365/48 Shooting in Khaki

You've heard of color photos, black & white, sepia, well meet khaki. That's what I feel like these days, everything outside is shades of beige. The khaki was followed by rain, rain, and more rain, so guess I shouldn't have complained.




This one is a little better, at least there's some whiteness or even a subtle bluish-white.



If you look hard enough you can find life, and even a hint of green in the bare dead lawn from last year. Oh spring, were are you?



My computer is acting up today, but I had this already composed in a rough draft, so I was able to post it. Let's hope I'm able to correct the problem and get something more productive done tomorrow.

Challenge 2 - Finding the Details

Hallie is back and I'm so glad she is! Although I continued to follow her blog, I truly missed her photo assignments. I attempted to take pictures for Challenge 1, but the results were less than satisfactory, so I chose not to post them.

Here's what Hallie had to say about Challenge 2 - Finding the Details. I don’t know about you, but at times, especially in winter, I have a very hard time finding subjects to shoot. It becomes such a struggle and a frustration, but I don’t think it has to be. Do you find yourself searching for the big scene, or the larger picture, while forgetting about the details? I know I do.

The challenge today, is to find not the larger picture, but the smaller one. Look for the details in that photo you are about to take and let the details tell the story. You know sometimes the smaller things convey a much larger message than the bigger picture ever can.

Practice this challenge with different aperture settings and post the one, (or more,) that you like the best. Then come back and link your post to the Mr. Linky box below.

Happy shooting!

Go here to see her picture for the post and links to other photographer's entries.

It's suppose to rain all weekend where I live, so my detail picture is indoors. I chose my hobby box, which currently contains bookmarks I'm crocheting for my niece's wedding favors. I'm more than halfway done with the 100 I need to make. I'll be using this rainy, drizzling, foggy, dripping, pouring, wet day to crochet....

365/45 I Love Black & White Pictures

A couple days ago I received a book through Paperbackswap.com and it's called Photographing Children in Black & White by Helen T. Boursier. It's a great book. There are many, many pictorial examples and she tells you all her tips and tricks for composing and taking the greatest shots.



I always thought it didn't matter what you wore when you shoot black & white because the colors don't show, but the tones do she says. Think of the colors on a scale of one to ten, with the lightest being one and the darkest being ten. White and light colors like cream, yellow, pink & powder blue are one. Black and dark colors like navy, deep purple, maroon, hunter green & red are ten. She says all people in the photo should wear either all light, all dark or all medium. It's okay to have all dark tops and light bottoms (or vice versa)but don't mix them up. Example: some people having dark on top and others with dark on the bottom, because it will make the portrait look all choppy.

Here are two of my all time favorite black & white photos of Michael. The first one was taken at the Polish Club in Hamilton at Michael & Ava's christening reception.



Mozart wasn't this cute when he started playing piano. Doesn't he seem enthralled?




And here at two of my favorites of Ava:

Watch out, whenever Gramie LaLa is left alone with the kids there's a photo session.





Doesn't this picture just say it all? LOVE!

And last but not least Sydney:


A Fourth of July picture.


Her First Birthday picture. She's so cute in pigtails!

Try some black & white pictures next time your trying to photograph a loved one.

Buyers Guide 2009

So what am I buying?

I've been dreaming of a new camera. A digital SLR to be more specific. So while my husband was buying diesel magazines at Borders, I was looking at the photography magazines. Perhaps this will help me decide which brand is best for me.

How about a Canon Rebel? I'm leaning towards it at the moment, but the magazine may sway me another way. A Nikon D90? or Olympus E-520? A Panasonic Lumix DMC-G1? Pentax K200, Sigma SD14 or a Sony DSLR-A350? See why I need the magazine?

Do you have a SLR? What do you use or recommend? Help me out here, please!

365/36 Full Moon & Night time photography

Full Moon by Robert Hayden

No longer throne of a goddess to whom we pray,
no longer the bubble house of childhood's
tumbling Mother Goose man,

The emphatic moon ascends--
the brilliant challenger of rocket experts,
the white hope of communications men.

