If you have a half hour to spare on a nice day, grab a sandwich and your camera and head to the nearest park. You might be surprised what you might be able to capture. Even a goofy chipmunk makes a good picture after a few days off from the camera habit.

It was interesting to see what appeared after sitting for just 15 minutes or so. I put my telephoto lens on and set the shutter speed to 1/1000 of a second. When something moved I shot it <grin>.

It was nice sitting out in the sun. And in the Zen spirit, on a nice spring day, it’s good for the soul to spend a little time contemplating nature and letting a little bit of stress go. I did have to walk about ten steps to take the shot of the Mallard. But I managed that feat of exercise without a sweat.

Don’t waste the nice days. A half hour break with your camera in your hand beats an hour of sitting at your desk eating your sandwich and looking at all the emails in your inbox. So bust loose and do it. The emails will not mind waiting.

I thought it would be nice. So I wrote this small app that will do that for you.

Download and install it. When you run the program you will see the screen below.

To move or copy your photos to subdirectories:

1. Choose the directory with your photos in the top section.

2. Choose the directory under which you want the date sorted files to go.

3. Click on the ‘Find Photos’ Button. (A DOS command window will open and run Phil Harvey’s exiftool.) Wait for it to finish and the count of the number of files found and number of photos with exif creation dates will show.

4. Then click on either ‘Copy Image Files’ or ‘Move Image Files’.

This is a sample of what the folder (subdirectory) structure looks like after running PhotoMove on some miscellaneous photos:

I wrote this program to get an idea of how difficult it would be to work with exif data. I intend on modifying this and expanding it into a full fledged AUTOMATIC geotagging program that will hook photos with Google maps.

If you have any problems, or have any suggestions for new or different features, leave me a comment. I’ll get right back to you.

One caveat, lots of modern file types now store exif data. Some examples are Microsoft Excel files (.xls) and Adobe Acrobat PDF files (.pdf). So pay attention to what directories you pick to move or copy files from since this current version operates on ALL files with embedded exif data.

Click here to download PhotoMove Setup.

(Original photo below right >>–>)

Can you put a flowchart on a web page? I don’t think so. At least not the kind of flowchart I was thinking of. I am going to make a valiant effort over the next few hours to see if it’s possible. Otherwise, you will be stuck with seeing something like this:

Download free QuickTime Viewer from Apple here: http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/

Example of an HDR hand held shot

Another barn to use on the geotagging/map page

A green barn, unusual. And with a chimney with lots of vines growing from it. This should be a real ‘green’ barn when the leaves come out on the vines.

A red and blue barn. I’m sure the flowers in the ‘planter’ in the foreground are plastic. First shot this year with green grass.

Add more photos/text…

Writing a blog is a lot of fun, but it is also a fairly time consuming activity. Combine that with an obsessive photo hobby and the free time disappears rapidly. So anything that can make the blogging part easier just leaves that much more time behind the camera.

Windows Live Writer (or WLW for short) looks like a very interesting program. And I really like being able to keep a local copy of my posts prior to uploading them to the blog. We’ll see how this works and I’ll report any bad (or exceptionally good) experiences.

The primary reason I am trying this is from the information I saw in a couple of posts by Ed Bott from ZDNet, ‘My 10 favorite Windows programs of all time‘ and ‘Your turn: Readers choose their 10 favorite Windows programs‘. There is some good information here, especially if you have time to read the comments. Check it out.

So I am writing this post with Windows Live Writer. It seems to be working famously. And as long as I am doing a post about testing new software, I thought I would throw in this HDR photo of the Jeep. It is first of all a test to see if WLW will handle the photo display markup I used in my previous posts. And if you click on the Jeep photo to see it full size you will notice the Photomatix watermarks on the picture. I have been testing the trial copy of Photomatix, and while it is interesting it is not interesting enough for me.

In my opinion, and painting with a very broad brush here, there are two kinds of ‘new’ digital photographers. Those that go out and take photos, and those that are caught up in all the tech things that can be done on the computer with digital photos. There are countless very good sites on the Web where you can learn about Photoshop, debate RAW vs. JPG, consider the differences in printing your shots yourself or using various photo printing services, and examine the intricacies of the histogram you see on your camera. But it is sure a lot more pleasing and interesting reading and learning about these things after you have a good library of photos of your own to work with.

We will be talking about High Dynamic Range (HDR) photos in the future (here is an example photo and a site with loads of HDR information. But for now our primary directive is to maximize our time when we are out taking photos and finding additional interesting things (er, I mean ’subjects’) to photograph. There are zillions of sites to tell you what to do with your photos after you have them, but very few that can help you determine the best and most effective way of being in the right place at the right time to take those photos in the first place. And that’s what we will be trying to do here.

Paco road along with me this afternoon on a trip up to Crow Wing State Park and the Camp Ripley area. It was a lot of fun having him along. And I have quite a few shots that I will be sharing with you. But time is of the essence and hopefully tomorrow morning I will be able to try some sunrise photos. Plus they are having a maple syrup demonstration at Lake Maria State Park and I’d like to check that out if the clouds stay away for the morning. So you will have to wait for some really dreary or rainy weather to give me a chance to keep the blog updated. So many photos, so little time.

