T.Brinkman Photography

Pause

2011-03-03T06:01:00.001-08:00

School is picking up so i'm going to need to pause for a little bit!

Day 11

2011-03-01T16:26:00.000-08:00

Day 10

2011-02-28T19:08:00.000-08:00

Day 9

2011-02-27T20:13:00.000-08:00

Day 8

2011-02-26T20:47:00.000-08:00

Day 7

2011-02-25T11:40:00.000-08:00

Day 6

2011-02-24T12:44:00.000-08:00

random show from outside my room with the fisheye...

Day 5

2011-02-23T19:12:00.000-08:00

Day 4

2011-02-22T18:04:00.000-08:00

Day 3

2011-02-21T21:15:00.000-08:00

Day 2

2011-02-20T18:36:00.000-08:00

Day 1

2011-02-19T14:16:00.000-08:00

Capturing the moment

wow

2011-02-18T17:04:00.000-08:00

so...lets just say it's been a while!

BUT, I'm going to try and start another 50 day, 50 prime photo project! Again, i'll try and shoot everyday but frankly that isn't possible with school keeping me SUPER busy! So, on the day's I don't shoot I'll try and edit and post....so 50 days, 50 shots/edits...starting tomm, or tonight if I get tired and don't go out!

Just as a thanks, I have to give a shout out to Brian for asking me to shoot his engagement! Shooting pictures had totally fallen to the way side because of school and being active but I'm happy I picked it back up again....I just hope I can keep it up!

Noxolo

I quit...

2010-11-29T19:40:00.000-08:00

I'm done shooting anything down here for school. It's fun, yes, but i'm too much of a perfectionist to let crappy images go out to people. However, I have no time to edit like I want to. So....I'm done....er...unless I have to since I'm still Historian for Phi Chi for another semester I believe.

On another note....I have a new camera on the way! I've been looking at getting a Holga for quite some time but now it's actually happening! My friend Hoangvy and I both got Holga 135TIM's....mine should be here this Thursday? Needless to say it should be a fun/different/good learning experience. It'll be my first time shooting with film so that could be another interesting aspect. No more click, click, click....pray! Anyways, back to the studying! 16 days from now I'll be back in the states after almost 8 months away! CRAZY!

PS I'll put something up about the Holga once it gets here!

whoa

2010-11-20T21:11:00.001-08:00

Sorry for NO posts in wayyyy too long! First off...I really haven't shot anything until recently due to the whole school thing! Hopefully I'll get a chance to shoot over break. One the bright side, I found out that one of the professors here is huge into photography AND shoots Canon! woot woot!

Noxolo

Futsol

2010-09-07T22:28:00.000-07:00

On Sunday I went to go watch a few of the guys from school pay futsol in Phillipsburg...got some shots but the lighting sucked pretty bad...oh well.

Day 50

2010-08-02T11:30:00.000-07:00

I figured I'd end this project with a shot from the same shoot that started it. All in all I thought it was a successful project and I'm glad I stuck with it! It took up a lot of time that I don't have, and energy that I should have put elsewhere, but at the end of the day I think it has helped my photography in a lot of ways.

