GIMP Projects

Over the next year, I spent more time editing pictures than taking pictures. I became obsessed with the GIMP. GIMP is the GNU's equivalent of Photo Shop, but unlike Photo Shop it is free to download, so I decided to try it since it was free. The first thing I learned to do with GIMP was how to use the cloning tool. I looked through my photos and came across a church I had photographed in Pennsylvania. It was a lovely church, the only problem was that an ugly stop light stood right in front of the church, so even though I had done my best to frame it out of the picture, there on the bottom right side stood the ugly stop light.

I cloned the bricks from other parts of the building to cover the part of the stop light on the church and later cloned the sky to cover the rest of the stop light. I was so happy with the results, now I could look at the church without any distractions. It was like the stop light wasn't even there :).


As the year went on, I used GIMP to create new photos out of the photos I had already taken. I sometimes spent a lot of time trying to get things just right. I even spent up to forty five minutes one morning trying to outline a lightning bolt, so it could be copied from one photo and pasted into the background of a city. When I had finished adding the lightning bolt, I also added the moon to the picture and I was pleased with the result.

My projects grew more and more elaborate, and I was always looking for pictures to combine. My biggest project took over 6 hours to complete. I started with two pictures I had taken in Pennsylvania, a tunnel and a train. The plan was to put the train in the tunnel, little did I know I would spend 6 hours, using the cloning tool, trying to take out all of the distraction from each picture and get everything looking right. Here are the two photos I started with and the finished product.


In the end it was a fun project, but this was to be one of my last creations, using the copying and paste method.

The Trip

In July of 2008, I took a trip with my family to Pennsylvania. We flew into Pittsburg and drove to a small town in the middle of the state named Ebensburg. My mother grew up in Ebensburg, and most of my mother's side of the family still live in Pennsylvania today.

While in Ebensburg, we stayed with my aunt and took many day trips around the area. Near my aunt's house, there is an old railroad bed that has been converted into a walking trail. As we walked along the trail, I imagined an old coal train back in the day chugging along the tracks, as the path curved back and forth through the trees. The foliage off the side of the trail was so thick and dense, the light came through the tree top canopy in beautiful little golden rays. The atmosphere the forest created was peaceful and surreal.

The next day we visited the Johnstown Flood museum, and rode the Johnstown Inclined Plane.

We later took a drive just outside of Ebensburg and I took pictures of the architecture; because the buildings were different from what I see in New Mexico.

On our way to the family reunion, we stopped by the Portage Rail Road museum, just outside of the town of Portage. The Portage Rail Road was a set of stationary steam engines and pulleys used to pull canal boats up a series of inclines, over the Allegheny Mountains. Crossing the Allegheny Mountains was quite an achievement in 1860, and I was amazed at the ingenuity used for it's construction. Unfortunately it was close to closing time when got there, so I did not get to see everything, but from what I saw, I really want to go back some day.

From Portage, we drove into the mountains, where we met up with my relatives, at a hunting lodge. The lodge was the perfect get away for the reunion and my family enjoyed many fun activities, while staying at the lodge.
We enjoyed fishing in the near by ponds,
playing guitar hero,

singing karaoke,

and sitting around the camper fire, having a good time.

I really enjoyed myself at the reunion, and it was nice to catch up with my relatives.

The last leg of our trip took us to Scranton Pennsylvania, in the north eastern part of the state. We visited Steam Town USA and took a ride on a full size steam train. I had ridden on a narrow gauge rail road before, but I had always dreamed of seeing a full size steam engine in operation. We took a tour around the round house at Steam Town USA and rode the old coal route to just outside of town. It was an amazing experience, and I was glad we got a chance to visit Steam Town USA and ride the train.

The trip was the perfect opportunity for me to put the camera to work, and I tried really hard to document the trip along the way. I took a lot of photos during this trip, probably more than I had ever taken in my life time. It just was such an amazing experience, and I enjoyed myself thoroughly through out the trip, and I'm glad I took all of those pictures along the way.

New Camera

In May of 2008, I had just finished college, and my sister and her family came to town for my graduation. We spent a couple days together and enjoyed doing some hiking in the mountains, and doing some fun things around town. She had just purchased a Nikon D40 and she took pictures with it during her visit. I had seen digital SLR cameras before, but I never had the chance to see the results they could produce, until my sister showed me hers. She gave me a chance to play with it while we were on top of the Sandias, and I fell in love with the control it gave me over the exposure. I knew that with a digital SLR, I could take pictures of what ever I wanted and in any condition. I immediately wanted one, and got my brother on board to buy one :).

(here is one of the original photos from my sisters camera)


From the very first day, my brother bought the D40 it was in my hands and I took pictures of everything. My first subject I took pictures of was a Tesla Coil my brother and I built slightly before he bought the camera. It took a lot of playing with the shutter speed, but I finally snagged a picture I was proud of.



I played with the new camera all summer in preparation for our trip to Pennsylvania at the end of the summer. I took it everywhere with me from taking pictures of fireworks to the radio controlled car track. When I took my first pictures of radio controlled cars, I was amazed at how with a shutter speed of 1/4000th of a sec, I could freeze the action of the cars.




The new camera allowed me to photograph things that I had never dreamed of, and opened the doors to an endless amount of creativity. I had found a hobby with endless possibilities and would last me for much longer than any of my previous hobbies.

My first challenge

About 4 years ago, I started racing radio controlled cars. I loved nothing more than hanging out with my buddies at the track and racing cars, so I decided to take a couple photos to show the excitement of racing. If you've watched radio controlled car racing before you would know the radio controlled cars are not exactly the easiest subjects to photograph because how fast and small they are. I often had to press the shutter release a second or two before the car entered the frame and hoped I got the picture I wanted. It was quite a challenge with my brother's first camera, and often it was a hit or miss deal, but in the end I usually managed to come away with a couple shots I liked. Here are a few good examples of the early days.