Ron Donocoff

Story Telling

2013-05-14T07:39:00.000-07:00

I think one of the things I really need to start working on is story telling in my images.
Sometimes, I am just unable to do this in one image.

Below is an example of telling a story with three images.
These pictures were taken at the John Hancock Building in Chicago.

Few things I am trying to do with these images, the first one is using leading lines to bring you up the building.
The second image I am trying to show Katie's reaction to the size of the building, and the third showing how tall it actually is.

Let me know how I did, and what you would change about the images.

More Chicago

2013-05-09T05:38:00.002-07:00

Below are some of the images that were taken in Chicago, while visiting the Sears Tower. Our friends (people who grew up in Chicago) hate calling it the Willis Tower... So basically I will stick with the Sears Tower.

I didn't even realize it when I was editing the pictures, but I guess I think of the Sears (Willis - Blah) Tower as a very black and white building. Maybe it was because of the overcast day...

Let me know what you think of the images. Even if it's negative feed back, only one way to become better!

Enough talking, I present to you my view of the Sears Tower:

Chicago

2013-05-03T05:55:00.002-07:00

I started to edit the photos from Chicago, here are three i took from our hotel room.
I liked the way the fog covered the build when looking back at the pictures.... It was terrible when trying to go to the top of the Sears Tower.

We Stayed in the West Loop. The last night time image, Lightroom 5 did an amazing job straightening out the building. I will make a blog post about that soon.

Tabby in a Box

2013-04-30T11:59:00.000-07:00

I am always trying to learn how to take better pictures, my wife tells me I need to take the pictures and not think so much. I think this is good advice. Most of the time I find my favorite pictures are using a flash bounced off of something (wall, ceiling, human).

Below is just one of my parents cat Tabby. The thing loves to be in boxes.

Flash bounced off the ceiling.

Mark and Ali's Wedding!

2013-04-29T10:53:00.000-07:00

Just a few images from Mark and Ali's wedding.
Awesome wedding!

This wedding was challenging (hard as hell) for me to shoot. Like a dummy, I forgot my flash....

However, like a true master I didn't let that stop me! So I pulled out my hotel room key, and used the pop-up flash on the camera. I started to bounce the flash off the ceiling. I think it worked out pretty well, for one ghetto method.
Below are some of my favorite from the wedding.

The rest can be viewed: HERE!

Note to self, don't forget your flash.... Makes for some very crappy pictures until you figure things out.

Domnic's First Birthday

2013-02-08T10:23:00.000-08:00

This past weekend, Katie and I went to Domnic's first birthday party. Below are a few of the pictures when everyone sang him Happy Birthday, and he got to enjoy the cake!

Side note Joe and Ang's basement looked awesome, that is where the party mainly took place.

It is insane how fast the first year went by. Here is to many more Dom!

How to take a Screen Shot on the iPhone and Nexus 7

2013-01-23T10:43:00.001-08:00

My wife just bought me the Nexus 7 for Christmas, and I currently own the iPhone 5.

I just wanted to learn how to take a screen shot on the iPhone and Nexus 7. This is just a quick tip on how to do it.

For the iPhone 5 - You Push the Power Button & the Home Button at exactly the same time.

Once you hit them at the same time, you should see a white flash. This white flash is confirming that screen shot was successful. You will be able to find the screen shot in your Photos (Camera Roll).

For the Nexus 7 - You Push the Power Button and the Volume down button at the same exact time.

The Android OS will display the screen shot in a smaller window and then file the picture.
You will be able to find the Nexus 7 screen shot in the Gallery.

Let me see some of your screen shots, and iPhone/android setups.

HDR using the iPhone.

2013-01-22T19:01:00.000-08:00

The camera on the iPhone was one of the major reasons I switched from Android. With that being said, I never really thought the iPhone's HDR setting did a great job. The only time I've seen the effect perform well was when I would shoot indoors during bight days.
Example: If you were to take a picture of someone in front of the window, the window would be blown out in the picture. The camera is exposing for the person and not the window. This can be changed by exposing for the window, but the person will be extremely dark. However if you use the iPhone's HDR feature, I believe it does two things, uses post processing and stops down the extremely bright parts of the photo. and possibly takes another photo and merges them. I don't see the 2nd situation very likely because of camera shake.

Below I took two photos of the sky during sunset. I picked the sky as my main exposure and focus point. The top picture is without HDR, and the bottom with HDR turned on.

