Still playing but I think getting better...

I'm trying to be a sponge by reading a lot of stuff about photography.  Trouble is I think the sponge has too many holes to hold anything.  I'll keep going though.  Sooner or later something has to stick.

I know working with non-RAW image files from my point & shoot camera will not yield the same type of pictures as I have been admiring on the web but the experience of playing with the different software is worth it.  I do not want to over do the HDR image but I think it is very cool at making the images 'pop' under the right circumstance.  Here is another exposure I played with...

Today while I was reading through the posts on Google+ I came across a picture by Tom Bricker of the Dumbo attraction at Disney.  I believe he was going for a sense of movement with the static foreground and the blur of the Dumbo vehicles in the background.  While sitting in my garage cooking dinner on the grill I had an idea to do something similar.  It was raining out and as the cars passed by the cloud of rain that followed them was interesting.  Here is my attempt...

The other aspect of photography that I a learning is very important is the post processing on your images.  I downloaded a trial copy of Adobe Lightroom to see what I can do and to determine if it is one of the tools I should have.  My first couple of attempts were not that successful, but I think these two pics turned out OK.

And yes, taking pics from around my house, the clouds are a favorite subject.  I thought the two above were interesting.  I hope I didn't ruin them but 'adjusting' them...