In search of my still life mojo. . .

In the hopes of finding my still life photography mojo, I’ve taken on two of Kim Klassen’s photo classes- Start to Finish and Be Still.  Both emphasize still life photography, a genre where I often feel awkward and uninspired. After two years of doing a Project 365 and another year and a half of regular photography blogging, I have taken photos of almost everything in my house- actually two houses! Time for some new inspiration!

My intentions for this class are to learn some new skills and to create some photo art that is truly my own expression.

I am just beginning to gather my props and was delighted yesterday when a package arrived in the mail that contained the family history items that my husband had gathered from his father’s home during last week’s visit to Kansas. Yay- props! You might notice a Mason jar in the background- it’s new! I had asked my husband to look in his dad’s house for some jars; when he mentioned it to his sister, Kathy, she gave him one of hers to give to me. How awesome!

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This photo is edited using some of Kim Klassen’s older textures- soft grunge, archives, abstract, and scratchedmagicjuly.

I’m linking up with Friday Finds as well as my Start to Finish classmates.

Kim Klassen dot Com

 

 

 

 

Melinda14 Comments

App Happy!

I took this shot with my iPhone of one of the birdhouses in our backyard (left by the previous owner).  It is perched on a piece of driftwood, and is very low to the ground.  I haven’t seen any birds going in it, but I might be missing something.  Do the quail or roadrunners fly up into it??? Seems like the opening is too small. My bird-knowledgeable friends need to help me out here.

Painted in Waterlogue

Several apps were used as part of my process for this image.  I forgot that I could take the shot in square mode, thus eliminating cropping it to a square afterward- so I needed to crop it in one of the apps.  I used PicTapGo for this and also added a bit of warmth.  I found myself really disliking the right side of the photo (rocks and an out-of-focus branch), so I then opened the photo in Snapseed and used the Tilt-Shift effect to blur out the unwanted parts of the image.  Next, I added a texture in Mextures and a watercolor filter in Waterlogue.  I finished it off by adding the word, Home, in Phonto. Five apps for one photo?  Seems a bit extreme, but it worked for me this time.

As part of my quest to learn more about iPhoneography, I am linking up today with Barb’s new App-Happy Wednesday on Keeping With the Times.  I’m eager to see what the other iPhoneographers have done- I’m such a newbie at all of this!

Keeping With The Times
Note to my friends who take photos with their phones and are intimidated by the whole DSLR photography and editing thing:
This is seriously FUN! It is easy to edit your photos and make them look like little pieces of art.  Most of the apps are free- and the ones that aren’t are inexpensive. Try it!  You can figure out all of this in an afternoon. Join me on instagram. I’m #melindaroo.

Melinda13 Comments

Create

Simple is this week’s Texture Tuesday theme. I tried not to overthink it, so decided on a simple composition, a few textures, and a black and white conversion.

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textures: bamboo, sophia, and canvasback by Kim Klasse

Melinda7 Comments

Wabi-Sabi

I learned a new term last week on Kim Klassen’s blog- wabi-sabi.  As I understand it, wabi-sabi is a Japanese aesthetic embracing the imperfect, the incomplete- the natural, the simple and unaffected- the moment just as it is.  The perfectly imperfect.  The now. A philosophy for art, living, relationships- I could go on. I love it!

I used that new (to me) term in completing Day 52 of Beyond Beyond.  This lesson gave us a new template for Lightroom and Photoshop and challenged us to print a photo- and use that photo in another photo.  A picture in a picture- which reminds me of the opening of each episode of Modern Family, a show I’ve only discovered in the last few months.  Kim’s example was a picture in a picture in a picture, so I did this too.  I’d like to use this technique again with people- perhaps my favorite models, Miles and Henry.

I chose a Mason jar to photograph, this time with flowers, because of its wabi-sabi-ness! It is imperfect, utilitarian, and simple, and I love it.

mason_jar_layout

2B_wabisabi_ pic_in_picYou might have noticed that my blog has a new look. It’s been well over a year since I’ve made any changes, so it seems like time for an update.  I went back to my original layout with a new header, and made some corrections on my “about” page (it still said it was 2013 and that I live in the San Francisco Bay Area- oooops!). The slideshow is gone, and I have my sidebar back. There are other little changes I want to make as well- after I figure out how to do them.  So what do you think?

Melinda11 Comments

Hippity Hop

Look who I found hopping around my front yard!

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This was taken while sitting at my desk looking out through the window.  She (I always think it’s a she) visits pretty regularly and hops from bush to bush, where she hides from the hawks and coyotes. I’m hoping to see babies!

HAPPY EASTER!

Textured with Kim Klassen’s waterfront 21. Linking up with Friday Finds.

Melinda7 Comments

Photobooth Boys

One of my goals for this week was to start getting caught up on my Beyond Beyond (2B) lessons.  I’m working backwards and doing whatever strikes my fancy.  This one (Lesson 51) was so much fun- I downloaded a photobooth storyboard action that Kim linked for us and put in some of my shots of the grandboys from when they were here! Easy and very entertaining!

