Almost 5:00 and no photo yet- am I getting burned out? I hope not! I took a bit of time to follow the light around my house (always my last ditch effort) and came up with some interesting shots of light and lines.
Here is the ceiling above my stairs- turned into a black and white to emphasize the lines:
And here is the afternoon light coming through the blinds and hitting a spider plant:
6PM and totally at a loss at what to photograph, I looked at my Flickr group topic.
SCALE. I already (of course) had photographed my bathroom scale, and I recently gave my Weight Watchers scale to Goodwill as part of my decluttering efforts. But then I thought of another meaning of scale- as in size.
Looking around the room, the answer was obvious- Frankenstein! Frank has unfortunately not survived my decluttering project and is currently sitting in my family room waiting to be taken to Goodwill, since none of my teacher friends want him. He is an outsized Halloween decoration made by my friend, Lynne, who gave him to me when she moved away. I used him to decorate my classroom a few times at Halloween, but he has lived most of his life at our house stuffed into a closet. I’m hoping he will find a good home.
Although he would be classified in my photography class as a cooperative subject, this photo would not pass the scrutiny of the instructor. Although it was properly exposed and white balanced, it had distracting elements in the background (shadows and electrical outlet). I was too lazy too move him around to find the correct composition, so I lightened and blurred the background in Photoshop. I’m thinking now, I should have darkened it instead.
GLASS! I went with the topic today- starts with G. I have had this glass birdie in my greenhouse window for years; I think it is from Bodega or Mendocino. Since the subject and background are both glass (starting with G)- I think I should get extra credit!
We found an old friend while cleaning out the shed. . .
Joan and Rudy gave this to you, Caitlin- remember???
I’ve been wanting to photograph the CUTEST little pot I received from my friend, Claudia as an early birthday gift- but I was going to wait until I got some pansies to plant in our garden. Well- with the backyard in turmoil with all the repairs and de- (and re-)construction going on, it may be awhile before I get some pansies.
Hello, geraniums!
The pot is TINY, ceramic, and pierced with itty bitty holes, just big enough for little flower stems. These flowers would tip over and fall out of a regular vase, but are totally supported in the pansy pot. I love it! Thank you, Claudia!
One of my photo class assignments is to use the picture control feature on my camera to shoot images in different modes, such as vivid, landscape, portrait etc. This is a feature that is only available in JPEG, since RAW images are just that- RAW, undoctored, just what the camera records. For almost two years, I have only shot RAW photos- and only in manual. And that is still my comfort zone.
So this afternoon, Lonnie and I went downtown for a little photoshoot.
I felt like I had no idea how to operate my camera. I was also using Aperture Priority with exposure compensation- and went back and forth in my white balance settings, because I couldn’t remember if the picture controls took care of that or not.
And then it was time to upload. Some photos I evidently shot in both RAW and JPEG and others in just JPEG. I messed up the first upload, so did it again. I still haven’t gotten them sorted out- so I’m flagging JPEGs as I go and will deal with them later.
Unfortunately, my photo of the day was shot in JPEG only (!)- and it had a few issues that took a half hour to fix in Photoshop. I wonder if a RAW version would have been more cooperative. I would like to go back and take this shot again- but not today. . .
I’ve been having issues with Aperture and Flickr, so I now export to a folder on my computer again- this time using Photoshop (which is a more complicated process involving sharpening and resizing). Since I’ve spent the last three days winnowing 3000 family photos down to about 400 and editing and uploading them to SmugMug, the last thing I wanted to do tonight was edit photos.
Enough of a rant! I’m grateful I know how to edit. I’m grateful for my camera. And I’m grateful for having a husband who will patiently sit through a pretty boring photo session.
And here he is (and yes, I edited this one- but just a bit)!
And here is the other photo I shot for Flickr (with about 8 layers of edits in Photoshop. . .):
BTW, we went grocery shopping after our downtown jaunt- and then left all the groceries in the car for over an hour when we got home. We forgot- both of us!
No action- just some shots before the workers arrive.
The ladder. . .
I took this one lying on my stomach- yuck!
The deck work caused some plants in pots to be moved around, which gave me some new composition opportunities.
The topic today was starts with C, and I intended to photograph the construction (or rather, de-construction) that is going on in our backyard right now. We are having some deck and retaining wall repair and maintenance done. I was in and out today- and was also preoccupied with finally selecting and editing photos from our trip to Wyoming. By the time I got out back to take a photo, the deck was being power-washed. So I snapped a couple shots through the window on our way out to dinner. Maybe tomorrow I will be able to get an interesting photo of actual construction.
I walked around the backyard with my 35mm1.8 looking for something pretty. Here are my Gerbera daisies again; I took 4 shots and this was the best, I think.
I haven’t participated too much in my Flickr group, because I’ve been preoccupied with the class I’ve been taking from Karen Russell. But today I am going with the theme, which is round. Basically, I looked around for something round- and noticed a candle that has actually never been photographed. I used Aperture Priority with 1 stop exposure compensation and Kelvin white balance (I think it was around 4000).
And that’s about it!
My grandmother, Mimi’s perfume bottle
(beautiful azaleas from my son, Matt <3<3<3)
My Rapunzel group met for lunch last week at Jan’s beautiful home. As usual, there was delicious food, laughter, and tears. It was bittersweet that our dear friend, Nevin, has moved to Southern California and that FaceTime with Jan’s iPhone was how she was able to join us. Marie was with her daughter and also could not be with us- we missed her as well, but know she will be at meetings again in the near future. Our group seems small at times, but has stayed strong because of our deep connection to each other- and to our children (and grandchildren!).
Somehow. Vicki has been in my mind and heart this week. She is one of us in spirit, but we lost her to cancer a few years ago. The first Christmas after her passing, each of us brought a small gift for each member in the group, as Vicki had brought us on every holiday. What is noteworthy here is that this was one of those unplanned, synchronistic happenings; none of us knew that each of us was doing the same thing.
I think Jan must have been feeling Vicki’s presence as well, because she had a present for each of us- a cute little succulent plant. I believe it is a “Hens and Chicks”- an apt gift to give a group whose reason for being is support and friendship while raising children!
I’ve been working on my photo class all morning. I uploaded photos I took in Wyoming as well as ones from a few days ago and this morning- each one satisfying a different requirement. And all of them have to be SOOC (straight out of camera)- no cropping or editing of any kind.
After the (self-imposed) pressure of finding the best SOOC images to post, it was a relief to edit a couple for the blog.
Here is the one I took this morning, which looked pretty good SOOC for the class, but so much better (to my eye) when given a boost with a soft light blend mode and with distracting background elements eliminated by blowing out the background with a levels layer.
And here’s another that I did not use for the class. It was slightly cropped, edited in Aperture 3 (definition, contrast) and with a soft light blend mode added in Photoshop.
I dislike waiting. But waiting when you have a camera with you is something entirely different.
I had the appointment time wrong for my doctor visit today and did not want to drive back across the bridge only to return an hour later. Fortunately, I had my camera with me, so I made an unplanned visit to Heather Farms, which is one of my favorite places to walk and enjoy the flowers. Of course, the light was glaring, because it was late morning, but I did manage to get some nice shots.
Here is some lovely lavender- I know, I know- third time this week for lavender! But this lavender is slightly different from mine.
And here are some roses.
melinda anderson photography 