Day 49

2010-08-01T07:50:00.000-07:00

Day 48

2010-07-31T10:27:00.000-07:00

Day 47

2010-07-30T10:27:00.000-07:00

Day 46

2010-07-29T17:10:00.000-07:00

Day 45

2010-07-28T08:06:00.001-07:00

Day 44

2010-07-27T10:22:00.000-07:00

Day 43

2010-07-26T14:47:00.000-07:00

Day 42

2010-07-25T22:04:00.001-07:00

Day 41

2010-07-24T20:05:00.000-07:00

Day 40

2010-07-23T23:07:00.000-07:00

Day 39

2010-07-22T12:46:00.000-07:00

Day 38

2010-07-21T16:13:00.001-07:00

Day 37

2010-07-20T12:15:00.000-07:00

Day 36

2010-07-19T17:14:00.000-07:00

Day 35

2010-07-18T16:13:00.000-07:00

Day 34

2010-07-18T07:31:00.000-07:00

Day 33

2010-07-17T06:41:00.000-07:00

Day 32

2010-07-15T19:54:00.000-07:00

Day 31

2010-07-14T20:10:00.000-07:00

Day 30

2010-07-13T20:13:00.000-07:00

Day 29

2010-07-12T22:19:00.000-07:00

Day 28

2010-07-11T17:03:00.000-07:00

Day 27

2010-07-10T20:45:00.000-07:00

Day 26

2010-07-09T15:46:00.000-07:00

Day 25

2010-07-08T22:05:00.000-07:00

Day 24

2010-07-07T14:22:00.001-07:00

Day 23

2010-07-06T08:31:00.000-07:00

Day 22

2010-07-05T11:37:00.000-07:00

Day 21

2010-07-04T19:41:00.001-07:00

Day 20

2010-07-03T19:25:00.001-07:00

Day 19

2010-07-02T19:05:00.001-07:00

Day 18

2010-07-01T20:34:00.001-07:00

Day 17

2010-06-30T15:12:00.001-07:00

Day 16

2010-06-29T19:21:00.000-07:00

Thank you to Dr. Nathalie McDonell for the inspiration via the cytoskeleton

Day 15

2010-06-28T09:33:00.001-07:00

Day 14

2010-06-27T20:51:00.000-07:00

Day 13

2010-06-26T20:03:00.000-07:00

Today we were heading back from Pburg and spotted a water spicket?...aka a tornado over the water....it was pretty crazy! Here is my shot for today....you can kind of see it in the middle of the shot!

Day 12

2010-06-25T10:36:00.000-07:00

Day 11

2010-06-24T10:32:00.001-07:00

Day 10

2010-06-23T09:35:00.000-07:00

As of yesterday...I just ordered CS5 and lightroom 3! I'm pretty excited to get them running...although it'll probably be a month before they get down here and then it'll be a bit until I actually have time to use them, but none the less, when i'm ready, they'll be here! Here is another shameless plug for other software that I use....check out Topaz Labs for Topaz adjust and Topaz Denoise...both are great programs! Also, Photomatix pro for HDR work is amazing too! Although, the new cs5 is supposed to have much better HDR possibilities I'm still a fan of a standalone/plug in program to do dedicated HDR work!

Day 9

2010-06-22T18:50:00.000-07:00

Day 8

2010-06-21T20:51:00.000-07:00

Only 8 days in and I can already see how difficult this project is actually going to be! There really isn't enough time in a day!

Day 7

2010-06-20T10:22:00.001-07:00

Recently I got a blender and thus smoothies are back in my life!

Day 6

2010-06-19T19:47:00.000-07:00

Here's an old re edit from when I was at Big Falls with Joel. I never found a good way to present it before but now i'm happy with it. Enjoy

Day 5

2010-06-19T08:59:00.000-07:00

Last night we had our Phi Chi pledge class fundraiser so I had no chance to shoot but I did another piece of editing that I've wanted to do for a while. Today looks likes it's going to be raining all day too so look for another old re edited piece tonight

Day 4

2010-06-17T14:18:00.000-07:00

I think i'm going to modify my project a little bit....instead of SHOOTING everyday I think i'll do something photo related everyday...and then post what I do. I really just don't have enough time to shoot and edit everyday!

Today I worked on doing a triptych so here's my first one...

Day 3

2010-06-16T18:20:00.000-07:00

Today I went to the groc store and had an amazing dinner with some friends so here are a few food pictures....Day 3 in the project

2010-06-15T15:24:00.000-07:00

My top 3 shots after a little edit action...

50/50 Day 2

2010-06-15T09:30:00.000-07:00

Day 1

2010-06-14T21:01:00.000-07:00

Today marks the beginning of my attempt of a 50 day/50mm lens photo project. Of course today was one of the most eventful days of my recent past so finding time to shoot was a little short. We had our second block of exams this morning and then I signed a lease for the next year in the afternoon....

This shot kind of sums up my life in the past few days...drained, anatomy/school, and world cup!

New Project

2010-06-09T19:47:00.000-07:00

Starting Monday after I finish my 2nd block in med school i'm going to start up a 50 day/50 picture with my 50prime project. I haven't shot in quite some time and really just need to make time to do so. Hopefully this project will help me get going. As of now I have no theme to it but I already know a few friends that want to help out so we'll see. I might try and turn it into a 50 people project but shooting one every day may get a little rough!

Oops

2010-05-15T13:48:00.000-07:00

Sorry for lack of any updates/any pictures...I really haven't had any time! Good news though, I did find a couple of friends that also love photography and a day is in the works to go out and shoot around Saint Maarten! Maybe after our first block exam next week!?

Sunset Beach

2010-05-01T13:13:00.000-07:00

I snapped this with my point and shoot at lunch....I can't wait to get back with my legit camera gear to get some great shots!