PHOTOBOOTH_BOYS

Melinda6 Comments

Blood Moon

Like everyone else, I was riveted to last night’s lunar eclipse AKA blood moon.  I set up a chair in the driveway, and settled in wearing a stocking cap, gloves, warm socks, and a fleece jacket, accompanied by my camera, tripod, cable release, binoculars, flashlight, and a Lisa Gardner thriller.  It was so cold! And I was a bit concerned that a coyote ( or perhaps a scorpion) might come by.  I snapped photos every ten minutes, and was enjoying myself- but then the moon turned a beautiful orange-ish color, looking three dimensional like a painting of some distant planet. Unbelievable! I took a few (very dark) photos, but mostly just sat gazing at it until I could gaze no more.  My photos do not begin to capture what I saw.  But that’s okay.  I SAW it!

blood_moon

 

 

Melinda5 Comments

Perfectly Imperfect

A few years ago I attended a knitting workshop. I was knitting along and noticed I had made a tiny mistake quite a way back in my project.  Upon noticing my dismay, the instructor launched into a speech saying that it is the tiny imperfections that show the difference between handmade and machine-made. Handmade is made by a real person with skill and care; machine-made means, well, made by a machine! I’ve always thought of that when I look at the hand-painted designs on the pieces in my Blue Ridge pottery collection.  Each plate, cup, saucer, bowl etc. was painted by hand, making no two pieces alike, even those with the same pattern.  Perfectly imperfect (which just happens to be the theme for this week’s Texture Tuesday) !

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Although I have almost an 8 piece set of one pattern, Sun Bouquet, I usually mix up my table settings and include pieces from several patterns.  Most of the patterns I look for are in primary colors, so they blend well together.  And there’s my newest Mason jar (yes, I now have two) in the middle- it’s perfectly imperfect as well!

Edited with two of Kim’s textures, 1301 and sybil.  Linking up with Texture Tuesday today.

Melinda12 Comments

Escape Route

Last week’s meet-up with my photo group yielded some shots that go along with the shadow theme for this month’s meeting of my photo club. We were walking behind Whiskey Row and came upon this wonderful fire escape on the back of one of the buildings.  Looks at the crazy pattern of steps, landings, and shadows!

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Melinda5 Comments

My New Find

 

 

Mason JarI’m ridiculously excited about this!  When my photoblogging friends were here on Wednesday, Terri started talking about her Mason jars and how you can date them by looking at the way Ball is written on the glass- fascinating! After lunch, we strolled through a few antique stores, and I bought my first old Ball Mason jar (and yes, I bought a Blue Ridge saucer as well)!  I can tell by the loop at the end of the word Ball (called a triple L) that this jar was from 1896-1910.

I’m sure you will be seeing this jar again in more photos.  I took it out on the porch to photograph, but today’s light isn’t the best (so far it’s cloudy and gray).  I brought my white backdrop and tablecloth out to lighten things up and added a sprig of heath- but I couldn’t do anything about the lack of morning light. Another day. . .

Something tells me this won’t be the last Mason jar I buy!

Linking up with Friday Finds today.

Editing Notes:

I am so behind in my 2B (Beyond Beyond) lessons! A few weeks ago, I discovered that the lessons had started up again (evidently quite awhile ago).  My notifications weren’t coming to me for some reason (probably in my spam folder). It wasn’t until this week that I started looking at what I’ve missed, and now it’s almost over.  😦  Thankfully, the lessons will stay up, and I will have a lot of fun catching up- will probably do some marathon sessions.  I actually used what I gleaned from Lesson 50 to edit this still life.  Kim provided us with a set of workflow presets she uses to edit her photos= awesome! I already had many presets I’ve created or downloaded- they simplify my life so much when I want to edit quickly. For example, I had created some for different types of vignettes, for clarity, for midtone brightening, adding warmth, etc.  But I had never thought to organize them into a folder- and put them in the order I would use them.  They are all just randomly in a favorites folder along with other favorites I use all the time.  Big head smack! I am so inspired to get in there and organize my presets!  So today, I used Kim’s workflow- and it worked great!  After taking the image through her presets, I popped it into Photoshop, added the anna texture, and I was done!

 

Melinda13 Comments

Live and In Person!!!

Yesterday I had the opportunity to meet Barbara of Barbara Hurst Photography,  Barb of Keeping Up With the Times, and Terri of Focusing on Life for a photo shoot right here in town.  It was a bit surreal (dislike that overused word, but I can’t think of a better one right now) to meet these photobloggers in person in MY house. I’ve learned all my photography skills online and have a bunch of online contacts, but this is the first time I’ve met any in person.  What fun we had sharing tips and comparing notes as we wandered around downtown Prescott.! They are all so knowledgeable and much more savvy in the whole photoblogging world than I am- I learned a lot.

Here’s a shot of the courthouse, edited with textures from Florabella and Kim Klassen.

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I would like to live in the turret on this house (Florabella textures)!

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Let’s do this again, ladies!!!

Melinda5 Comments

For Love of the Sun

I knew that today’s post would have at least one photo from my field trip to the Desert Botanical Garden. “For the love of . . . ” is the topic for this week’s Texture Tuesday, and, when I looked through my images, Sheryl Crow’s Soak Up the Sun started going through my head.  Think of it as the soundtrack for these two photos!

These cacti must have been at least 15 feet tall.  I used a small aperture, intending to get a starburst effect- but this is what happened. And I think I like it better this way!

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This bird was perched at the top of one of the cacti.  And how about the sun in this photo? Did I add it in post-processing?  No- it’s actually flare from the sun on my right.  Usually I clone those out. . .

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Both photos have layers of an altered version of Kim’s ruemarion texture as well as kkcanvasback.  The bottom one also has some magic textures in there.

Melinda8 Comments