I walked around the backyard with my 35mm1.8 looking for something pretty. Here are my Gerbera daisies again; I took 4 shots and this was the best, I think.
Day 136- Big and ROUND
I haven’t participated too much in my Flickr group, because I’ve been preoccupied with the class I’ve been taking from Karen Russell. But today I am going with the theme, which is round. Basically, I looked around for something round- and noticed a candle that has actually never been photographed. I used Aperture Priority with 1 stop exposure compensation and Kelvin white balance (I think it was around 4000).
And that’s about it!
Day 135- Time in a Bottle
My grandmother, Mimi’s perfume bottle
Day 134- Happy Mother’s Day!
(beautiful azaleas from my son, Matt <3<3<3)
Day 133- Hens and Chicks
My Rapunzel group met for lunch last week at Jan’s beautiful home. As usual, there was delicious food, laughter, and tears. It was bittersweet that our dear friend, Nevin, has moved to Southern California and that FaceTime with Jan’s iPhone was how she was able to join us. Marie was with her daughter and also could not be with us- we missed her as well, but know she will be at meetings again in the near future. Our group seems small at times, but has stayed strong because of our deep connection to each other- and to our children (and grandchildren!).
Somehow. Vicki has been in my mind and heart this week. She is one of us in spirit, but we lost her to cancer a few years ago. The first Christmas after her passing, each of us brought a small gift for each member in the group, as Vicki had brought us on every holiday. What is noteworthy here is that this was one of those unplanned, synchronistic happenings; none of us knew that each of us was doing the same thing.
I think Jan must have been feeling Vicki’s presence as well, because she had a present for each of us- a cute little succulent plant. I believe it is a “Hens and Chicks”- an apt gift to give a group whose reason for being is support and friendship while raising children!
Day 132- Not lavender!
I’ve been working on my photo class all morning. I uploaded photos I took in Wyoming as well as ones from a few days ago and this morning- each one satisfying a different requirement. And all of them have to be SOOC (straight out of camera)- no cropping or editing of any kind.
After the (self-imposed) pressure of finding the best SOOC images to post, it was a relief to edit a couple for the blog.
Here is the one I took this morning, which looked pretty good SOOC for the class, but so much better (to my eye) when given a boost with a soft light blend mode and with distracting background elements eliminated by blowing out the background with a levels layer.
And here’s another that I did not use for the class. It was slightly cropped, edited in Aperture 3 (definition, contrast) and with a soft light blend mode added in Photoshop.
Day 131- Waiting
I dislike waiting. But waiting when you have a camera with you is something entirely different.
I had the appointment time wrong for my doctor visit today and did not want to drive back across the bridge only to return an hour later. Fortunately, I had my camera with me, so I made an unplanned visit to Heather Farms, which is one of my favorite places to walk and enjoy the flowers. Of course, the light was glaring, because it was late morning, but I did manage to get some nice shots.
Here is some lovely lavender- I know, I know- third time this week for lavender! But this lavender is slightly different from mine.
And here are some roses.
Day 130- Work- or not. . .
Work has been disrupted around the Anderson home office for a couple weeks, because the big computer died- and 3 visits from the Dell technician could not repair it. I stayed home yesterday waiting for the replacement computer, and then our computer whiz, Dale, arrived in the afternoon to install the old hard drive into the new computer. By 7:00, it still didn’t work correctly.
This is what our home office looks like currently- with my husband on the phone trying to coordinate things between the old computer, his laptop, and the new computer- and all his software that needs to be working perfectly so he can operate his business. Big headache!
And I keep whispering- Get a Mac!
Day 129- New Baby!
What a fun day I am having! Not only am I getting to play with my friend Carol’s brand new Nikon D800, but I got to take my photos of the day with her fabulous 50mm 1.4 lens (on my camera)!!!
Look at the creamy bokeh in this image of my lavender (and visiting bee):
And here is Carol with her new baby:
Day 128- Homework
Yup- I have homework! As I’ve mentioned, I’m taking Karen Russell’s fabulous photography class, which I wish I had taken a year ago instead of stumbling around learning in bits and pieces from everywhere. The lesson I focused on today was on Exposure Compensation, which I remember learning about on Pioneer Woman’s blog when I was first starting out. Since I went almost directly to manual, pretty much bypassing Aperture and Shutter Priority, I haven’t had occasion to practice with this much- until now.
