Potpourri

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At the end of the year, WordPress sent me a POTPOURRI of information and stats about my blog in 2012.  I thought I’d report the highlights here, because some of my wonderful blog readers figure in the report.  Intrigued?

This blog had a total of 13,000 views in 2012!  That is hard for me to fathom, since it’s not advertised.  I know it is mostly my real-life friends and family, but also those I have become friends with in the online community through Clickin Moms and Kim Klassen and other connections I have made.  Thank you all for viewing my photos!

The busiest day was February 16, with 134 views!  The post that day was Lean On Me, which was the most viewed part of the blog that day.  I am wondering if Nevin or some of the other Rapunzels did some blog viewing that day!

Now here is the puzzling part to me- the most viewed post in 2012 was from Jan. 5, 2011- the fifth day of the FIRST year of my Project 365.  It is puzzling, but not surprising to me, because each week of the year the search term that brings most folks to my blog is SNOWY BRANCHES- and that is the blog title for that day. Week in and week out- people search for snowy branches. Is snowy branches a code word for something? A drug term? A video game? A rock group? A rapper? If you can shed some light on this, please do!

Oh- and the second most frequently used search term that brings people to my blog is- get ready for it!- SNOWY BRANCH! Oh, dear me. . .

The other most frequent search terms make sense to me: melinda365, flower texture, and flower textured background.

Now for the Top Five Commenters!

Not surprisingly, the most frequent commenter is Carol of In Focus Daily!  She is actually in the number 1 and number 5 spots (two internet identities, most likely).  Carol was my roommate in college and for 2 years after that- AND she introduced me to my husband!  We reconnected a few years ago and developed our passion for photography at the same time.  Thanks, Carol! Number two is my friend, Claudia, who has been so faithful about reading and commenting on my blog. Third is Karren, whom I have never met, but feel like I know through her wonderful photographs of her family and beautiful scenery in Utah.  Her blog is Karren’s Photography Journal– go check it out! Fourth is my friend Joan, who has been a close friend since we met as brand new, totally green, first year teachers at Kawana School in Santa Rosa, California in- nevermind the year. . .

So that’s it for the potpourri of blog stats for 2012!

Today’s photo was taken in response to a Flickr challenge (starts with P) and is textured with Kim Klassen’s bent edges, my absolute favorite and go to texture.

Melinda4 Comments

Leaves in a Jar

Gray days, rain- perfect weather for staying inside and doing a still life!  These are some leaves from my nandina (heavenly bamboo) by the back deck.  I have some by the front porch as well, and, in the last two years. its leaves and berries have been photographed by me many times.  In fact, this photo of nandina was the first of my Flickr photos to ever make Explore (and, oddly enough, it is still in the Explore collection, while most of my others have been dropped).

So, Friday’s photos were of nandina berries; today’s is just of the leaves.

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Nandina

I had fun this morning shooting some nandina berries I had brought into the house.  I used both my 35mm 1.8 and my macro lens and took a variety of photos from different angles. Here are a couple that I like so far.

In the photo below I played with a matte look with my black and white conversion (basically eliminating the blackest blacks in the image) and added a Florabella texture

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And here is a macro of some of the berries on my father’s dental cabinet; I always love the reflections on the black surface.

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Through the Branches

branches-5843-EditI am a creature of habit.  I start the day looking out the window for photo opportunities as soon as I get up.  I had already decided to not post anything today, so I just wandered outside with my camera to take photos to perhaps use on another day.  I was struck by how the light was hitting some water drops on the branches I could see through the lower branches, so took a few shots.  I was pretty unsuccessful in capturing the water drops, but ended up really liking the images that I did get.  I discovered my Flickr group’s theme today is gray, so I took this photo into Perfect Effects and used one of the presets (Daguerrotype) as a starting point.  It did add some grain to this already noisy photo, but I like the result.  It is reminding me somehow of a book cover- but I can’t figure out which book.

And then- I just can’t help myself- I am posting this today instead of waiting for another day.

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HAPPY 2013!

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Yup, I’m still here taking photos- thanks for dropping by!  I’m sure the neighbors wondered what I was doing on the front porch with a tripod this morning, but I think I’m getting past being self-conscious about my photography.

For the last month or so, I’ve been thinking about my photography goals for 2013.  I listened to a great video about becoming a better photographer on Scott Kelby’s The Grid last week which pretty much reaffirmed what I’ve been thinking about.  The first step was to decide what kind of photographer you want to be- that you can’t be good at everything. I’m still thinking about that one, but know I love to photograph my grandsons, do portraits of my friends and family, and shoot flowers, macros, and “arty” shots.  I like landscapes, but don’t think that will ever be my niche; I don’t like the idea of getting up a zero-dark-thirty for good light! I will of course keep taking those landscape photos, but I know my limitations. And I know that event photography is definitely not for me; my worst nightmare would be shooting a wedding! So. . . I intend to improve my skills in the areas where I know I do well.

I’ve also been inspired by the books of David duChemin, who writes about photography in terms of finding your vision. His books and website are amazing.  He is making me a bit more intentional in how I take photos; I’m trying to stop my tendency to just keep snapping away.