Food for thought: Can a person take an art-worthy photo of people drilling holes in trees to make maple syrup? If you have the answer, let me know.
(Update 3/30/08: The weather didn’t cooperate yesterday. We’ll try again next weekend.)

I am still on my quest to take as many shots as possible of anything that catches my eye for the sake of building up a ‘knowledge base’ to work from in the future. I’m not showing these shots as examples of the best that can be done. Only what I have been able to find so far and recording these ‘items of interest’ for future consideration.

I was struck by this old house (click on the photo for a larger view). At first glance, it looks rock solid. Then when you look closer, all the windows are gone, the front porch has been ripped off, and it looks like just a lot of junk stored inside.

I shot the house hand held and had a long zoom lens on at the time. I am not real happy with the sharpness. The front looks like it is out of focus. But the side of the house and posts in the foreground seem like they are, so I am having trouble figuring this out.

I do think I’ll plan on checking this spot out again in the future and will use a tripod the next time. Nothing makes me more sad than looking through a bunch of shots and seeing half of them not sharp or in focus. But we all keep learning.

Then a little farther down the road, I ran across this ring necked pheasant. Bright sun, bright snow. A nice opportunity. But the little buggers run so fast! He was moving along at quite a clip when I ’shot’ him. I am rather happy with this one. Again, no where near tack sharp focus and that’s too bad. But the little buggers run so fast! (Or did I already say that?)

A little later, again on a back gravel road, I found two Trumpeter swans digging around for corn in a stubble field. But they sure didn’t like it when I stopped to immortalize them on this web site.

Trumpeters are the largest native North American bird. They are a protected species now, but they were nearly hunted to extinction 100 years ago or so. Widipedia has a short but informative article if you are so inclined.

Since they have not been (legally) hunted for a long time, they are not very fearful. But they definitely don’t like it if you get too close. And while I really like shooting them (with the camera), I hate to bother them too much. I rather like seeing them.

Wildlife photography is a field all of it’s own. And over the years I have become convinced about two things. First, that taking a tack sharp good photo of a wild animal is one of the most enjoyable things to do in outdoor photography. And secondly, that it is nearly impossible unless you are really willing to spend the time and effort to do so. (And going to the zoo or a game reserve with tame animals doesn’t count.)

Wildlife photography takes more than talent and gear. It takes TIME. Lot’s of time, usually. The Trumpeter shots here are nice enough for a photo to remember that you actually took a picture of one. But because of their low fear of humans, they nearly fall into the tame category. To get a true shot of a ‘wild’ wild animal, you do need to spend time in blinds, or well hidden waiting and it can take hours and hours before you actually get a good shot.

The purpose of this blog is to talk about how we (as non-professional photographers) can take better photos. Perhaps wildlife photography would be a good subject to address on it’s own. Maybe we can find some short cuts.

And here is one more barn to add to my (never ending it seems) collection of old barns that I’m building. Can you believe all the different colored shingles on the roof? (Click on the photo for a larger view.) I can’t wait for the snow to melt off the other two roofs and then go back and give this old barn a serious photo session.

I am looking forward to some stormy Spring days to try some shots of some of these barns in a little more ‘moody’ situation. They’re old and worn out, and like a lot of older things, don’t look their best in the bright light of day. But give them a little darker lighting, a little mood, and they look a lot better.

Which brings me to my first subject, ice. And particularly, ice fishing. I have to admit that ice fishing is not a pastime (I hesitate to call it a sport) that I am exceedingly fond of. But taking a photo of a dedicated ice fisherman sitting on the lake (for hours at a time, usually) gives me the chance for a late evening shot to see how things turn out. (Click on the photo for a larger view.) I had to set up the tripod to take this since it was actually darker out than it seems in the photo.

Again, this is not a wall hanger shot, but another in my series of photos to add to my photo education. There were quite a few problems with this shot and the final result. At first glance, this looked like a good opportunity that could have been a great shot. But I stumbled upon the scene on my way home from a photo outing. The light sitting on the ice caught my eye and I thought, “why don’t I take a picture?” (I think that a lot.)

But I didn’t know the guy on the ice, and it really was rather dark so we couldn’t see each other. I walked out fairly close to him and told him I saw him and his light and wondered if it was OK if I took his picture from ‘up there on the shore’. He said go for it, so I did.

But I rushed this a lot and really didn’t have time to compose things. That’s a lesson learned right there. Don’t waste your time trying to take a ‘good’ picture if you don’t have time. And it took enough time setting up the tripod and fiddling around. I didn’t want the guy to think I was some kind of nut job so I took a couple of different exposures and skedaddled.

I can think of a number of ways to try this type of shot again in the future. The obvious ones are to get down on the ice, or maybe really low down rather then going back ‘up on the shore’. And a close up of the fisherman with the lantern accentuated would have been a nice shot. But as I have said, I at least took a shot that will give me food for thought for the future.

If it wasn’t snowing like crazy today and tonight, I would be camped near this tree taking a long telephoto shot of it and the full moon. But it’s totally overcast and they are forecasting the same for tomorrow. Maybe on Easter Sunday the clouds will break in the evening but the moon won’t rise until 10:03 PM, so that will probably be a bust since this silly tree is 20 some miles from home. But we’ll see.