Day 271- I Heart Kalanchoes- NOT!

The weather was hot, the company was great, the food was fantastic (the best 6.95 salad I’ve ever eaten), the grandbaby (not mine) was adorable- and the photos? Wellll, not so wonderful.

Each outside table at the Petaluma restaurant where we ate was decorated with a beautiful red kalanchoe in a cute pot- so I focused on that for my photo of the day.  When I was editing tonight, I just couldn’t get the colors to look right- the red flowers with the green leaves looked like Christmas to me.  The more I looked at the photos, the more I disliked them.  I tried a sepia processing with and without texture- too bland.  I ended up with a simple black and white conversion- and called it DONE!

But wait- the day wasn’t over! After coming back to it a couple hours later, I still didn’t like it- especially the composition and the lack of contrast in the flower petals. I went back to the color version,  changed the crop, and did an HDR cheat on it (only 1 photo with 3 exposures), which helped some.

So. . . it’s 11:00 now and I have wasted entirely too much time on a photo that I don’t really like. There is something to be said for getting a good shot SOOC, Carol!

 

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Day 270- Autumn Love

Texture Tuesday’s theme is LOVE this week. Since I LOVE autumn (my favorite season), I went outside, looked down and snapped this quick photo. Why did I look down? None of our autumn colored leaves seem to stay on the trees in our yard- they just immediately fall off. . .

I textured this photo with two layers of Kim’s autumn burst and 2 layers of fall in.  Follow the link on the right to Kim’s Cafe some beautiful textured photos.

Melinda7 Comments

Day 269- Down Under

TGIMM!

(Thank God It’s Macro Monday)!

I seem to be drawn more to the details than the big picture, so it’s a big relief to me when Macro Monday rolls around. I always forget to link to Lisa’s Chaos, where Macro Monday resides- so this week I’m not! If you have time, follow the links on that page to some beautiful macro photos.

 

Melinda3 Comments

Day 268- Branch Bokeh

The drooping branches of my favorite Maytens tree often provide beautiful bokeh backgrounds for photos taken in our backyard.  Today, I decided to use them as the foreground to go along with the theme for my ODC Flickr group- Starts with B.

So- now presenting Black and White Branches with Bokeh!

 

Melinda4 Comments

Day 267- Issues

I’m having some issues with the slideshow with this new WordPress theme.  It automatically takes the photos from the posts on this page and inserts them into a slideshow at the top.  Cool! But. . . some of them it changes.  I can’t figure out how or why it is doing that.  It seems to have something to do with whether they have been cropped or had a black and white conversion. This photo has been cropped to a square AND had a sepia treatment AND a black and white conversion on top of that (all in Aperture 3) AND then a Photoshop tweak and watermarking- so heaven help me. . .

 

Melinda2 Comments

Day 265- 100 More Days!

Project 365 2011 is 100 Days away from completion!  I am feeling such a sense of satisfaction from having honored my commitment to take a photo every day and post it, while improving my camera skills! I’m celebrating Day 265 by changing the look of my blog (or not. . .). I’m experimenting with WordPress themes, so not all my links are showing up. Bear with me as I play with this!

Today I am using the topic from Our Daily Challenge on Flickr- From Ground Level.  I took a beach towel and lay on our lower patio, aiming the lens one of the leaves that is starting to litter our grass. Definitely a bug’s eye view!

Melinda2 Comments

Day 263- Shrouded

Yes, I know I have photographed these webs before- but our yard is SHROUDED with them, and the spiders are HUGE! I feel like I am in a science fiction movie.

Today is Texture Tuesday, so I added one layer of Kim’s tattered texture using the color burn mode. This was the first time I had used color burn, which I thought did a nice job of adding some interest in the non-bokeh part of the photo (I masked off some of the texture in the rest of the image).

Melinda4 Comments

Day 259- Hard at Work

I found this rather large spider working hard in my garden this morning (with two more nearby!).  I didn’t really get the shot I wanted (a closeup of a spider spinning a web- all in focus).  When I increased the depth of field (closing down the aperture) on later shots, she was moving too fast for the slower shutter speed required. So, I settled for the shallow depth of field. BTW, this photo was not cropped, other than making it square (yes, I was THAT CLOSE!).

Big news in my Flickr world: yesterday’s photo of the day was “Explored”!  Not really sure what it means, but I know it’s good. . .

Melinda3 Comments

Day 258- Beginning

Most of the photo blogs I look at are documenting signs of the approach of autumn, so I decided to look around for some in my garden.  We have a moderate climate here, so the color display here is just beginning. I had to look closely- and, in among the greenery, here is what I found!

f/3.8, 1/2000, ISO 200, 85mm

Melinda3 Comments

Day 257- SF HDR

When my husband invited me to accompany him on an insurance claim in San Francisco today, I jumped at the chance to photograph something other than my backyard and family heirlooms! Unfortunately, it was a foggy day ALL day, so my plans for a gorgeous Golden Gate Bridge shot went out the window. You could see a bridge was there, but you couldn’t easily recognize as the Golden Gate.

But, with the magic of HDR, I managed to create this shot- and, I assure you, it IS the Golden Gate!

 

 

Melinda2 Comments