No Actual Birds Were Harmed In The Making Of These Memories…

Shells

Went shooting with my girls this weekend at a friend’s house in Fredericksburg (see this pic for the awesome sunrise view we had on Father’s Day).  Later that evening I remarked, “Wow, we shot a lot of clays today”.  I quickly corrected myself, however, amending my statement to “Well, we THREW a lot of clays today”.  We have fun regardless of how well we shoot on a given day.  Lots of memories come out of these events.

I managed to shoot about 40 rounds out of the 12 gauge before I got tired of the kick then I switched to the 20 gauge (we had three 20s out there) and went through another 50-ish.  The girls and friends went through their share as well and we ended up with quite a pile of spent shells, part of which you see in the pic above.  We also shot plenty of rounds out of a 9mm Glock, a .22 Ruger pistol, and a couple .22 rifles.

The pic above was created by tonemapping three exposures, the darkest of which just helped bring down the metal reflections a bit.  I blended in a bit here and there from the original exposures and parts from a layer processed with the “photo pop” preset in Topaz Adjust.  Added a curves adjustment, a slight levels adjustment (brought in more blacks), and a bit of sharpening to all that and voila…there it is.