Day 86- Bending

My paper white stems grew really fast and quickly bent under the weight of the flowers. They are still graceful, however, and I often notice the new shapes as they fold and droop lower and lower. Today’s theme is mono, so I converted a photo I took this morning of my droopy stems to a black and white.

BTW for anyone interested in the Zone System, I metered off the green leaves at +1 (Zone 6)- and still had a few blinkies on the edge. It was probably a Zone 7.

Here is the black and white version.

 

 

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Day 85- Shadows

The sun came out and allowed me to shoot some shadows for my Flickr group. I turned it into a black and white, but, since the subject of the photo was black and white, it didn’t make much of a difference. Kind of boring, but that’s it for today.  In another week and a half I will have some (very cute) living subjects for my camera to focus on- can’t wait!!!

 

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Day 83- Streets, Roads, and Sidewalks

It’s a potpourri today.  I did a ride-along with my husband on a drive to an out of town courthouse to search for some records for a claim he is handling.  Today’s topic is street photography, and yesterday’s was construction– plus it is Fence Friday. I managed to take photos for all three, but did come to the conclusion, after a short while, that street photography in this area was not particularly safe. I moved to the square in front of the courthouse, where I photographed a little girl playing in the fountain. The midday sun was harsh in all the photos, as you can see. No golden hour here!

There was construction EVERYWHERE- even on the sidewalks.

On the way back home, we stopped so I could get my Friday fence photo. Here is a black and white version . . .

and an HDR one.

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Day 82- In the Zone

I have been reading about Ansel Adam’s zone system for achieving correct exposure in camera. One of the clickin moms swears it has totally transformed her SOOC images.  When I read some tutorials, it totally made sense to me and explained why I often have to either adjust my exposure off zero in camera or in post processing.  The theory is that you spot meter a tone in the average (18% gray) range to get perfect exposure throughout the image (something my Nikon system is supposed to do for me with matrix metering, as I understand it).  My problem is what to do when the tone isn’t average.

Red is supposed to be an average tone, so I metered to zero- and it was overexposed.  When I metered it a stop under zero, it was correct. This is SOOC, except for the watermark.  I decided that it was a darker red, so it was really zone 4- and that was why it all worked.  I was very proud of myself!

That was the last photo I took where I felt I knew what I was doing.

I thought that if a flower was Zone 4, you metered by spot metering the flower and adjusting the dials until the needle pointed to one stop less than zero.  And if the flower was zone 6 (lighter), you would meter to +1.  That doesn’t seem to be working for me!  I then reversed my meter display, so that it would match the histogram and my zone system cheatsheet. That has only confused me more. I don’t know if I have things backward or not. My brain is exploding!

The system is working for me when I meter something in the average tones- green grass! Woot!  But, other than that, mixed results.

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Day 81- Marine

The theme today is marine (I guess meaning anything associated with water).  But my husband WAS a Marine and served in the Vietnam War- so, theoretically, I could just take another photo of him to satisfy today’s challenge.

But instead- here is one of the few items he brought home with him- his cap.

 

 

 

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Day 80 Attached

I’m going with the theme today- attachments and connections.  Here is a photo of the beautiful necklace given to me by my husband- with connected hearts. OK,  let’s hear it-  Awwwwwwwwwwww !

 

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Day 79- Do Over

The theme today was “do over again”- but I had no intention of re-doing one of my old photos to see how I had improved.  It was a long day with its share of drama- and I am tired.  Every macro shot I took after I got home was out of focus- and I am not feeling energetic enough to get out the tripod. So while my husband and son were on the phone chatting, I took a few photos, vaguely reminiscent of the photo I took last week of myself talking to our son.  I went for the closeup and framed it differently- so there you have it.

 

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Day 78- New

The topic today is new purchase.  It was a toss-up between today’s groceries and my husband’s brand new iPad, which arrived in the mail Friday. The iPad wins, hands down! It is pretty awesome.

Although it is going to be used for business, here is what it is being used for tonight. . .

and here is how I hope it will be used in the future!

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Day 77- In the hood

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! I don’t have anything with a St. Patrick’s Day theme to post, but there is plenty of green in all my photos. I took a quick walk in our neighborhood today, armed this time with a plastic bag to cover the camera in case of a sudden downpour.

Our neighbor’s lavender is beginning to bloom.

The lemon tree on the corner is filled with gorgeous lemons.

I didn’t realize we had cows five minutes from our house!

All in all (to quote Mr. Rogers)it was a beautiful day in the neighborhood, a beautiful day for a neighbor. . .

 

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Day 76- A (very short) walk in the rain . . .

An appointment took me across the bridge today, so I stopped at Heather Farms to take a few photos.  Taking photos from under an umbrella was somewhat challenging, but I managed to get a few, switching to aperture priority when some large birds flew overhead and settled into the pond. They look like herons, but not the great blue one I photographed at Cosumnes- so I will call upon my friend, Carol, to identify them for me. There were a few in the pond- and one in a tree (at least I think it was the same kind- I didn’t stay long to observe).

And, because it is Fence Friday, here is a shot of the fence along the walkway.

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Day 75- Still a Mom

My kids are grown up, and we are empty nesters.  However, with phones, email, cell phones, Skype, and FaceTime, we are grateful to be in constant contact with our adult children and the two grandbabies.  Today I set up my tripod, took my remote in hand, and sat down to do a self portrait in a nice spot to sit (today’s theme).  Since I am in the middle of a good book (an actual physical book, not my kindle!), I thought that would make a good prop. As is often the case, my son called- so I just kept clicking the remote while I talked to him.

 

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Day 72- Cool, man . . .

My father was cool. Or at least he was cool at one time- long before I was born.

In the 1920’s, he played in a jazz band in New Orleans and Hollywood. What could be cooler than that? He was a self taught musician who never learned to read music and paid his way through dental school at USC by playing at Hollywood parties. He continued to play music all his life, and, when our family moved to Chico,  he joined the Shrine specifically so that he could join their dance band.

He played both clarinet and sax, and I chose to photograph his clarinet for today’s topic, which is COOL.

I tried to take a photo of the whole clarinet, but didn’t like the results. So, AS USUAL, I got out my macro lens and took closeup shots. When you look at the first image, you might be able to tell it’s indeed a clarinet.

The second image is more abstract, and probably impossible to identify as a clarinet- but maybe that’s what makes it COOL. . .

Photographic note: When I use this lens I get football shaped bokeh on the edges. I know there is an explanation.

 

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