No HDR

HDR

You can see that the light on the wall in the first picture is blown out, and in the second picture the iPhone was able to correct the brightness. The sky looks identical in both pictures making me think that the HDR is a post processing software method.

The only difference is the level of detail you can see around the light and the pipes leading up to the roof.
Either way, I find the incamera HDR very underwhelming. It is a fun tool if you want to play around with it inside you living room on a bright day. However if you are trying to capture a HDR sunset, I'd recommend other camera gear.

Let me see your HDR pictures if you get the chance.

1 Second Video a day.

2013-01-20T17:40:00.000-08:00

Last may I saw a TED talk featuring Cesar Kuriyama, talking about recording 1 second of video everyday for the rest of his life.

I thought this was an amazing idea, and start to do the project myself. I have been recording the videos since may. Since Cesar has created his app, I have actually seen my videos come to life. I will have to use adobe premire to cut the full year together, and see what my life has been like for the past year.

I am extremely excited to see the final product. However I am a bit worried about how many days I have missed. At this point, that is in the past and something I will have to work on to improve. I hope to never miss a day moving forward, but I do make mistakes and days will be forgotten.

I plan on piecing together my year from when I first started recording videos. However after that I am going to record every year of my life, with a starting and ending date on my birthday (12/23).

I do encourage people to pick up their own hobbies, and photography/videos my blog has become one of my stronger passions.

I hope to develop my blog, to become better and easier to navigate. I am considering buying a domain space, starting my own daily blog. This is something towards the future, and perhaps become my one second a day when it finally happens.

Changing the format of my blog - Diversifying

2013-01-19T07:47:00.002-08:00

I am going to start changing the format of my blog, and stop posting strictly my own pictures. I am going to start posting areas of photography I find interesting in the field of photography. This was per Katie's (my wife) suggestion.

I have been thinking about buying the 35mm f/1.8 DX lens. I currently own the 50mm f/1.8 FX lens. Since I have a cropped sensor, the 50mm is now a 75mm (with the 1.5x cropped sensor multiplier).

Two main reasons I want to buy this lens:
1. I love the bokeh of the f/1.8 which let a lot of light in.
2. I needed a more wide angle lens, especially since the 50mm indoors is so zoomed in.

Reasons why I don't want to buy the lens:
1. I don't want to buy a DX lens, I want to upgrade to a FX lens.

I don't think to struggle with one lens, in hopes that one day of buying a full framed camera.
This is not a good enough reason not to, buy it. When the day comes to finally purchase a full frame (FX) camera body. I will just sell this lens.

So in 2 weeks or so I will be purchasing this as my next lens. The next question is buy it used off of ebay, or to buy it brand new. I think I will be buying this lens brand new, since the savings will be around $40-50. For the piece of mind at a price tag of $50, I feel it is worth it to buy brand new.

Flight

2013-01-11T05:29:00.001-08:00

This image is of a goose taking flight on the water. The image is cropped, I was not able to get close enough with my 50mm lens on the camera. I feel that it kept most of the detail, which is usually my concern about cropping an image. Anyway, this was taken at cooper river while walking around.

Flight on water

Jay - NYE

2013-01-09T18:49:00.001-08:00

Hours before midnight on New Years Eve, aka last year!

This was just a quick picture I took of Jay while he was filling the pitcher from the keg.
I asked him to give me his best pose, none of the others I thought I did good job capturing the moment except this image.

So Jay Happy New Years to you! The first man I ever kissed, oh so many years ago!

I tried to make the image seem older, as if it was almost taken with film...

Chirstmas Dog

2013-01-08T19:23:00.000-08:00

On Christmas eve, Katie and I's friend Kaitlin has a Christmas Breakfast. This was the 2nd year I was invited, and the only guy! I felt honored! When we pulled up they had a very nice decorated house, and this little guy below was front and center! I liked him, and took his photo. I tried to blow out the background, but allow enough so you can see the other decorations.

Below is Christmas Dog!

Fake Proposal

2013-01-07T18:18:00.001-08:00

On New Years ever we were joking about Jay and Alisha getting engaged.

Well thank god Alisha finally popped the question, and below is the moment captured.

Congrats to the Armstrongs!

New Flash Diffuser

2013-01-06T08:55:00.001-08:00

For Christmas I received a new flash diffuser. I wanted to try it out on my dad, below is the result from playing around with it. I enjoyed how it lit my Dad perfectly, but kept the background dark. Just a different effect that makes portraits better.

Transition

2013-01-04T10:09:00.000-08:00

Writing has never been my strong area. This is the reason I have become an Engineer.

