Perfect day…

Originally uploaded by lopatinj

Last week, I shot some pictures at the final games at Whiting Park. Shooting through a fence is HARD!

Here are some non-baseball pictures:

Arnold Drummond Memorial Margarita

Originally uploaded by lopatinj

At the Cubs game.

Originally uploaded by lopatinj

Look what I found!

Originally uploaded by lopatinj

I have another show coming up! I will be showing some photography at the Oak Lawn Public Library Art Gallery during the 3rd Annual Oak Lawn Artist Group Show.

The show opens on June 5, and runs until the end of July, so there is plenty of time to come and check it out!

On June 5, from 1-2:30pm, there will be an opening reception featuring live music and refreshments. I plan on being there.

Please click HERE for more details.

If you can’t make it to this one, i also have a solo exhibit scheduled at the same location later in the year.

I’ve been working with the new Photoshop content aware fill feature for a couple of days now. This feature is supposed to revolutionize photo editing. You can select anything in an image, hit delete, and photoshop will replace it with appropriate material from the background, like the deleted subject was never there in the first place.

Before CS5 was released, I watched some YouTube videos they released; They promised it would be a game-changer. I can assure you that in reality it’s just not that awesome. Don’t get me wrong… It is very cool, and a big time saver, but it just doesn’t work as perfectly as that video makes it seem.

Here is a shot I edited using the content aware feature (original is #6, HERE):

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Today, I went to the member’s only preview of the new Great Bear Wilderness Exhibit at Brookfield Zoo. It was very crowded, but I still managed to take some nice photos. The new exhibit has large bear habitats as well as a huge wolf area, a bald eagle, and a large wetlands preserve. It was really great. The bear habitats were overcrowded (with people, not bears!) and difficult to shoot, so I tried to focus on the other areas.

Brookfield Zoo

Originally uploaded by lopatinj

Today, we went to the Round Barn Winery in Baroda, Michigan to bottle the red wine that we made in the fall. It came out GREAT! Even though it was a cloudy day, I tried to get some nice shots. After leaving the winery, we had lunch in New Buffalo, and went to the beach.

These shots were the first time I tried using my new ND grad filters. I was concerned that they would be difficult to use, but they were easy. They really helped to save some of these shots from being boring. Some of these pictures even have an HDR sort of feel, but it was all in camera!