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I'm not sure when exactly I started getting into photography. I always appreciated an excellent photo, but once I had a camera in my hands I rarely ever took my own pictures. Looking back over years of photos taken with disposable cameras and even my first camera, I have dozens of bland photos of empty rooms and emptier landscapes. I took pictures more to remember places I had been rather than just to take pictures, but when I got my first digital camera, that slowly changed. Being able to see what I'd taken immediately made a huge difference, and I started taking hundreds of pictures. Since that first digital camera, I've taken well over 14,000 pictures in about 3 years. Hundreds of times more than all the other pictures I've taken in my youung life. I certainly don't claim to be any sort of genius behind the lens, but I have a great time learning and trying to take better photos.

More photos can be seen at my Deviantart gallery.

Taken at Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens on my first visit, this is one of my favorite pictures. The colors are vibrant, and the flowers in your face.

This picture was taken on the White Oak Canyon trail in Shenandoah National Park, Virginia. This was the second waterfall if I remember, and was about 50 feet tall. I really enjoy taking pictures of waterfalls, and used some nuetral density filters on this picture to get some motion despite the sunlight.

Another shot from White Oak Canyon, farther down the trail. Thanks to a lot of shade, I was able to get some more motion blur with the filters. This was done with a small tripod that I held sideways on a rack face.

This picture was taken with my Minolta X-700 35mm SLR, a camera as old as I am. It was my first foray into long exposures of more than a few minutes. I believe the time on this picture was at least 15 minutes, resulting in the arced starlines that I always wanted to get. The view is of the beach at Nags Head, North Carolina, from the deck on the cottage I was staying at. Unfortunately there's a lot of ambient city light from behind, so the stars are washed out somewhat. They're probably only seen since the camera was looking mostly out to sea.

This shot was taken right after the one above, but with the camera pointed straight up. Again, the exposure time was in the range of 15-20 minutes. I'm really looking forward to getting more pictures like this in areas where there isn't so much city light.

Back at Lewis Ginter again, but during the Christmas season, when they light up the whole garden. I'd taken pictures of this spot before, but with the lights it looked totally different. Lugging a tripod around isn't fun, but it's worth it to get night shots like this.

On the same trip to Lewis Ginter I got this picture, inside their large greenhouse. The main room is very tall, and I used a wide angle lens to get it all in the picture. The red accents were another Christmas season addition, and they really changed how the room looked.

If I remember correctly, this picture was taken for a photo contest that was themed with 'city'. Interstate 195 goes over most of Shockoe Bottom in Richmond, and has some busier sections which look very cool from certain angles. It's loud and dirty, but all the curves there appeal to me.

This fountain is located in the main entrance at the Elizabethan Gardens in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. It's also another 35mm picture, evident by the scanner quality. The 35mm has more zoom than my older digital camera, so it was always nice to have tight shots from far away. I love water, so I was drawn to the drops immediately.

Another from the Elizabethan Gardens, this was a sundial that reminded me of a gyroscope. How nerdy is that?

I went to the Grand Canyon in 2005, over Thanksgiving. This shot was taken looking west, from the watchtower that sits above the canyon as it turns north. It's really only at sunrise and sunset that the colors of the canyon start to stand out. Distances are hard to judge since we rarely deal with anything on the scale of Grand Canyon, it's one jaw dropping expanse after another.


This was taken on the day prior to the previous picture, and was miles from its location as well. Close to the main entrance and overlooks, it's easy to see why this area is the main entrance in the first place. Averaging about 5000 feet to the bottom and almost 10 miles across, the canyon sneaks up on you as you drive towards it; the horizon simply drops away.

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