Pointillist Fall Colors, Branch Brook Park. Like a beautiful pointillist painting, this photo shows the shimmering, sparkling fall colors in Branch Brook Park, Newark, New Jersey. And, yes, this is a photo, not a painting! To get this effect, I used my 70-210mm lens and zoomed in on the details in these leaves from across a small pond. The telephoto zoom lens has the effect of flattening perspective. I stopped down the lens to F:13 to get as much sharpness as possible. However, the leaves were moving slightly, enhancing the painterly effect in this photo. Since the sun was popping in and out of the clouds, I waited until the sun was free of clouds and strongly illuminating the leaves before taking the photo.

How to capture beautiful fall colors

Many times other photographers wonder how I get so much color saturation in my fall color images. In most cases I add only a very mild amount of saturation in Photoshop. The big factor is simply waiting for the the best light to illuminate the scene before shooting. That can mean coming back early or late in the day, or, waiting for clouds to move so that my subject is in the best possible light. This photo is the result of capturing strong light illuminating a colorful subject. Simply waiting a few minutes for clouds to move can dramatically change the look of a photo.

Camera: Samsung GX 1S, Vivitar Series 1 70-210mm F:3.5 lens. Raw image converted with Raw Therapee 3.0 Alpha 1, AMaZE Demosaicing.

I’ll be adding new fall color photos to petersonlive.com. Visit me there!

Jemez Mountain Red Rock Landscape

I am yearning for the wide open spaces and rugged landscapes of the southwestern United States! Getting my fill of natural vistas here in New York City is a real challenge. Trying to find photo-worthy landscapes in this urban setting can be a painstaking process. How I have been spoiled by Jemez Mountain red rock landscapes in New Mexico!

If you are a photographer who yearns for sweeping landscapes and light filled vistas, you may enjoy viewing “Seeing Scotland” a television series from Scotland that features the world renowned landscape photographer Charlie Waite. It provides a relaxed portrait of the working process of this accomplished photographer.  This series is viewable online on youtube.com.

Cherry Blossoms - The Dream Photo-Art by Donald Peterson

Cherry Blossoms from the early spring of 2011 in Essex County. New Jersey become the subject of this photo-art. The delicate, translucent quality of beautiful cherry blossoms on a misty spring day is conveyed in this beautiful artwork. These beautiful specimens were seen during the Annual Essex County Cherry Blossom Festival, one of the most beautiful spring events in the New York City metro area!

You may purchase this beautiful artwork as a high-resolution digital download. The colorful high-resolution image (11 megapixel, 2601 x 1999 pixels, 290 pixels per inch, .jpeg format) is suitable for high-quality printing to be displayed on a wall as a print or canvas, or as a computer wallpaper. The only thing you cannot do with this image is resell it. Orders yours today using the link below (we use Google Checkout for a secure purchase) :

Spring Trees and Flora, After the Rain

There are two things I find absolutely joyous about the spring season. The first is that vibrant, translucent green when leaves and flora have first emerged for the season. The second is seeing that lush, green growth just after a spring rain. Add a touch of fog and you have a world of visual pleasures no movie can match! All three elements were in concert this morning, making it the ideal time to photograph the landscapes of one of my favorite local parks.

I walked about in the park with my lightweight Canon Rebel XS, and kit 18-55mm EF-S IS lens. This is a time when I really appreciate having IS (image stabilization) in my camera/lens. Not having to carry a tripod allows me to enjoy my walk-about as much as my photography. I kept the camera on 400 ISO to insure that the average speed of my hand-held shooting in IS mode was kept above 1/30th second for maximum sharpness. What fun it was! The park was virtually empty, and the combination of beautiful light and quiet made for a delightful morning.

I converted the raw images to final .jpeg files using SilkyPix 3.0E. I used the default “Landscape Taste” color palette to bring out the lush green in my photos, and sharpened resized the final image in Photoshop. SilkyPix makes it very easy to restore the beautiful colors I remember into my digital captures. Photo by Donald Peterson.