This year I’m participating in a Clickin Moms’ monthly challenge group and for the first time have submitted some photos to their website (I’ve always been too intimidated by the level of expertise in this group).  I will continue to participate in Flickr and Kim Klassen’s Texture Tuesday, and, now without the pressure of producing a new photo daily, I can hopefully take the time to work on the quality of what I do photograph.

Happy New Year- and to my photography friends- Happy Shooting!

 

 

Melinda4 Comments

D A Y 3 6 6 !!!

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It’s Day 366- the last day of my Project 366 for 2012!  I have a great sense of satisfaction in completing this project for the second year in a row. I’ll still be here- so please keep visiting my blog!

Thanks to all of you who stop by and encourage me; I truly appreciate your comments (online and in person).

Have a very Happy New Year- see you in 2013!

Melinda3 Comments

Day 364- Birch Bark Redux

Here we go again- more birch bark. . .

I am two days shy of completing my second year of Project 365/6- and am resorting to shooting the subject of Day 2 of my first year!  And I know I’ve photographed birch bark at least once in between.  Today, however, there was a method to my madness.  I was looking for a spiral, one of the topics from my Daily Challenge group.  Since the birch trees are right out my kitchen window, I thought of birch bark.

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Here are a couple more images for good measure:

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Day 363- Photoshopping

I am really in the mood today to PLAY with photos more than TAKE them.  I bundled up and spent about twenty minutes outside today, hoping to get some bird shots- unsuccessful.  I ended up taking bare branch shots (don’t know why I love them so. . .) and an ivy leaf peeking through the fence (for the topic, renewal).

Then I went crazy.

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I’ve been playing with the difference blend mode lately and had a lot of fun using some of Jessica Drossin’s textures along with varying blend modes, including difference as the starting place.  I especially love it for the black trees, as it turns them gold! The predominant texture you are seeing in the blue and pink shades is Lost Rainbow.

Puzzler:  I was very surprised to see the difference (no pun intended) between the photo I edited in Photoshop and what was transferred back to Lightroom. I ended up having to increase vibrance and contrast in both photos to get them to look at all like they did in Photoshop. They still look best in Photoshop. Color space issues???

 

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Day 362- Sarah

My friend, Renata’s daughter, Sarah came over today for some photography help with her brand new Christmas camera, a Nikon D3100.  She already has the basics of seeing photo opportunities and composing photographs; she just needs to learn how to make her camera do what she wants- no small task!  We mostly worked on focusing and the exposure triangle, concepts I really struggled with in the beginning.   She’s taking photojournalism next semester in college; I can’t wait to see how she progresses!

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Day 361- Scattered

Twas the day after Christmas, and all through the house. . .

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The topic today is scattered.  I didn’t have to look too far to respond to this topic- next to my BRAIN, the most scattered area is our post-Christmas living room.

I processed this with one of Matt Kloskowski’s free presets- wedding fairytale (or fairytale wedding?), a preset I downloaded and thought I’d never use. It basically desaturated the image and then added a light vignette (the opposite of my usual vignetting).  I tweaked it a LOT, removing some of the vignetting and bringing back the saturation a bit, especially on the pig.  Kind of a fun look- would be good for a newborn, maybe.

I got a few photography related gifts for Christmas!  The biggest one was a reflector stand (to hold the reflector when you don’t have someone to do it for you, which is most of the time for me).  I am still trying to master it- putting things together is not my strong point. I also got a small diffuser for the flash- like a miniature Gary Fong.  It really cuts down on the flash, so I need to work with it to figure out the right settings- very cool! My daughter gave me a wonderful photography book I’ve been wanting called Extraordinary Everyday Photography by Brenda Tharp and Jed Manwaring.  It has great tips and inspiration for taking photographs without traveling to Kathmandu or Antarctica.  I also got lens pens (yes, you’re supposed to clean those lenses!), a rain cover for my camera (could have used this a few days ago), a little viewer thingie to look at your LCD screen through on a sun-glare-y day,  a new rocket blaster for my camera bag and a fast SD card!  I’m set!

BTW- only five more days in my 366 for 2012!  I will still be blogging- maybe every day, probably less.

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Day 360- Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to friends, family, and blogging buddies!  We had a great day- kind of cooking dominated, but fun all the same.

I have been doing some experiments with flash and a new reflector stand- so my family is trying to be patient (it IS Christmas after all!).  Here are two shots of Matt as we started dinner.  The amused smile in the first photo is because I forgot to take the camera off self-timer- DOH!

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And here we are right before dinner (yes- with the self-timer on).

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And tomorrow- LEFTOVERS!

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Day 359- ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas

I always amuse myself when I do a cooking shoot, because cooking is definitely not my area of expertise.  I do, however, love to cook for Christmas, and we still always cook our traditional family favorites, even though it is usually just the three of us.  Christmas dinner is always turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, zucchini and mushrooms, rolls, fruit or green salad, cranberry, and pumpkin pie.  For Christmas Eve dinner, it is always lasagna, green salad, and dessert.  The dessert this time is low carb pumpkin cheesecake- the only real low carb item we will be eating over the holidays.

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