It’s interesting- and has made me think about Ansel Adams’ Zone System, which I was trying to learn before I started taking this class. Without going into it much, I noticed today that the tones I metered/focused on directly affected how much exposure compensation was needed (metering/focusing on a darker tone made the whole photo over-exposed).
I did the assignment twice, with two different types of flowers. I liked my focus best on the geraniums, so that is the photos you are seeing. Both shots are straight out of camera (gasp!).
The original exposure:
My preference, which is -2/3 stops exposure compensation:
It really is a matter of preference in this case. I prefer the deeper tones in the flowers in the second shot and the lighter background in the first. The other flowers I photographed today were DRAMATICALLY over-exposed, using the camera’s exposure without exposure compensation. And in that case, I had focused on the deep brown center of my daisy. Zone System!
Day 127- Mothballs, Moon, and Macros
I couldn’t resist being one of the many out last night photographing the “big moon”. My husband suggested a parking lot overlooking the Suisun Bay Reserve Fleet (the Mothball Fleet), and it seemed many others had the same idea.
I enjoyed using the macro lens today after being away from it for a week. Here are some views of geraniums that bloomed during our absence.
Day 126- Home- and Bonus Birds
We are home- and missing our little Yellowstone family. I had Facetime with Miles this morning, which helped some.
We came home to Spring- at Yellowstone it has barely begun. Here is some of our lavender in full bloom.
Yesterday, we took a short drive with our son-in-law and Miles. Our son-in-law has the amazing ability to drive and spot wildlife at the same time. We stop- and then it takes my husband and me several minutes to see what he was able to spot while driving. Here are two birds we saw on our drive; both photos are very zoomed in, but he identified them while driving.
Sandhill crane (which looked like a rock until it finally lifted its head)
Kestrel
Day 125- Morning Playtime
It’s our last morning to wake up to the sounds of “Go, go, go!” from Henry and Miles’s stories of Bun-Bun (his favorite “lovey”- or what he calls- nominee).
Here is Henry watching an elk out the window- and both boys playing boat.
Day 124- Drive to the Lamar Valley
The Lamar Valley is my favorite drive in Yellowstone National Park. This visit to the park, however, has been solely devoted to playtime with the grandbabies and helping out with childcare, as our son-in-law has been working out of town for most of our visit- and we haven’t had time to do much else. Today is our last day in Wyoming, so Lonnie, Miles, and I took a quick drive over to the Lamar Valley.
This was a great day for wildlife! Earlier in the day, I had seen my first fox, a fluffy little guy walking across the lawn by the house (alas, no photo). On our drive this afternoon, we saw hundreds of buffalo, including some new babies!
But the highlight of the day happened on our drive back. From the car, I spotted a grizzly bear walking along toward a pull-out, where a ranger and a few others were watching him. This was my first grizzly sighting at Yellowstone (we had seen one at Glacier National Park years ago). We pulled over, and I took MANY shots of him zoomed in at 200 mm. I’ve decided that the next time I take this drive I will bring a tripod and a longer lens for better focus. Wildlife and landscape photography are not my forte.
This is my favorite image (I like the open mouth!)- it is cropped and was overexposed in aperture priority (although I thought it looked OK in camera).
Day 123- It’s all about eyelashes . . .
A buffalo was in the yard yesterday, so Henry spent some time at the window this morning trying to see if he came back today. It made a great opportunity for wonderful window light.
Later Henry and I were home alone, while his Caitlin and Lonnie went to pick Miles up from preschool. We had some special time playing with the iPhone.
The above photos were all taken with Caitlin’s Nikon D5000. This morning I tried to take photos with my camera and discovered that the extra battery I had charged at home was dead. Fortunately I had brought the charger; unfortunately, I had forgotten the cord! So. . . I used Caitlin’s camera- and these are all JPEGs. Later, my friend and fellow photoblogger, Carol, suggested that I use Caitlin’s cord with my charger- and it worked- WHEW!
melinda anderson photography 