Another one from Eau Claire

2010-04-23T19:08:00.000-07:00

Some shot's from the trip to Eau Claire

2010-04-22T20:26:00.000-07:00

A long trek

2010-04-14T10:50:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I headed out around 1:30 to go shoot some long exposure/nature shots in the woods behind my house. 3 hours later and about a mile or, 2 from where I started I had to get a ride home! Needless to say, it was a good little trip. I saw some deer, twice, and I saw some turkeys, twice. The second time I came out on an old farm road just minding my own business and about 40 yards away there they were, about 10 turkeys, 2 being nice Toms. I couldn't get any good shots because of some brush in the way but oh well. I ended up getting a few nice long exposure shots and learned some more about setting up the shots...successful day.

A day out with Joel

2010-04-12T19:07:00.000-07:00

Last Friday Joel and I headed down to Whitewater to go shoot and ended up spending a few hours down there standing in ice cold water. That night he helped me learn to light paint, gosh I'm such a photography noob!

Long exposure, IR, and light painting..successful day

I'm slacking...a few racing shots

2010-04-05T20:57:00.000-07:00

So i've been slacking a little on updating but here are a few racing shots from this past Saturday at Deer Creek!

Some more long exposure

2010-03-21T11:24:00.000-07:00

I've really been working on trying to get my long exposure right so here are some more from a few days ago.

Long exposure

2010-03-15T19:11:00.000-07:00

It's nice to finally be able to use some of my randomly purchased gear! As of now I'm getting some good use out of my ND filter. Here are some more long exposure shots along with a few bridge shots from tonight.

Noxolo

Planning and time management

2010-03-14T19:59:00.000-07:00

2 things I learned tonight..1.) planning out, or having a goal for a photo walk is really useful and 2.) time management is needed in photography..or you'll miss the sunset!

Tonight I headed out to Quarry Hill in hopes of snagging a good sunset shot. I got there around 645 and boy was it soggy out! The first thing I noticed was how high the water was and how quick it was moving. I remember back when Joel and I first went to Quarry Hill last fall that we stumbled upon a spot with some rapids that would do for a long exposure shot so I headed that way. After a few minutes of set up, lens change, and filter prep I was ready to roll. After a few test shots I got a nice shot that I was happy with.

Yet, then my poor time management came in and I missed my sunset shot! In all reality it was worth it to get my first water long exposure, but if only I could have gotten them both! I also ran into a person from the Rochesterian group on flickr and I need to set up a legit photo walk around Rochester! Goal of this week: plan a photo walk/s for the flickr group.

Noxolo

Another rainy day!

2010-03-11T18:19:00.000-08:00

So the new camera bag came...finally! You can check it out here.

It's been raining for the past few days now which is not conducive to good photo opportunities for me, however, I got a solid fog shot tonight.

It was a 4 second exposure just to cut through enough fog to get some light! I am in the process of setting up a little photo walk on Sunday with some people from the Rochester group on flickr so hopefully i'll have some good stuff to update after that...pending weather of course.

Noxolo

New camera bag

2010-03-08T21:03:00.000-08:00

So....I out grew my original Lowepro Flipside 300....switched to the Lowepro Singshot 300AW....and now hopefully have the end all to my bag issues in the mail...the Lowepro Flipside 400 AW!

Lowepro Flipside 400 AW

It's a pretty sweet bag that has everything I could want. It'll have room for all of my gear, a rain fly for when the weather turns bad, a tripod/monopod holder, and the only access point to my gear will be on my back (so no one can steal my stuff!) I'm excited to say the least! Maybe i'll throw a picture up once a.) it comes and b.) I figure out how I want to organize everything in there!

Noxolo

A few basketball pics from the past 2 days

2010-03-05T20:50:00.000-08:00

Back to basketball

2010-03-04T11:49:00.000-08:00

Tonight and tomorrow night i'll be heading out to shoot some pictures at local basketball games. I think i've come along ways since my first time shooting sports and am anxious to see how these nexts two nights go. Prior to now my goal would be to click, click, click, click and pray...hoping for a few decent shots. I now feel confident enough in my abilities that I don't need to snap 1000 pictures in 1 game to get 50 good shots! Now I could get those 50 good shot's out of 150/200 shots?...I think i'll snap 400-500 though...just in case!