Some I love who are dead
were watchers of the moon and knew its lore;
planted seeds, trimmed their hair,

Pierced their ears for gold hoop earrings
as it waxed or waned.
It shines tonight upon their graves.

And burned in the garden of Gethsemane,
its light made holy by the dazzling tears
with which it mingled.

And spread its radiance on the exile's path
of Him who was The Glorious One,
its light made holy by His holiness.


** I deleted the last stanza, because the poem took a dark turn I didn't care for.






We've all heard about the harvest moon. Did
you know the moon has names for the other
eleven months. Here they are.

January: Wolf Moon
February: Ice or Snow Moon
March: Storm or Worm Moon
April: Growing or Pink Moon
May: Hare or Flower Moon
June: Mead or Strawberry Moon
July: Hay or Buck Moon
August: Corn or Sturgeon Moon
September: Harvest Moon
October: Blood or Hunter's Moon
November: Snow or Beaver Moon
December: Cold Moon

365/30 Rest Area Extraordinaire

Now this is cool photography.

William Wegman is best known for his dog photo's, many of which are his own Weimaraners.

The dogs are obviously well trained to get these great shots. If you've tried taking dog photos you know what I mean.







These portraits are in the rest areas of the Maine Turnpike.

I tried to get Gary to stop at all of them just so I could capture all of the different poses, but he's full blooded German, so I guess you know how that went.

365/29 More pictures from the vault

I took this beautiful picture while on vacation last July in North Carolina. It was just gorgeous. And I as stood and took several pictures, I realized someone was shouting at me from the direction of the golf course. Yep! "Get off our lawn!" It was their house and I was in their yard, but they were harassing me in jest, because they were Meghan's neighbors. If I knew the name of the bush I'd tell you. Maybe Meghan knows and will post it in the comments.

UPDATE: It is Hydrangea. Two of my girls have inherited the love of growing things from my father's side of the family. They have both assured me that it's hydrangea.

365/27 Echinacea

Today I went to the doctors, fearing my cold had turned into something worse. I also thought I might have caught strep throat from Ashley before she left, but that came back negative. My ears are filled with fluid and I have an infection on the left side and a nasty sinus infection. The doctor put me on Augmentin, which is a pretty aggressive antibiotic, so I should be on the mend soon.

The doctor also gave me a handout on sinus infections. This flower in the photo above was on the list of what would possibly be effective to help me get over my sinus infection. Extract from Echinacea and Vitamin C, are both on the possibly effective list. I knew that already and I'm sure most of you do too, but just happened across some flower photos and thought isn't that amazing. It's a shame there aren't more studies being done to find medicinal properties of other plants & flowers. I was surprised garlic wasn't on the list, I thought it's suppose to be a natural antibiotic of sorts.

365/9 And the Sun Rises on a New Day

This is the sky I saw this morning as I gazed into the neighbor's back yard. Strange for a winter morning sunrise. When you are forced out of the house at odd times of the night and day, you are sometimes rewarded with oddities (is that a real word?) and beauty of nature. Thanks Danan, dogs are good for you in many ways; this is just one of them.

365/7 Kalli gets a haircut

Kalli Mae took the scissors to her own hair, so her Mom (Rachel has been to beauty school) had to cut it. We think her new style looks very cute on her. My favorite is the one below this paragraph, her eyes are huge and the pose is waaayyyy cute. So grownup for someone who's just 3 1/2.

365/2 Under the Tree on Christmas Eve

Elora Danan, our five year old soft-coated Wheaton Terrier. She's named after the baby princess in the movie "Willow", but we mostly just call her Danan. (The name is pronouned like Dannon, the yogurt.) Can you believe there were four other dogs in this house when this photo was taken? She's such a good dog, and i'm so very blessed to have her.

Project 365

I have decided to start Project 365, so what is that you ask?
Project 365 was born when Taylor McNight decided to take a picture a day for 365 days and post them to chronicle his life during that year.
This past year I've developed a desire to be a better photographer and taking a picture a day will force me into not only thinking about taking better shots, but learning how to get them on my blog for others to view. If you would like to start your own Project 365, check out Photojojo.com for some tips to get you going.

