Tyler Wainright Photography

“Spiral Fern” Featured on The Photo Argus

I’m very excited, and humbled, that the folks over at Focussion and The Photo Argus decided to include my image (seen above) along with 29 other fantastic nature and landscape photographs.

Focussion is a Flickr-like community for photographers with one positive twist; users have to earn *points* in order to upload more pictures to their profile. This system encourages interaction between users plus, it forces the photographer to upload only their best images to their profile.

The Photo Argus is a photography blog combining many great resources and inspirational material for all levels of photographers. I think it’s great that the two sites got together and featured not only my image, but many other great landscape and nature photographs.

Focussion is a new photography community and, like anything online, will take some time to grow into a full-fledge resource for today’s photographer. So, if you’re looking for a lot of interaction between photographers, be sure to sign-up and check out all the great photographers.

(Source: wp.me)

Angry Dragon Face | Memphis Zoo Photography

This dragon statute is inside the panda exhibit at the Memphis Zoo and this photograph was taken and published just over a year ago.  I’m in the processes of sharing some of my older photographs because it was this time last year that I decided to commit myself to developing my photography.

As soon as I made the conscience decision to rekindle my love for photography, I felt as though my photographs, in some small way, became better. Also, my vision changed and continues to change as I explore what inspires me.

The first photograph in this series is a photograph of our oldest daughter taken during our beach vacation last year. Also, if you’d like to keep up with my photography, you can follow me on Flickr, Facebook, and/or Twitter

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(Source: wp.me)

Old Pat O’Briens | Memphis Photography

I’m usually not perusing downtown Memphis in the early morning hours but, I had some time to kill  ~9 months ago while I waited for my wife to finish the St. Jude half-marathon. While armed with my trusty Panasonic point-n-shoot camera and, an almost-dead battery on a very cold December morning no less, I was hunting around the downtown area for some great “cityscape” type of shots.

Since my battery was running on empty (the cold weather didn’t help either) I felt like I was back in the film days; I felt like I had to be very selective in the photographs I took. I had to be 100% sure that I wanted to use battery power in order to capture an image.

When I came upon the old Pat O'Briens, I was instantly drawn to not only the beautiful, early-morning Winter light, but also the simplicity of this composition. Right away I knew the tones and light would make for a strong black-and-white photography so I didn’t hesitate to fire up the camera and burn some of the precious battery power I had remaining.

I’m sure glad I had my camera with me that morning because during the same outing, although slightly earlier, I took a picture of a white picket fence in front of W.C. Handy’s old house. I’m not looking forward to the long, dark Fall nights but there’s something about Winter light that I can’t wait to capture again. Be sure to check me out on Facebook if you’d like to keep up with my photography there. You can also follow me on Twitter

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(Source: wp.me)

One Year Ago: Surf, Sand and Sun

Just about a year ago I uploaded a picture to Flickr of our oldest daughter playing on the beach in the evening sun. And, since we just got back from our beach vacation, I wanted to take a look back not only at this photograph, but also asses how my photography has grown/changed over the last 12 months.

This image represent more than capturing a memory of a great family vacation, it’s a milestone in my growth as a photographer. I remember, right before we left for this trip, I decided to commit the time and get back into photography after taking a long, 5+ year break. That simple decision propelled my photography into a new direction and a short 5 months later I bought my first DSLR, a Nikon D90.

The photograph above was taken hand-held with a Panasonic DMC-TZ5. The flash did fire and I processed the image with Picnik; I applied their Lomo-ish look to get the warm, vibrant colors as well as the vignette. I also used Picnik to added the text and double border.

Capture Memphis Editor’s Choice “From The Garden”

I was pleasantly surprised late last week when I received an email from Capture Memphis stating that one of my photographs had won Editor’s Choice for the “From The Garden” series of images. I did receive a $50 Amazon gift card for the win but, more importantly, I was excited that other people thought enough of one of my images to award it the Editor’s Choice award over many other great images from local photographers.

Also, I’m hoping that this means that I have a good shot at getting at least one image printed in this year’s Capture Memphis coffee table book.

A little background on this image:

This photograph was taken on a Panasonic DMC-TZ5 (point-n-shoot) camera. This over sized Gerbera daisy was easily ~8 inches in diameter which made for a great close-up shot with a fair amount of detail for a point-n-shoot camera. I processed the . jpeg image in Adobe’s Lightroom by converting it to black and white and adding some extra contrast with some final sharpening. Be sure to follow me on Twitter (@tylerwainright) and, if you’re on Facebook, join my page: Tyler Wainright Photography

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Sunset and Surfer on the Florida Beach

The family and I recently returned from a much needed vacation and, on the first night, we happened to catch this beautiful sunset. After playing in the sand and taking it all in, I noticed this guy, with surfboard overhead, walking out of the water to call it a day. I waited until he walked directly under the setting sun to press the shutter.

I’d consider myself a landscape/nature photographer but after following David duChemin for a few months, I’m slowly trying to incorporate more people into my photography. I’m not sure exactly how I plan on doing that but I took advantage of this guy's silhouette while I had the opportunity. Since it’s back to the daily grind tomorrow, it might be a few days until I get the ability to post some other images from Florida. I

do have a few that I’d like to share so hopefully I’ll get some time to work on them. In the mean time, be sure to follow me on Twitter (@tylerwainright) and, if you’re on Facebook, join my page: Tyler Wainright Photography

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Doctor’s Office | Memphis Photography

I’ve always been intrigued at how stark and uncomfortable doctor’s offices can be and this image pretty mush sums it up for me. This photograph, taken on an iPhone 3G, was taken while I waited to see a doctor a few months ago. Originally the image was a little underexposed with muddy colors (the iPhone’s ability to shoot in low light is pretty atrocious). I had some time to kill so, after snapping the image I opened up The Best Camera app and turned my rather boring original image into what you see above.

To achieve this look all I did was boost the brightness and increase the contrast. Fortunately the wall behind the subjects was evenly lit so the entire background turned (almost) stark white. The only other thing I’d like to do to this image is run it through a noise reduction application and maybe add a little bit of sharpening to make them pop. The text was added via Picnik.

If you’re on Facebook and want to follow my work there, you can join my page here: Tyler Wainright Photography. You can also follow me on Twitter @tylerwainright

Mirror Images | iPhone Photography

I’ve been playing around with the Picture Show iPhone application for a few weeks now and, to my surprise, one of my favorite effects is the mirror-image setting. I first started exploring the effect when I created my cover image for my Blurb book, Connected.

I further explored the idea on some other pages within the book although they’re not exactly mirror images. Since then, I’ve been on the hunt for subjects that I think would work well after the mirror image effect and so far, I’ve found a few. The picture above is a sample of some of my work and you can see the rest of the images over on Flickr. I’m always on the look out for interesting subjects and, you never know, there might be another book somewhere down the road. In fact, I already have something in mind to go photograph today.

I really like how this effect, when used under the right circumstances, can turn a rather mundane subject into something very abstract and force the viewer to see shapes and patterns. It also forces me to look for, and see subjects in a new way. Also, if you’re on Facebook and want to follow my work there, you can join my page here: Tyler Wainright Photography. You can also follow me on Twitter @tylerwainright