Alright folks, let me tell you about my recent little project: grabbing some sweet photos of the River Forest Golf Club. It all started last weekend. I was itching to get out, do something different, and the weather was looking prime for some outdoor photography.
First things first, I did a quick search online. I wanted to see what kind of shots were already out there. You know, get a feel for the place, see what angles people usually go for. It’s always good to have a bit of inspiration, even if you end up doing something completely different.
Next up, gear check! I grabbed my trusty Canon DSLR, slapped on my 24-70mm lens (that thing is a workhorse), and made sure I had a fully charged battery. Nothing worse than getting out there and your camera dying on you!
So, I drove over to River Forest. The place is pretty nice, all green and manicured. I parked the car and started wandering around, just scoping out the scene. I walked along the edges of the fairways, checking out the different tee boxes, and trying to find spots with good light and interesting compositions.
I started shooting! I focused on a few different things. First, the overall beauty of the course. Wide shots showing the rolling hills, the perfectly cut grass, the trees lining the fairways. Then, I zoomed in on some details: the texture of the sand traps, the way the morning dew sparkled on the grass, the little flags on the greens flapping in the breeze.
- I tried to capture the light at different angles.
- I played around with the depth of field, blurring out the background to make the subject pop.
I messed around with different settings on my camera. Adjusting the aperture for depth of field, shutter speed for motion blur (or lack thereof), and ISO for the right exposure. It’s all about experimenting until you get the look you’re going for.
After a couple of hours, my memory card was getting full, and my feet were starting to ache. So, I packed up my gear and headed home. Back at my place, I uploaded all the photos to my computer and started going through them. I culled out the blurry ones, the badly exposed ones, and the ones that just weren’t that interesting.
Finally, I picked out my favorites and did some light editing in Lightroom. Just tweaking the exposure, contrast, and colors to make them look their best. Nothing too crazy, just enough to bring out the natural beauty of the scene.
That’s pretty much it!
Now I’ve got a bunch of cool photos of the River Forest Golf Club. It was a fun little project, and I’m happy with how they turned out. Maybe I’ll even print some of them out and hang them up. Who knows?
