Sky Archives • Valerie Ryan Digital Creative

Replacing Gloomy, Tropical Skies

January 16, 2019 HDR, Real Estate, Sky 0 Comments

It’s a new year and and a new opportunity to maybe stay more on top of making regular posts?? Hahah – we’ll see about that! Happy New Year!

My first post of 2019 is actually a group of photos that I took last May. I photographed a property in McDonough, GA on a day when the weather ended up being cloudy during the day and gloomy and drizzly at sunset. Although the client didn’t make the request, I decided to do sky replacements for all of the outdoor shots; it seemed like the only option!

Continue reading →

Happy Fourth of July 2014!

July 4, 2014 Holidays, Sky 0 Comments

Have a happy and safe Fourth of July! (this image is seven fireworks shots composited together from a fireworks display that I went to in 2012).

St. Abbs and Cove :: East Coast of Scotland

January 30, 2014 Landscape, Nature, Scotland, Sky, Travel 0 Comments

I didn’t mean for more than a month to pass between posts! January seems to have gone by so quickly. I don’t want the year to start flying past me, but I am looking forward to spring. It was 9°F here this morning just north of “It’s-Going-to-Snow-Two-or-Three-Inches-But-Let’s-Not-Close-the-Schools-Because-We’re-Awesome-at-Driving-in-the-Snow” Atlanta.

Continue reading →

Rannoch Moor :: Glencoe, Scotland

November 30, 2013 Black & White, Landscape, Nature, Scotland, Sky, Travel 1 Comment

While in Scotland in September I visited Glencoe in the Scottish Highlands. I had been there once before but it was during my earlier photography days and all I had was my old Canon Snappy point-and-shoot film camera. I had my new, beloved Nikon with me this time, and a tripod, and a polarizing filter…and a bit more skill and experience =) It was nice to get out for a day and just think about photography.

Continue reading →

Stormy June

June 29, 2013 Nature, Sky, Weather 0 Comments

We’ve had a stormy June here in the Atlanta area. There have been a lot of great clouds and stormy skies. This shot is from a couple of evenings ago when storms passed to the east and to the west but never quite made it to where I am. I love the summer time pattern of late afternoon and early evening thunderstorms. I love the way the sky darkens and everything seems to calm down before the rain moves in. To me it is so peaceful. It’s not so peaceful when the storms come with hail and high winds and knock down a bunch of trees on your street (like we had a couple of weeks ago…power was out for just over a day). But still…it’s my favorite part of summer.

A Little More HDR

April 28, 2013 HDR, Sky 0 Comments

**Update #3: All up to date! As of January 2020 this (above) is how I’ve been processing my images for quite a while now. Unless I’m trying to do something creative I usually try to make my HDR images look as realistic as possible. The original image is now posted at the very bottom. You can see how far I’ve come!

Continue reading →

Experimenting With HDR

March 11, 2013 HDR, Sky 0 Comments

**Update: I can’t leave a bad HDR image as the featured image for this post. I just can’t do it! The photo above has been updated to how I now process my images (almost exclusively with Lightroom Classic). The photo below is the original photo that I posted.

Continue reading →

Gorgeous Sunset

October 16, 2012 Nature, Sky, Weather 0 Comments

Just a few photos from a gorgeous sunset last week. I noticed a warm orange glow in my parents’ backyard one evening (the house faces west). I went out front and was greeted with this scene…

Continue reading →

Lake Lanier

July 30, 2012 Landscape, Nature, Sky 0 Comments

I stopped by Lake Lanier this past Saturday, just for fun, and took a few shots with my polarizing filter on my camera. I don’t know why I always forget to use it. After seeing what a difference it made with the blue sky and the puffy clouds, though, I don’t think I’ll forget it again. It didn’t hurt that the water was such a pleasant shade of green contrasted against the muddy orange-ish/brown-ish shoreline.

Continue reading →

Happy 4th of July!

July 4, 2012 Holidays, Sky 0 Comments

It was a pretty hot 4th of July here in the Atlanta area! I completed my 14th Peachtree Road Race in the morning and then took the afternoon nap that makes the 6.2 miles worth it. I love that nap. I look forward to it every year. I checked out the fireworks in the evening and at the last minute decided to take my camera with me. I’m glad I did! I managed to get an okay spot and got some pretty clear fireworks pictures. It isn’t a huge fireworks display, but the advantage to that is that you don’t have to deal with too much smoke in your pictures, which is nice.

Moon in the Early Evening Sky

April 8, 2012 Nature, Sky 0 Comments

I don’t have a lens that is good for shooting pictures of the moon so I do the best that I can. There were some storm clouds rumbling past to the east one evening last week and the sky just looked so cool. This was the best that I could do with the equipment that I have – at least the moon is exposed correctly!