So now I'm going to cheat a bit. I'm going to post a few favorites from December, to get me on track.

365/1 Sydney on Christmas Eve. I just love black & white photography.

In My Own Backyard!

Okay, getting close enough to photograph twin fawns may be an easy task where I work (at a nature center), but this is in my own backyard. These fawns have not been hand raised, nor should they be used to humans.

How'd I do it? Patience is a virtue! I started right by the house, snapping a picture-taking a step; snapping a picture-taking a step. I managed to get pretty close before they stood up and starting heading towards the wooded swampy area (due to all the rain we've had).

Although, I get plenty of opportunity to see deer in our area, these two little guys/girls were so darn cute I had to try to get a picture. It took me forever to post them because, I wanted to try out some features of Photo Shop Elements 6 on them, but just don't have the time right now, so finally decided to post them as is.

Adobe Photoshop Elements 6

Before and After images of Lily. With Photoshop 6, I was able to take the toy out of the picture that appears in the background of the first shot. I also shapened the image a bit. While it's not perfect, being my first attempt and all, it is pretty amazing. It's a learning process, so I'm sure to improve as I continue to use the program. There is so much to learn and it's a bit overwhelming, but I'm so geeked about photography at the moment, it's creating incentive for me to keep attempting new projects.

The Missing (lines) Photo

This is the second lines photo that I posted and then lost while trying to edit. I thought I'd try to post it again. Let me know which one you like the best. I love to read the comments.

The bridge is near G.T.'s house and he loves riding his bike across it going as fast as he can. He also likes to stop in the middle of the bridge and look below at a small stream running underneath it. Water is so fascinating to autistic children. It goes above and beyond the normal "love to splash in the puddle" kind of thing.

Panning

"Panning is a technique that can produce amazing results (if you perfect it…. or get lucky) but is also one that can take a lot of practice to get right. The basic idea behind panning as a technique is that you pan your camera along in time with the moving subject and end up getting a relatively sharp subject but a blurred background. This gives the shot a feeling of movement and speed. It’s particularly useful in capturing any fast moving subject whether it be a racing car, running pet, cyclist etc."

Okay, so I decided to try panning. Danan, was my object, but I didn't get anything worth posting. In other words, I did not perfect it or get lucky.

I also tried motion blur, while photographing flowers. I had a little better results in that department. These are the directions I used for motion blur: "You might want to do this simply by selecting a shutter speed that is slightly slower than normal and moving your camera during the exposure. In fact with even just slightly slower shutter speed than normal just trying to handhold your camera while taking your shot will probably give it the effect that you’re looking for. "

Instead of the flowers blurring though, my background looks like it is in motion. I'm sure it's some subcategory of motion blur. Please don't ask me how I did it, I probably couldn't replicate it if I tried. The flower in case you're wondering, is from a butterfly bush in my backyard.

Assigmnet #2 - White Balance

Assignment #2 - Understanding White Balance

This was also a two-part assignment. Take photos at different times of the day of the same subject with the same setting, to see how the light effects your photographs. I must admit I skipped this part of the assignment due to my working schedule, rainy days and a safe place to set up my camera. I did however, view fellow photographers pictures they submitted and saw that some had little differences and others a huge difference; I assume due to weather patterns in their area.

Part two was take a picture using a white balance setting that you feel is right for the type of lighting you are shooting in.

This is a pair of cranes in a neighboring farmer's field taken on an early, foggy morning. I tried more than one setting, but this is the one I liked the best.

Digital Photography101 - Assignment 1

Getting to know your camera. That means getting out your manual and reading it. Yes, I printed the manual out from the Kodak website and read all 72 pages, not once, but portions of it several times. Up to this point, I had taken all photos on auto and did not use any manual settings. I had features on this camera I didn't even know existed! It was something I never would have chosen to do on my own, but now I'm having fun putting all the new found information into use.

The second part of the assignment was to take the best picture we could with our current knowledge.

This is GT, a remarkable little boy that I take care of, who just also happens to be autistic. THE SKY IS THE LIMIT, is what this pictures says to me.