Cherry Blossoms - Filtered

This cherry blossom “art” started as a photo captured in Branch Brook Park, Essex County, New Jersey, during the recent Cherry Blossom Festival. It was filtered and tweaked using a variety of filters and tweaks in Photoshop.

These photos, captured in New York City and nearby Essex County, New Jersey are my favorite captures of the week. Most are photographed during the Essex County Cherry Blossom Festival in Essex County, New Jersey, and others were taken in Times Square, New York. I hope you enjoy viewing them!

What’s New: I am constantly adding new photos to my New York Photo Gallery, and there are new cherry blossom photos from the recent Cherry Blossom Festival in Essex County, New Jersey.

As a photographer, I take great pleasure in creating high-quality images with affordable photographic equipment. The image quality of consumer-level DSLR cameras enables us to take images that are as good as the pros, provided we choose our tools wisely and use good technique. Many of my readers own Canon Rebel DSLR cameras. For most of my recent close-up photos of cherry blossoms and flowers, I used the excellent Canon 55-250mm EF-S IS lens, I highly recommend this low-cost lens as an excellent buy. Not only will its image stabilization feature (IS) allow you to shoot without a tripod in all sorts of conditions, it is sharp throughout its zoom range and produces excellent images. This is my Budget Buy Pick of the Week. The Canon EF-S 55-250mm F/4.0-5.6 IS TELEPHOTO ZOOM LENS FOR CANON DIGITAL CAMERAS is available on Amazon.com. Follow this link for a great online price and more reviews.

Cherry Blossom Abstract

This photo, from this year’s Annual Essex County Cherry Blossom Festival, is a personal favorite. I had in mind creating a composition that shows the influence of classic Japanese watercolors. The soft light and background blur mimics watercolor washes, anchored by a spare and elegant arrangement of cherry blossom blooms. Because blurring is an effect that only the lens can see, I used the lens as my eye, searching for pleasing compositions through my viewfinder. The sense of depth created by the background blur and the contrast between sharp and soft captured my attention in this frame. Camera: Canon Rebel XS, Canon 55-250mm EF-S IS lens.

Click here to purchase my favorite budget-priced Canon 55-250MM EF-S IS telephoto zoom lens from Amazon.com

Dogwood In Bloom

A sole dogwood bloom is captured in a blur of spring colors. This image was captured on an overcast spring day with a Canon Rebel XS and CANON 55-250MM EF-S IS LENS. This lightweight camera/lens combination is my favorite walk-about kit for capturing details of nature during hikes and long walks. This image was photographed in Branch Brook Park, Essex County, New Jersey. Well known for its cherry blossom trees, this pleasant park also has a surprising collection of dogwood trees as well.

Beautiful Spring Foliage

This photo shows the vigorous new growth of spring as green foliage joins mature cherry blossoms in welcoming the season. This exuberant orchestra of color and shadow was captured on an overcast early spring day. Early spring green has an extraordinary glow and saturation when it first emerges. I shot this photo handheld with a Canon Rebel XS and 18-55mm EF-S IS kit lens (Image Stabilization (IS) on). On overcast days like this I prefer compositions that contain little if any of the colorless sky, focusing on the subtle colors and shading in the landscape. I converted this image from raw using SilkyPix 3, my favorite tool for revealing the full depth of color in green landscapes. After some minor burning to tame a few overblown highlights, the final image was resized and sharpened using SmartSharpen in Photoshop.

Dreamy Cherry Blossoms!, Branch Brook Park

I love those colors! Shot in Branch Brook Park, Essex County, New Jersey, this “dreamy” cherry blossom photo uses the colors found in the background to enhance the overall composition. To create the background blur, I handheld my lens (Canon 55-250mm EF-S IS ), zoomed into the blossoms I wanted to focus on, and changed my angle until the background colors came in just right. The combination of distant (more than 10 feet away) blurred leaves, cherry blossom blooms, and a car (the bottom cyan-blue blur) made a fascinating background. Camera: Canon Rebel XS, Canon 55-250mm EF-S lens. I converted the raw file using SilkyPix 3.0, my preferred raw image editor when I want the most beautiful colors in the final image.