Forwarding Address

This post is just to let everyone know that I am officially finished with this blog...I am keeping it for archive's sake, but nothing more at this point. Now that I am starting to post in other Blogger Journals, I want to make sure that I have a forwarding address easily available.

Photo Trek has moved to http://phototrek.446Photography.com please update your address books.

Greg

The New Photo Trek

Just to let everyone know who is still following this Photo Trek, I have officially stopped posting in this blog. I will be keeping it for archives, even though the pictures are no longer attached to the posts. There is a lot of good information in these pages, but it would be just too much trouble to repair the damage caused by AOL.

You can keep up with my new Treks at the brand new Photo Trek located at http://phototrek.446Photography.com. It is part of my new online gallery at www.446Photography.com. I hope to see you there. Things are just starting to get good, and get back on track.

Greg

Update

I know that I have been away for a little while lately.  I have a good excuse though.  I have been hard at work building the new and slightly improved Four Forty-Six Photography.  I currently have 20 pages built, and only four left till my basic gallery is finished.  Things are going pretty well so far to be quite honest.  It is a slow task to be sure, but it is going somewhat smoothly.  There are some minor improvements over the existing gallery that include mouse-over pictures that takes the place of having to open each picture up to see the larger image.  That should make things a bit easier to manage.

I have also activated a new email address that I will be using with the gallery.... GregKiser@446Photography.com.  For those of you who receive my newsletter A Polarized Life, you might want to go ahead and add that address so I don't get put in the spam folder.  I will be sending out an update email to everyone on the list with the new address as well as the official notification that Four Forty-Six Photography will be alive and well after the AOL shutdown.

I still haven't figured out what I am going to do with the journals.  I will be migrating them all over to Blogger until I figure it out.  I have realized that the migration is not too friendly to my pictures, which is exactly what I am focusing on.  I will have a Blog associated with the new gallery, and I imagine that will be the new Photo Trek.  I am working on how I want to continue the Tips and Tricks at the moment, as well as the Waterfall Directory.  So much to do, but the major parts are being done as we speak.

 

On a side note, I have been on a Trek this past weekend to the Virginia section of the Blue Ridge Parkway.  I ended up at Rocky Knob.  I have about 125 pictures to go through from the day, but that will have to wait till I get the gallery finished.  Myke, I now have a picture of a horse that you might like.  It is a close up portrait of the head.  He was very tolerant of the funny guy with the camera.

Well, that's all for now, I'm off to bed.  I have to get up in a fewhours to go to work...Yipee!!!

www.446Photography.com

Well, I took the plunge last night and purchased my domain name.... www.446Photography.com.  I started working with the editing software to create pages.  I have just now finished the rough version of my title page which links to the existing hometown site for now.  My goal is to have the completed website done before AOL closes the doors on me.  If that is the case the transition will be seamless and you will be able to click "Enter Site" one day and get the AOL version, and then get the new and improved version the next day.  That is the goal, we'll just see if I am fast enough to make that happen.  

I will have a blog attached to the gallery that will likely be Photo Trek and will have a forum attached as well for Tips and Tricks.  At least that is my goal at this point.  I have no idea when those will be up and running, but I have something to work towards.

Photo Trek: Doughton Park

Photo Trek: 10-03-2008, Doughton Park, Blue Ridge Parkway

The Mountains Sleep

In light of all that has been going on with AOL in the past week, I about decided not to do an entry for this latest Trek.  I didn't even think that I would post the pictures in the gallery.  However, there were lots of voices telling me to continue on with things as I had been doing for as long as I could.  Sure, I will lose the entry, but for now, this is my best option for continuing on until I get the gallery up and running sometime in winter.

That being said, I wanted to get away for a while and clear my head, and try some new approaches to some old haunts of mine up on the Parkway.  I started out early in the morning wanting to work with the light during the magic hour.  My goal was no so much to capture the sunrise, as the quality of light that it produced.  As you see from my opening photograph, the sky was awash in reds and pinks as the sun was approaching the horizon.  This is a view of the Eastern Sky near the Jumpin' Off Rocks overlook, just before sunrise.

The Valley Awakes

This is the picture I wanted to get during the magic hour.  For those that are sure to ask, there has been nothing done to this picture at all.  It is just as it came from the camera.  It was shot with my 70-200mm f/4L lens with a 2 stop soft split ND filter attached.  No color was introduced into the scene, the pink mountains is from the red sun coming up over my shoulders.  I just love the interplay between the mountains, fog, trees, and the sky.

After the sun was up and things were not near as interesting, I continued on to my destination for the day....Doughton Park.  There are some wonderful meadows and trails in the park.  I have photographed several of the scenes here previously, but wanted to try it again with the new camera to see what I could come up with.  I was pleasantly surprised with the outcome.

Casting Shadows

Meadow Strolling

As you can see I was fortunate to have a perfectly blue sky (if only to the North) to work with.  I would have liked to see some clouds, but for my purposes, this was just fine.  The sun was still low enough that it was relatively diffused already.  There was some wind that I had to contend with, but I was actually able to harness it a little bit to add some drama to the photographs.

Breeze Across the Field

This is one of those times that the small online image doesn't do the full size print justice.  Harnessing the wind, I used an ND 8 filter in addition to my polarizer to slow the shutter down to 2.5 seconds at f/22.  This allowed me to capture the motion of the tall grass as it blew around the downed tree.  It is a technique that I am just starting to work with, and am really enjoying the possibilities of it.  There are a couple of images that have been added to the gallery that represent this technique.

Early Autumn Branch

Even though the leaves were just starting to change, I was able to get some Autumn Color on this Trek.  I hope to have better luck in a couple of weeks when I return.  It is looking to be a colorful season judging from the looks of the trees already in the lower elevations.  I spent most of my day in the 3500ft realm, and the leaves are only supposed to be changing in the 5000ft+ elevations.  I'll keep my eyes out on the color forecast to see if I can catch it just right to see peak a time or two.

You can find the new images from this Trek spread out in the Blue Ridge Parkway Room, the Landscapes Room, the Macro/Detail Room, and the Sunrise/Sunset Room.

aoljurlAdd, aoljurlAdd_11

Blogger

Well, I've taken the initial plunge in trying to put together a Blogger Account.  I am starting with something simple and will work my way up.  Photo Trek itself will more than likely be attached to the gallery and will not be on Blogger.  I am planning on having The Call of the Waterfall, and Tips and Tricks on Blogger.  One thing that I already know that I don't like is that I can't put a list of entries on the sidebar for easy reference as I have gotten used to doing here at AOL.  Maybe I am missing something, but I'm not too wild about the new platform.  However, I am going to give it a try for now.