We paid a visit to the Cosumnes River Preserve this morning in hopes of seeing some of the sandhill cranes which are just beginning to fly in. The marsh seemed relatively empty compared to our visit last winter, but we did see a couple sandhills, an egret, and many ducks and geese- and others we will just call “birds.” Lonnie and I are totally out of our element among these birders, but find it fun nonetheless to see so many birds in one place.
Here are some scenes from the marsh:
I started the day by following the theme, abstract, for Our Daily Challenge. I challenged myself further- OK, I was just lazy- by looking for something on my desk to photograph. Within 5 minutes I had uploaded this photo to Flickr.
The next two photos are just ordinary items I felt like photographing . . .
And now for a pop of color and texture- just for fun. . .
Probably the most basic rule of composition in photography is the rule of thirds (imagine your photo divided into a 3X3 grid- objects should line up to one of those lines and/or intersections). I consciously and unconsciously use this rule when framing and/or cropping my photos, so I thought this challenge would be an easy one for me. Hmmmm- not so.
Our deck has just been stained, and I wanted to capture its new look. Of course it is already littered with leaves, which make a natural subject for my macro lens. This photo was so hard for me to frame using the rule of thirds- maybe one of the other rules of composition (triangle, golden ratio, golden spiral?) applies…
Here is a more easy to see example of the rule of thirds.
I found some beautiful fall leaves yesterday at school and brought some home for a future photo shoot. I’ve been under the weather since my flu shot Monday so decided to take the easy route and photograph the leaves today (ignoring today’s theme, which is ODD). I took a test shot with my 50mm to see if I could get enough detail in the leaves without having to put on my macro lens and ended up liking the test shot better than the ones I did outside. The bokeh does look ODD, don’t you think? Kind of like a necklace? It’s from the cut glass dish I had set the leaves in when I brought them home. Since it is an odd pairing, I submitted it to the Flickr group. Stretching it? Probably. . .
I met this noisy gull down by the water this morning. I wasn’t planning on photographing birds unless something unusual flew by (how many Canada geese can I photograph, seriously?), but he was insistent. He flew in circles around me, practically begging to be my subject. So here he is- in a textured version for Kim Klassen’s Texture Tuesday, with the theme, Looking Up. I used two layers of Kim’s dusty rose texture, the second at low opacity and mostly brushed off the seagull.
Lines is the challenge today. It’s a busy day, so I gave myself ten minutes to find some lines on our front porch and in the yard. Some have more obvious lines than other (am I cheating with the camellia?). The tree image is the one I will post to the group.
My first nod to Halloween!
The theme today is dualism: made of two parts. I had decided to finally get out some Halloween decorations today and discovered that I indeed had something made of two parts. Two items checked off the to-do list! I used a Florabella texture on this one- at 100%, almost no other editing- and done in record time! 🙂
With just a few minutes to spare, I sneaked outside before an all-day workshop and tried to capture some backlit leaves.
So, here we have some green ones. . .
and some orange ones!
Back-lighting is today’s theme. I was in a hurry, grabbed my macro lens, found a whatchamacallit caught in a spider web- and then had some weird adventures in back-lighting. This is NOT a black and white conversion; it is just a very cloudy day. It probably doesn’t quite fit the assignment, but this is all I will be getting this afternoon.
A natural texture was the topic today- and I captured 2 textures in one photo. And. . . I only took two photos today with a total editing time of 1 minute- surely a record for me!
Basket on Marble
The topic for today is center. I couldn’t decide between top or bottom views of this little pine cone, so I decided to post both views in a diptych (made with Lightroom 4).
On a busy day, the topic art and/or craft, appealed to me, because I have an entire closet filled with art and craft materials that I seldom use now. One of the first things I found today was a pair of scrapbooking scissors- I think my grandsons would enjoy using them someday.
Desperate to come up with a photo idea, I finally set myself a task: take a series of photos of one still life from different angles. I grabbed a Longaberger basket, which, during the course of my photo session, I discovered has a signature and date on the rim. I used my 85mm in my favorite afternoon light- on my kitchen table by the window. I ended up liking so many that I made a collage in Lightroom (easy as pie!).
We said our good-byes to the seals and pelicans this morning and headed back home along the Russian River and through the vineyards along the River Road. The trip was broken up by a fun lunch in Santa Rosa with Joan and Rudy, who have been our closest couple friends since before we were married.
And now, alas, we are back home- until our next adventure.
Dozens of seals were relaxing on the rocks every morning when we took our early walks.
Today there was some fog rolling in from off shore.
I spotted this vineyard on our way to the coast on Thursday and remembered to stop today to capture a shot of the golden grapevines.
We spent a lot of time today walking the trails along the cliff tops- and then an equal amount of time recovering. . .
There were many views like this one
and this one
and this one!
There were plenty of tree tunnels.
I left my tripod at home, so this is probably the only photo you will see of us from this trip. . .
And, btw, my camera seems to be working fine today- no problems!
