RAW Deal

This past weekend the rain did not stop pouring. It just rained, and rained, and rained. So I cleaned, and cleaned, and cleaned. Did you know you can even wash your walls? Who knew...and they should have told me sooner. Anyways, sunday morning there was about a 10 minute break from the rain, so me and Brad walked around the property to look at the new river that had formed over night.

This creek has an eery roar to it, you can even here the boulders moving around on the bottom every so often. Not to long after I snapped this pic the rain returned, but only a constant drizzle, so we continued our walk. Overcast provides ideal lighting for picture taking, so I took advantage of this to take my first 'RAW' photos. Now I know anyone who knows anything about photography is scratching their heads asking, "why on earth have you been shooting in anything else?", and to be frank, I was scared. The word RAW itself is kind of scary, its something people say when they jump from behind corners or dark places trying to catch you off guard. To give myself some credit though, I was shooting in RAW + Jpeg, I wasn't all that naive. For those who have no idea what Jpeg vs. RAW is, simply, RAW is a bigger file size and less 'compressing' (which loses some picture quality) is done in camera to save memory space giving you more freedom to edit afterwards. RAW is not necessarily 'print ready' straight out of camera requiring editing afterwards. Whereas Jpeg's are smaller file sizes, leaving more room on your memory card, and are generally print ready without any editing required - not giving your much room for creative freedom. This is, at least, how I made sense of it in my mind. The next few photos are my first babies fathered by RAW...

I am also working on my eye for composition. I have been reading the book pictured below (which is also used as a text book for college courses...what have I turned in to?? Reading a TEXTBOOK like a novel?!?) which I actually love and have found very helpful!