Noxolo

Flickr

2010-03-02T20:32:00.000-08:00

So I just went over the 1000 unique view mark last night...and am actually at 1125 last time I checked a few minutes ago. Although really not that important nor cool to most, to me it is. It just means that 1000 plus different people have looked at my pictures so woohoo for that! Keep it up! I'll try to start posting here more regularly now that I know more people look at my pictures than I once thought.

Noxolo

Shot's from the past few days:

2010-03-02T15:48:00.000-08:00

Lots to do...

2010-03-01T11:31:00.000-08:00

So after taking ~15gigs...or 1500-2000 pictures the past 3/4 days I have a bunch of editing to do! I need to stitch some panoramic shots I took on campus, try and find out where to send the band pictures I took, and I need to edit and upload the Carson/Riley pictures I took for JKG on Sunday...lot's to do...oh and create more little planets :) Before that though...I need to burn ALL of my images onto DVD's! I had a good ol scare last night after my hard drive with all of my pictures on it went corrupt...or so it said! Yet, after 2 hours of recovery all is good and no pictures were lost! The good thing was that I had all of my shots from this weekend still on my 2 8gig memory cards so nothing would have been lost...but all the other thousands I have...ugh!

Lots to do...

Noxolo

Little Planet

2010-02-26T19:00:00.000-08:00

I just bought my first fisheye lens.....a Tokina 10-17mm f3.5-4.5...so pumped! I also just made my first little planet in CS4...it's not a panoramic shot but just a test of how to make little planets...here it is:

Look for more in the future....

Sunset...ugh

2010-02-18T20:36:00.000-08:00

I went out for the 2nd night in a row now to go shoot some sunset shots...of course last night was a much better night to go shoot, but tonight sufficed. I got a few decent/okay shots..here is one of my favorites. In all reality the sun is barely set when this is shot and it is really light out still. However, I way under exposed the shot....on purpose...and I got the look that I was looking for. I really like the power lines fading into shot...overall...its okay.

Another HDR shot....ugh

2010-02-16T19:52:00.001-08:00

I'm not really excited how this turned out..but eh, all is good.

Topaz Labs: Topaz Adjust and Topaz DeNoise Reviews

2010-02-16T19:34:00.000-08:00

Again, Trey Ratcliff over at Stuck In Custom gave a solid review of these photo tools from topaz labs so...I obliged. I now have both topaz adjust 3 and topaz denoise 3 as plug ins for CS4. First impressions, both are very solid programs. I really enjoy how topaz adjust has some common pre sets and it shows me what my image could look like if I decided to use that preset. I also like having the ability to customize with sliders for various aspects of the picture. The same goes for topaz denoise. There are some common presets depending on what you are looking for. I used both programs to do final touches on my the rose I posted with my photomatix pro review. All in all, Topaz Labs produces great photo editing tools, period.

Just a side note, when it came to noise reduction software a few things swayed my choice. First, I'm using Photoshop CS4 64bit on Windows 7 64 bit...believe it or not, this setup isn't fully supported by all software yet! My big choices were Topaz DeNoise, Neat Image, Noise Ninja, and Noiseware. In the end I decided to go with DeNoise because it is the BEST at getting rid of noise, period. It may not be the fastest, but it does use the best algorithm for noise reduction. Some say that it may over process but I haven't seen it so far.

Photomatix Pro Review

2010-02-16T15:51:00.000-08:00

A little while ago I picked up photomatix pro for some HDR work. I think I posted before saying that I got it, but now I have actually used it for my first HDR shot. I really enjoyed using photomatix and it was extremely easy to use! Ease of use plays a huge role in my photography...or at least the ease of using the program for the first few times. I like being able to use something to see results right away, but if I play with it some more I can get better and better. I can't wait to keep working on my HDR using photomatix.

Here is the link to the software: http://www.hdrsoft.com/

My first HDR shot:

Business cards on the way...

2010-02-16T10:36:00.000-08:00

So i've been tossing around the idea of spending 20-30 bucks and making up some random business cards just incase someone is abstract enough to think i'm a legit photographer and asks for a card. I headed over to http://us.moo.com/en/ to make a few. I've looked around for a while now at different sites and finally picked moo. Well, lets be honest here...I ordered my 10 free cards first. Mainly to see how I want to format my cards for the future, but free didn't hurt either. The process of making the cards was really easy and hopefully all goes well because I would love to use Moo for my cards in the future. I'll throw up a review of the cards when they come, and maybe a few pictures of them as well!

Noxolo

Check it out!

