Insta-style

I finally got out to take some actual photos yesterday. A nice sunny but cold winters day off from work. It’s been so dark and gloomy every time I had a camera in my hands lately, so it was nice to shoot away without worrying about slow shutter speeds. Unfortunately my creativity didn’t kick in and I ended up taking some nicely exposed, well focused pictures. 😉

I was more or less testing out an inexpensive telephoto zoom lens that I purchased a few months back but have hardly ever used. So I am happy that the photos were sharp and looked great. I went down by the river on the south side of Pittsburgh just for something different and just parked the car and looked around. The sun was bright and still a little harsh for any “big picture’ shots, besides it’s still winter so everything is pretty dull looking anyhow. So I just focused on some details, the occasional boat, and waterfowl.

I kind of liked this photo, even though it is just a bird standing on a boat ramp, and thought it looked good in black and white. I did the square crop since the bird was on the edge of the frame looking out of the frame and the crop balanced it out a little better, in my opinion.

© David Guidas

After I did the crop and the black and white conversion I started playing around with some graduated color filters just out of sheer curiosity. After I added the color I instantly thought, hmm – that looks a little like an Instagram. So I added a grungy frame and voila! And I didn’t even need my phone.

© David Guidas