I am a little obsessed with the golden hour (right before sunset)- and especially with the backlighting available on our deck in the very early part of the golden hour. We get some great tree bokeh, so it is fast becoming my favorite place for family photos (well, at least in summer). Tonight we celebrated our son’s birthday a week early before he heads out of town, so here is his golden hour photo. Happy Birthday, Matt!
f/7.1, 1/125, ISO 640, 95mm
When we had our trees trimmed this summer, they did an EXTREME trim of the branches of the magnolia tree by our deck- too extreme! When you look at it straight on, all you see is trunk. With my 300mm lens, I was able to capture a magnolia blossom today- about 30-40 feet up! I liked it as a black and white conversion and added a pink overlay for fun (yes, I’m still playing with Photoshop- but could have done it in Aperture too).
f/5.6, 1/1600, ISO 320, 300mm
When we were first married, we regularly perused garage sales and secondhand stores for furniture, vintage items, and children’s books (which I collected before we even had children). One of my early purchases was a Mother’s Encyclopedia from the 1940s; I liked how it looked in my kitchen with my recipe box, and I thought it funny that there would be an encyclopedia just for mothers. Unfortunately, the last volume was missing, so there was no chance I would ever learn everything a mother needed to know!
Today, my daughter and I had a long phone discussion about discipline techniques for her three year old son. It seems like yesterday that I was working on improving HER behavior! Well, she turned out great and is a fantastic parent, but parenting is as challenging as ever.
When my children were small, I read books by Dr. Brazelton and Rudolph Dreikurs instead of the Mother’s Encyclopedia, but the little set of books has remained in my kitchen all these years. Today, I photographed them and used some of the techniques I have been learning in Kim Klassen’s Photoshop Essentials class to edit the photo (including the textures canvasback magic, not too shabby, and frame it). I experimented with using curves on just part of the image, decreasing saturation on a selection, and, of course, textures and layer masks.
I love office supplies!
I can still remember opening up my classroom as a brand new teacher and finding a big box of office supplies just for me! Pens, paper, stapler, paper clips, glue- cool stuff! And now, it is even cooler- for example, colored paper clips!
f/6.3, 1/250, ISO 3200, 85mm
No clue why I have such a fast shutter speed- obviously user error- I was using a tripod! 🙂
July 10, 1971- July 10, 2011
Happy Fortieth Anniversary to us!!!
Photography. . . lunch at the tea room . . . Blue Ridge! What a perfect day!
Today, my friend, Nevin came over for a photography lesson. She is planning to make the switch soon from a point and shoot to a DSLR, so I was teaching her about the exposure triangle, depth of field, and general rules of composition. It was fun to watch someone get excited about photography- she is in the same place I was just one year ago.
Afterward we had a delicious lunch at the Camellia Tea Room (I had the salad sampler- YUM!) and then browsed in an antique store. We spotted some beautiful Blue Ridge plates, which Nevin bought me as a thank you! What a fun day!
f/1.8, 1/60, ISO 400, 35mm
For weeks I’ve been trying to photograph the elusive swallowtail butterfly that dances merrily through my yard each day. One day there were two of them, zigzagging back and forth and around the shrubs and trees, never lighting. Today as I was trying unsuccessfully to focus on my daily visitor, I noticed a small, brown, sort of Plain Jane butterfly calmly going from blossom to blossom right next to me. It wasn’t very pretty, as butterflies go, but when I zoomed in on it, I noticed the proboscis (I hope that’s right- I’m not well-versed on butterflies- let’s call it a tongue) in a lovely spiral that would unfold and extend into the blossoms- fascinating! Since I had not yet been able to capture a closeup of another butterfly, I had no idea this happened. The things I’m learning about in my retirement!
I’ve always loved to read- and am a pretty eclectic reader. I belong to a book club- and have recently started an online group within goodreads.com. One of the joys of retirement is the luxury of reading in the daytime.
My local library is one of my most favorite places. What’s not to love? Thousands of books- and they are all free- unless you forget to return them on time. . . 😦 I still buy books on the kindle, but buy a lot less “real” books now. It’s mostly either kindle books or the library.
I got an e-mail today that a book I had requested was in, so off I went to the library- where I picked up the book I had ordered, plus another one I spotted as I went in. Today I took my camera- and took a quick photo in the fiction section.
f/4.5, 1/160, ISO 2500, 35mm
Today I had the delightful experience of being part of an 89th birthday celebration for my friend, Nevin’s Aunt Lorna, who is the matriarch of her family. We spent the afternoon talking, laughing, eating, and swimming at the family ranch- what a wonderful experience to be in the company of this witty and charming woman!
Texture Tuesday again- and the assignment was three. Two flowers plus one reflected flower equal three. I used 3 layers of texture- 2 of Kim Klassen’s silence and one of golden.
FYI, one of the silence layers I used color burn as the blend mode; I meant to use multiply, but accidentally hit the selection right underneath. The blueish tints around the edges came from that effect. I liked it, so I kept it!
After blithely stating yesterday that, if you have a macro lens, you never run out of subjects to photograph- I ran out of subjects to photograph. I went so far as photographing my laundry (we decided it is finally time to take off the flannel sheets!)- but, noooooo. . .
So here is something that used to be involved in laundry- ironing laundry that is!
f/1.8, 1/100, ISO 1250, 35 mm, textured
Fortunately, I never had to use this- I think it came from an antique store years ago. I don’t even like ironing with a steam iron.
Here’s why: on a day when it is hot (yay!) and you feel uninspired, you can always walk around outside (or inside) for 15 minutes with your macro lens and find something small to photograph.
Always.
Without fail.
I really like this photo. I like its simplicity and its symmetry and its contrast. When I was a little girl, we used to try to catch these- we called them fairies. I still call them fairies. This fairy was trapped in a spider web, which made it easier to photograph.
f/6.3, 1/200, ISO 250, 85mm
I felt like playing with Photoshop today, so took a few flower photos this morning to have something to play with. Here’s one I took of an agapanthus blossom.
I tried to write the word “bloom” on a path, but the letters kept bumping into each other. I don’t know if it is the shaky path I am drawing for the letters to sit on- or if there is an easy way to move each letter around after I type it. I experimented with font size and character spacing, but still couldn’t get it to look right.
The texture I used was Kim Klassen’s silence.
While we were away, look what happened!
f/6.3, 1/160, ISO200, 85mm
The hanging plum reminds me of a Christmas ornament!
melinda anderson photography 