stars over Ka’anapali Beach

Haleakala Sunrise Fans

Be sure to look for more of these from me in the coming months as I continue to practice with HDR and Topaz Adjust, too.

A little time lapse I just recently put together from 3 different photo sequences I took back in February. The time span covered is from about 5:30am to 7:15am, and was taken from the lanai of an ocean from room at the Sheraton Maui Resort.

All told, there are 290 photos, and it’s rendered at 10 fps.

Had this not been a western facing room, there’d be a sunrise in there, too.

Most photographers and practically all book authors will talk about the best, or only, time to shoot is during the golden hours. Those are the first and last hours of sunlight during the day, which of course correspond to sunrise and sunset.

Well, ever since I first shot the Milky Way over Maui, I have grown rather fond of shooting long exposures at night. Many of them initially have been of the heavens, such as this one of Venus, but I’ve recently started to look for things more down to Earth to shoot as well. Back here on Maui for a week, there’s been great night skies and no shortage of things around me to shoot after dark. Not to mention the help of some of the new gear I picked up for this trip, too.

Here’s a quick sampling, with more being uploaded soon.

And of course, the primary reason I love shooting at night in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

See more at my Stars Over Maui photoset on Flickr, and if you happen to have starry photos from Hawaii to share, I invite you to join us at the Stars Over Hawaii group on Flickr as well.

Thanks.

In addition to the fireworks last week at the Taste of Chicago, I decided to have a little fun and setup this time lapse shot at Buckingham Fountain. Good thing I was using my remote shutter so people notice I was snapping these shots every second, otherwise they would have been stopping and waiting for me to take the photo.

What a beautiful day it was, if only a little late in the afternoon to wash out some of the colors. Still fun to watch, though.

Enjoy.