Still Life with Roses
My roses are fading a bit, but they still make a lovely subject for still life photography. The pitcher is a bargain find from Michael’s- my Friday Find for this week!
Roses- and Moonlit Wind Turbines
My Mother’s Day flowers came just in time- I was running out of things to photograph for a still life! This is my favorite shot so far of the beautiful roses given to me by my husband.
Since this is App-Happy Wednesday over at Keeping with the Times, I’m also including an iPhone photo.
This week, I got a fun new (to me) app called Distressed FX; I tend to pick new apps when I see others using them on Instagram. I confess I fell in love with the app when I saw you could add flocks of birds to your photos. Two things about this photo: 1) the subject is wind turbines in the moonlight (I’m kind of obsessed with photographing wind turbines on road trips) and 2) I wanted to fade the texture, but couldn’t find my original to blend with it (and besides, the birds would have faded too). I know I could have done something with Adobe Photoshop Touch, but didn’t take the time to figure it out. I have a lot to learn!
Yellow Tulip
I haven’t totally abandoned old books as props; here’s a “basic reader” from 1931 with a tulip from my Mother’s Day bouquet (thank you, Matt!) as bookmark. As a former first grade teacher, I have a small collection of old primers and readers that I bought at garage sales or somehow acquired over the years. The theme for this week’s Texture Tuesday is yellow, so I added the yellow tulip. This image is textured with teatime by Kim Klassen. I’m also including another shot in black and white.
Macro!
It’s been awhile since I did a Macro Monday- so here we go!
Books, Shells, and Keys- and the Mystery of Room 217
This week I can honestly say I thoroughly enjoyed doing my still lifes for Kim Klassen’s Start to Finish class. I am slowly getting into my groove, and I think it’s because I’ve been photographing some of my old books, which I dearly love. And for a little twist, I’ve added keys and shells into the mix of props. As I’ve taken my photographs over the course of the week, I found myself imagining they were book covers for books I want to read, which made it even more fun. One of the keys (which my friend, Debbie found at a garage sale) appeared to be a hotel key- for Room 217. My imagination went wild with various ideas of what the story would be that featured that key on the cover.
All except for the last photo were textured using rue, retreat, or teddy from Kim Klassen. I think my favorite shots are the last two.
I’m linking up with Kim’s Friday Finds today. What did I find? A still life subject I’m comfortable with- and a bit of confidence!
This and That
My camera has been out a lot the last week; here are a few photos that didn’t make the blog.
A couple Blue Ridge cups
A macro of a leaf, snapped while watering
And from Chalk It, Prescott’s chalk art festival last weekend
Have a Happy Thursday!
Happy With Apps
I’ve become a mad collector of photo apps for my iPhone- it’s amazing how many there are! I think I need to stop until I fully understand the ones I have.
I took a shot of this starfish on my bathroom counter. In Snapseed (my go-to app that I mostly DO understand), I cropped it to a square, sharpened it a bit, converted it to black and white and added a vintage filter, which added some warm tones. I then added a texture in Mextures and the text in Phonto. Pretty simple!
I’m linking up with Barb’s App- Happy Wednesday!
Morning Tea
The sun streaming in the window this morning made it easy for me to decide where to set up my shot today. I actually photographed my Texture Tuesday photo on Texture Tuesday- just like I did in the years I was doing my Project 365, when the photo posted each day had to be taken on that day. No such self-imposed pressure now, but I just somehow never got to it until this morning. This was one of my grandmother’ teacups and one of my mother’s old books. The key is one I borrowed from my friend, Debbie. The textures are Auineau, anna, and celebrate. Have a great day!
We’re off to see the lizard . . .
Our walk at Willow Lake was for exercise, but of course I brought along my camera. I always like watching the ducks and other birds that hang out at the lake, but I had not thought about photographing the lizards. The lizards around our house started to emerge around the same time our grandkids were here, so they had fun catching (gently, as taught by their daddy) and releasing them. But in the last week with the hot weather, they have really come into their own- holy cow! Welcome to Arizona! I appreciate that lizards are part of our ecosystem and are actually kinda, sorta cute, but I am not particularly fond of them. So, of course, I am leading up to my lizard photo. . .
My husband spotted him first from afar as he posed atop a high rock, and we debated about whether it was really a lizard. But then I got closer and zoomed in- and yes, it was a lizard! He was pretty big by my standards, and was definitely basking in the sun. This is cropped- I was not that close.
We also watched the ducks and a great heron, who was stalking slowly through the waters, concentrating intently on the water. I wasn’t sure if he was a heron or crane until he took flight. Cranes fly with their necks straight out. That is one of the two or three facts I know about birds. As usual, one of my more learned friends is welcome correct me on my bird fact!
All in all- a successful photography outing!
We were just seventeen . . .
When my husband and I got to Chico on Monday, we checked into our hotel and then headed over to Peet’s Coffee, my husband’s favorite coffee place in any town that has a Peet’s (we don’t have it in Arizona). When I saw the Beatles mural on the wall down the street, I was ECSTATIC knowing that my friend, Carol was coming to town the next day. We were pretty much Beatles fanatics during the sixties- so what better photo op could there possibly be than a Beatles mural (unless it was Paul or Ringo in the flesh!)?
As I was standing between two parked cars to snap these photos, the owner of one of the cars came along and offered to take a photo of both of us with the Fab Four. We couldn’t resist!
Linking up with Kim Klassen’s Friday Finds- we found the Beatles!
Remembering
We were in Chico, my hometown, this week, because of business my husband had nearby. It was a very brief and bittersweet visit, because I knew I might not have occasion to return, now that we live in Arizona. My college roommate, Carol drove up from Sacramento to keep me company; I have some fun photos from that visit to share with you tomorrow!
On the way out of town yesterday, we stopped at the cemetery, where the ashes of my mother and three grandparents are located. On my other visits, I didn’t take time to really notice how beautiful the grounds are- or maybe it wasn’t at the same time of year. This time I took time to soak it all in.
Beautiful oaks shade the lawn.
The artificial flowers we put in the vases by their vaults have disappeared. My mother would have disliked them anyway; she was a lady with impeccable taste!
Road Trip
On road trips my husband does all the driving- and I read, play Words with Friends, and take photos out the window with my phone. Now that I have more apps than ever before, I have a lot of fun editing the photos. The last two were taken through the car window at 60+ miles per hour; I found that adding textures (in Snapseed or Mextures) helped disguise any reflections in the glass.
I’m linking up today with “app happy” Wednesday on Barb’s Keeping with the Times.
Photo 1: The Starbucks we finally found after searching for 45 minutes (painted in Waterlogue)
Photo 2: Power Lines in the Sun (edited in Mextures and blended back with the original in Image Blender)
Photo 3: The Road Ahead (textured – can’t remember which app- sorry- then painted in Waterlogue and blended with original)
Still and more still
I have a few more images to share from my still life marathon in the bathroom studio. Each photo is edited with Kim Klassen’s textures, different ones on each photo.
Negative
My friend and fellow photographer, Carol (infocusdaily.com), and I have been talking about the use of negative space in our images. In looking through some still-life photos I took Saturday, I found one that definitely has negative space- more than I usually use in my photos. This was taken in my current home studio- the hall bathroom- that’s a shower curtain in the background!
melinda anderson photography 