This week’s BeStill 52 assignment was to to create a milk and cookies still life. Having been blessed (cursed?) with a sweet tooth, I was delighted to take on the challenge! We were also encouraged, following Kim’s example, to critique our own images- and this simple photo was the one that seemed to work out best. There were various other incarnations that had additional elements, including lavender in a Mason jar, a napkin, and a two tiered Blue Ridge serving plate. As usual in my world, simple turned out best. I kept subtracting elements until I ended up with the composition above. I edited with One Willow presets from the Palette collection (my Friday Find for this week- they are fabulous!). The first version has the Divine preset applied and then two layers of Kim’s sybil texture in Photoshop. The second version was created by starting with the finished first version (complete with texture)and adding a black and white preset from One Willow (I think it was Story). And now I’m off to finish eating that cookie!
Barrels
I just had to post a few more shots of wine barrels from our visit to Granite Creek Vineyards last weekend.
Say cheese!
Photography seems to run in the family. My earliest memories involve being wakened by the glare of strobe lights as my father filmed every moment of Christmas morning (perhaps that’s why I avoid having my photo taken to this day). In his retirement years, he took college classes in photography and captured some wonderful photos of my children when they were little. Today’s photo includes his Nikon on the left and my first good camera, an Argus rangefinder (right), as well as a toy camera (middle) which I picked up in an antique store when Joan was visiting. In the front are two issues of Kodakery magazine from the 1920’s, which I bought in an antique store a few months ago.
Linking up with Friday Finds today.
Sun, sun, sun- here it comes!
After the extreme rain, a day of sunshine was so welcome! Sunflowers are among my flower favorites, so- to celebrate a day of sunshine- here are a few sunflower images (and yes, some are converted to black and white- I just can’t help myself).
Country Drive
Today I’m posting some photos from our drive through Peeples Valley and Kirkland a couple weeks ago. I love country roads and all the charms of barns and fences and horses- maybe it’s because I grew up in a small town in a rural area. 
Textures (all from Kim Klassen): top- waterfront 7; bottom- nutmeg and unleashed
Linking up with Texture Tuesday
Morning Bokeh- Two Ways
These days our morning walks are taking place earlier than before. We used to say that we needed to be finished by 9:00 to beat the heat. Now we say 8:00 is too late; we need to be on the trail before 7:00. The upside is that there is some beautiful morning light!
I processed these photos first in black and white (my preference most of the time). But I cannot deny the beauty of color in nature- even in weeds and grasses- so there is a color version as well.
I couldn’t resist this one as well- the two of us on the trail.
Spooning
I have just one photo to show so far from the last BeStill 52 lesson on light. The challenge was to photograph spoons with the light hitting them from different angles. You would think this would be easy for me, as I have many, many spoons, but the light was the problem- the sun kept going behind the clouds, which took away the shadows I was trying to capture. Perhaps I’ll get it right next time!
I chose to photograph a few spoons from my grandmother’s souvenir coffee spoon collection from the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. I used to play with these spoons when I was a little girl, and I still treasure them today.
The rain- and after . . .
We had our first HUGE monsoon storm yesterday- thunder, lightning, heavy rain, flooding (not at our house) and power outage!
After hours and hours of rain and sky drama, the rain subsided in the early evening. The hummingbirds dashed to the feeder, and all was back to normal in the high desert.
And then the storm resumed . . .
Still Life Play
I am continuing to play with still life, but not going too far outside my comfort zone for this photo session (maybe NEXT time. . .). In fact you’ll notice these images are all VERY similar. Feather and book, book and feather. The last two have an added hat, and the book was changed from The Red Badge of Courage to The Secret Garden (and I moved outside). I think my favorite is the second one (I like the blue book).
Editing notes:
1. converted to black and white in Lightroom, kk_celebrate texture added in Photoshop
2. edited with Kim’s moody preset in Lightroom, highly tweaked
3. edited with Kim’s days of old preset in Lightroom, and tweaked
4. basic edit in Lightroom, Kim’s kk_happyheart texture added in Photoshop (2 layers)
Jar, flowers, chair, and books
For Be Still 52- side lighting practice:
Thank, you, Debbie for the new jar!
Seeing Stars
My husband and I took a walk at Willow Lake yesterday and discovered that our favorite trail was now surrounded by beautiful golden weeds, waving and billowing in the breeze. I took a couple iPhone shots and brought home a handful to photograph with my macro lens. One of my current Flickr challenges is STARS, which I’m seeing everywhere in nature this week. The iPhone photo below was edited in Snapseed and PixlrExpress.
This might be my favorite star photo of the day, edited in Snapseed only.
At home, I noticed stars within stars within stars in this flower (Queen Anne’s lace?) that I’ve been using in still life compositions (you’ll see them later this week). I took the photos below with my macro lens on my Nikon.
Linking up with App Happy Wednesday!
Vertical
I seldom used portrait orientation when taking photos until a couple of months ago. Now I seem to be doing it regularly! I may have started turning my camera in my bathroom “studio” to avoid getting towels and bathroom fixtures in the shot, but then I continue to use it- especially when I want a shallow depth of field in front of, as well as behind, my subject. My 50mm lens does this beautifully, as well as my 85mm macro lens. I would love to own a LensBaby some day to play with moving the focus around! I did order one for my iPhone (coming in August through the kickstarter deal), which will partially satisfy my desire for this cool lens.
Here are two shots with a vertical (portrait) orientation. The first was taken with the macro lens. I took the photo with both orientations, and liked the vertical one best (those blurry berries in the background and a small unfocused slice in the front). There is some texture added to this image (a bluish one from Kim Klassen- teal?).
The one below was taken with my 50mm at 1.4 to give a very narrow field of focus- with lots of blur in the front. It was actually taken for a Be Still 52 lesson on side lighting. The cup was placed on the floor by the open front door (on the left for light)- with a piece of white foam board for a background. There is also a bit of lighting coming from the patio door farther away on the right. I used my Warm Black and White preset (some split toning) for the black and white conversion.
Hot, Dry, and Windy
Yes, I’m talking about the weather here in Prescott!
Dozens of these (very photogenic) little things blow up to my front door every day.
And now we seem to have a mini- tumbleweed on the front porch settee.
Bring on the monsoon- we need rain!
Room to Breathe
My latest still life assignments for Be Still 52 are below. We were challenged to give the subject of our still life “room to breathe.” The first image shows my usual style- off center, close up, shallow depth of field- and part of the subject not in the frame. The second image adds some space surrounding the subject. It was interesting to me how difficult it was to be this far away from what I was photographing- I kept wanting to step closer. A good exercise!
Both photos are textured with Kim Klassen’s waterfront 1.
Yellowstone Epic Horse Drive
Last weekend as part of the Memorial Day festivities, a large group of horses were run through the town of Gardiner (bordering Yellowstone) and up to new pastures in Jardine (in the hills). We joined the throng lining the streets waiting for the Yellowstone Epic Horse Drive. It was all over in a flash, and my photos are mostly of the, um, back ends of the horses and clouds of dust. However, the 2 or 3 minutes that it lasted were pretty thrilling. The next day was the rodeo- probably the most fun event I’ve ever photographed. Look for those photos soon!
melinda anderson photography 