After suffering the disappointment of the Sunspot Solar Observatory’s visitor center being closed, I walked back to my truck and grabbed this picture. Nothing special, but fun stuff.

Between Cloudcroft, NM and Sunspot Solar Observatory is this impressive view looking down Haynes Canyon into Tularosa Basin. The canyon is located in the Lincoln National Forest just 45 minutes from downtown Alamogordo. From here you also get a great view of White Sands National Monument to the south.

Aside from the signature, this image is unedited. Using a circular polarizer I darkened the sky as much as possible to enhance the contrast. Spectacular. This photo was taken on Sacramento Peak after suffering the disappointment of Sunspot Solar Observatory’s visitor center being closed.

This photo, though not taken by me, was shot with my input. I tried guessing at the best white balance to use for the photos being taken in the hangar, but, clearly, I was wrong. Thankfully I made sure the camera was configured to shoot in RAW which allowed me to handily correct my gross mistake. My photo editing knowledge isn’t good enough to know if the same transformation would be possible on a JPG, but my quick attempt wasn’t anywhere near the result you see above. White balance correction is just one of many benefits of RAW formats. So if your camera has the ability, you should be shooting in a RAW format and not in JPG. Your photography will forever thank you.

On this past Christmas Eve I was en route to my mom’s house in Oklahoma. Traveling through central New Mexico to catch I-40 and head east, I came over a ridge and was quite impressed with the view. So naturally I pulled over and stole a few pictures before continuing on. This was the first snow of the season and the trailing edge of the weather front that dropped it is just visible on the right side of the picture. Unfortunately, that same storm went to my mom’s house, dropped a ton of ice and left her (and ultimately me) without power for a few days.

I found this house on a photo-taking daytrip I took while still in Columbus, MS. I had just purchased a crap tripod for my camera in hope of trying out HDR photography. This house happened to be my first subject done in that style and it turned out great. I did a little more developing of this photo this time around to bring out the color a bit better. Anyway… Fun stuff.

Taken shortly before the picture featured two days ago, this photo is my favorite from that day. Looking due south from US-70 between Holloman AFB and Alamogordo, this was originally an HDR image which had significant digital noise in the dark areas (an issue with the processing challenges inherent in that style). Trying to correct it somewhat in Photoshop, I decided to see what taking the noise filter to the maximum would produce. And here it is… somewhere between photography and painting.

This is the same picture as two days ago… just minus some of the editing. It’s pretty interesting how merely changing the color of something can change the entire feel of a picture. Is one better than the other? I’d say no… they’re just different and interesting each in their own manner. Whatcha think?

January 23rd saw some nasty morning weather here in Alamogordo, NM. Luckily it began clearing out around midday which gave me the opportunity to get out and photograph the passing weather front. Though the title of this post makes the claim that this is a duotone image, it’s not… despite its resemblance. I just want to make sure that’s clear. I’ll feature the full color version in two days.