Airlie Gardens Walkway

Today's photo is another shot that I took while on vacation in North Carolina back in July.  This shot was taken at Airlie Gardens, which (according to their website) is a 67-acre park that dates back to 1886.  The garden has a large variety of flowers and vegetation, as well as a few bodies of water and associated wildlife.  The garden is also home to a 468 year old oak tree, which greets visitors not long after they begin the walk down the path.

This shot was taken near one of the lakes, I did not take my tripod as I was unsure of how many photographs that I would actually take at the Gardens.  I placed the camera on my camera bag, adjusted the bag until I got the angle and shot that I wanted, and took the bracketed photos.  When I started to process the shot, I cropped out quite a bit from each side to make the trellis appear to be evenly balanced on each side, with the centerpiece of the photo being the fountain.  Interestingly enough, the trellis beams themselves are crooked, so rather than adjusting and trying to fix that, I just tried to balance the positioning of the beams on the side of the walkway as evenly as possible.  I added some additional blur and desaturation to the entire shot with the exception of the fountain, in an effort to make the shot appear "dream like".  Thanks to the power of Photoshop and Nik Color Efex Pro 4 I managed to create the shot how I envisioned it in my mind, and am quite pleased with the resulting photo.

If you would like a full-size copy of this photo, please contact me (either with a comment or by emailing me).  Airlie Gardens has a non-profit photography stance, so in order to abide by the rule, if you would like a copy of the original photo please let me know and I will provide it to you at no cost.

Airlie Gardens Walkway

Please feel free to click on the photo above to view it in various sizes.  Clicking on the photo also takes you to my online gallery, hosted over at smugmug, where you can also browse this (and other) photos that I have posted.  If you enjoyed viewing this photo, please take the time to leave comments and/or feedback below.  Please also feel free to pass the link of this photo on to others if you so desire.  Thanks for stopping by!!

Carolina Beach Fishing Pier

First of all, I know that it has been quite some time since I posted a photo on my blog.  I have been very busy this past year and the past few months have been tumultuous, but at last things have started to settle back down and hopefully I will be able to have some more time to devote to my photography hobby!

Today's photo is a shot from underneath the Carolina Beach Fishing Pier that I took while on vacation in Carolina Beach, North Carolina, in the beginning of July.  I used the fisheye lens to capture this shot and I tried to tweak the angle of it so that the pier itself appeared fairly straight, but the rest of the background had the fisheye appearance to it.  I tried to wait for the right moment to capture the sun in the approaching storm clouds (thankfully we only had a storm interfere with our plans on one day of the vacation).  I was very lucky and managed to get some additional shots that I am looking forward to getting some time to work on that I think you all will enjoy as well.  Hopefully I can find some more time and update this blog and share my hobby more often than once every four months!


Carolina Beach Fishing Pier



Please feel free to click on the photo above to see it in various sizes.  Clicking on the photo also takes you to my online gallery, hotest over at smugmug, where you can also browse through additional photos that I have posted.  If you enjoyed viewing this photo, please take the time to leave comments and/or feedback below.  Please feel free to pass the link of this photos on to others if you so desire.  Thanks for stopping by!!