2010-02-09T06:32:00.000-08:00

Iffles.com came up with a list of the top textures submited to the group during January and one of my pictures made it. You can check out the post here:

http://iffles.com/2010/02/08/the-best-of-monthly-theme-textures/

2nd Century Basketball Game

2010-02-07T21:15:00.000-08:00

Here are a few shots from the Century vs Mayo basketball game. It was kind of interesting because there were a handful of photographers there shooting the game...and actually I think I knew quite a bit more about what I was doing than a few of the others! The one thing I really don't like about shooting basketball..or in a gym..is that it makes me feel the need for the 28-70 2.8 canon lens. I feel like my 50mm 1.4 is too short and there is no way to shoot both ends of the court, but the 70-200 2.8 is only ideal for the long shots at the other end of the court. I also really hate the poor gym lighting. As you can see I have to jack up my ISO to get any sort of quick shot (shutter speed above ~200)...and with this I lose quality. All in all I thought this time shooting when better than my first..I think I edited ~30 shots the first time compared to ~70 after this game....and it wasn't because I shot that many more shots! In the end, it was a good learning experience.

A walk in the park

2010-02-07T21:09:00.000-08:00

Here are some of my shots from the walk I took with Eric and Maggie at Soldier's Field. It was pretty chilly out but I'm quite happy with the shots I got.

Texture shots from January

2010-02-07T21:06:00.000-08:00

I really like all three of these texture shots I took in January. They are all really different but show a texture in one way or another. Look out for shapes in Feb.

Basketball round 2

2010-02-05T12:53:00.000-08:00

I think tonight i'm heading to go shoot another Century basketball tonight...hopefully this time it'll go a little better! Also, a new theme month has started...this month...SHAPES! Look for a post of some of my favorite texture shots I took. Also, I went and took some shots of Eric and Maggie...ill try and throw up some of my favorite ones.

Noxolo

Get published....half check?

2010-02-02T07:55:00.000-08:00

So one of my photography goals was to get published...I guess when it rains in pours. First, a blog I follow, iffles.com linked back to my selective color post in one of her recent posts.

http://iffles.com/2010/01/31/weekend-links-22/

I don't know if this really counts since I sent her my blog to take a peak at...but hey..it something!

I also just noticed that Chad Simpson Racing just put up some of the pictures of the car I took on my trip to Iowa. Check it out:

http://chadsimpsonracing.com/Home.htm

http://www.chadsimpsonracing.com/Photos.htm

Again...not exactly getting "published" but hey it's exposure? OH..and 3 of my pictures from the gymnastics meet are now featured facebook profile pictures for three of the U of M women gymnast.

On other news...it's crazy how much pictures can blow up on flickr! Yesterday I went over the 750 unique viewers mark! That's a big deal to me!...hopefully i'll hit 1000 soon! I need to start watermarking my images so look for a tutorial coming soon for CS4.

Noxolo

A few more selective color edits

2010-01-30T12:02:00.000-08:00

What'd that last...3 weeks?

2010-01-29T10:34:00.000-08:00

I'm officially done with my self portrait project. I really wanted to do this to begin with but after almost a month in it has turned into a chore and taken the fun out of getting a cool shot out of it. Instead I think i'll try and turn it into just a 52 photo project where I will post my favorite photo I took during that week. I'm also trying to work on some more photoshop skills....keep a look out for some more selective color shots coming this weekend.

Noxolo

Selective color

2010-01-26T06:37:00.000-08:00

After seeing a handful of pictures online/on flickr processed for selective color I decided to give it a shot. Here is my final shot:

I'm really happy with how it turned out and you can see the original in my flickr stream/Silvermine Set. So far everyone has said, "wow, cool, how do you do that!?" So here's how I did it:

First you need an editing software...and I use Photoshop CS4.

1. Import your picture to CS4

2. Create an adjustment layer for hue/saturation

3. On the new level decrease the saturation to -100 on the right slider, making it a black and white shot

4. Select a soft round brush with an opacity of 50-75 and a color of black (with this essentially cut through your top black and white layer and reveal the original color version below.

Tips: Zoom in/out and change your brush size according to how detailed you want your final image to be. You can also change your brush opacity if you want to blend or gradually go from black and white to color in some areas. Most important is that it just takes practice to figure out what you want/what ou like.

Edit: I realize there are a ton of different ways to achieve this effect, but this is the way I did it. It was relatively easy pending your knowledge of your editing software.

Noxolo