However, I am going back and forth to taking this blog to the next level and starting my own web page.

I guess I should attract some business before I take this step. So that is one of my goals this year, to earn $1000 in the field of photography.

I am also going to try my hardest to start posting at least 1 image a day from images I have taken.

Today's image below is a ram from Ireland that was scratching its back on a rock on the side of the road.

So, here is to $1000!

Christmas is soon.

2012-12-21T10:04:00.000-08:00

Well, I went out shooting with an Eye-Fi card and it died on me...
Lost all the pictures! Thanks Eye-Fi!

Here is a good Christmas Video that made me laugh.

iPhone picture

2012-12-04T20:51:00.001-08:00

I always want to try to improve myself in photography, and it is difficult to bring around my dslr. So I am going to try to improve my skills by just taking photos and improving my eye!

Since I always have my iphone with me, this will be my main tool of choice.

Check out how you can still blow out the background using an iPhone.

Instagram

2012-11-29T07:23:00.001-08:00

Instagram has become a growing contender in my life for social media time. I know it takes a lot of heat (haters), for being an app that has such a limited and hyper focused point of view. But I feel it is so much more than that!

Facebook (even if they now own Instagram) doesn't impress me the way Instagram has recently. Facebook seems to be this place to talk only about yourself. A world for people who need that outlet to brag/vent/cry about themselves, in hope that all of their Facebook friends are hanging onto their every word. I even find myself guilty of this, hoping to post things to Facebook and get the feed back and conversations that Reddit sparks. Never the case haha!

However with Instagram there is only images, no need to try to impress the world with you witty comment. Just take a half decent picture of what is going on in your life at that moment and send it on its way.

Why I use Instagram:
-I consider it a modern day scrap book .
-Allows me to let people know what is going on in my life through imagery!
-Simple and Fun

Things I learned not to do.
-Take pictures of yourself alone.
No one cares and it add little interest to even atop and look at the photo... I find myself just moving right past self portrait images. I do stop for a brief second to look at group photos, they are more enjoyable.
-Posting quotes or pictures of text, just seems unnecessary and that is something that can be done on Facebook.

Try to shoot all the time letting people know what is going on in you life. Take pictures of everything in your life, but think before you shoot...

Below are my last 3 images I posted to Instagram.

First Anniversary

2012-11-27T19:57:00.001-08:00

Time flies, and Katie and I just had our first Anniversary!

I can't believe that we have been married for a year already. This has definitely been one of the best years of my life! A few highlights, I went to Jamaica for our honeymoon (best chicken in the world!). I visited Ireland, and Katie's Nana's hometown, rode a bike 50 miles to destroy MS! Started a new job, and got a new Car (Fang!)... I think that is enough bragging about my first year being married!

I do hope the next year will bring as much joy as the first one!

Here is to you Katie - I love you! Happy Anniversary - 11/18/2012

My 1st Portfolio

2012-11-12T18:39:00.001-08:00

I made a collection of some of my best photos from the past couple of months of weddings I attended. I know this is longer than a typical portfolio.

I will try to make a shorter one consisting of 10 or so photos.

Dragonfly

2012-08-23T09:45:00.001-07:00

I was outside and saw the Dragonfly sitting on my fence.

Here it is:

Gravestones

2012-07-20T11:48:00.000-07:00

I was asked to try to photograph some gravestones in Irealnd or "Irish Grave Stones".
At first I was nervous I wouldn't see any, and to be honest they are not everywhere. I only saw 2 spots that had them, and you can see the 3 photos I was able to capture of them below.

Lastly: I liked the challenge to photograph the gravestones.

Finished Editing the Steam Punk Festival

2012-07-17T05:10:00.003-07:00

After going back through and editing the photos from the steam punk festival.... I once again was reminded how not my scene that place was. The saddest part about the festival is that it wasn't even fun, or activities going on. Just people walking around dressed up in cos play, most acting like rude tool bags.

Steam Nerd Fest... Enjoy...

Here are the rest of the photos from the day:

Falling Effect

2012-07-16T05:38:00.003-07:00

One Effect I wanted to try was an image where it appears I am falling.
While visiting slieve league in Ireland I wanted to try this, let me know what you think... Does it look fake, does it actually look like I fell.
Let me know if you have had similar results.

50mm - f/2.5, 1/640s, ISO-100

Set-up: I stood on a table and jumped in the air, while Katie took my picture. The faster shutter speed stopped motion blur. Lucky enough, we were able to get the shot in 1 try. We're awesome yo!