I love daisies- and have cheerful yellow ones planted by our front steps. I put a few in a Mason jar and did a couple macro shots in response to today’s challenge, bright.
Day 92- Yellow
The sun is shining today making the cheerful daisies in our front yard even more brightly yellow.
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.
Day 74- More rain
It has been raining steadily all morning. Here is a glimpse of rain on one of our magnolia buds.
Day 73- It’s raining!
Well, finally- a bit of rain!
Day 70- Vivid!
The theme is vivid today- and our azaleas were the first thing to come to mind. I tried to capture their beauty with my zoom lens, but, as usual, I went back in and got my macro. I just love the details. . .
Day 69- Backyard Paparazzi
This was one of those days where I just took a few moments to wander through my backyard with my zoom lens- just following the light.
Looking up into our laurel tree. . .
The azaleas are in full bloom. I resisted my urge to crop this photo.
The next two are of our deck railings. I’m submitting the black and white for Fence Friday. Railings are a kind of fence, right? 
Day 52- Textured Mum
I haven’t done any textured photos for awhile- and it’s Texture Tuesday over at Kim Klassen’s site! The theme is white this week, so I took yet another photo of my white mums and textured it with two layers of Kim’s Shine texture, one at 100% soft light blend mode, and another at 35% screen blend mode. Almost everything I learned about Photoshop I learned from Kim Klassen, so I love to be part of her Tuesday link-up.
Day 43- The joy of seeing. . .
The chrysanthemums beckoned today. . .
One of the things I’ve learned about my Project 365 this year is that it is OKAY (even GOOD!) to photograph something I have photographed before. Every time it is in a slightly different light or I am seeing it in a new way. The joy of SEEING!
Day 41- Sunset, Mums, and a Selfie
Sunset was beautiful last night.
This morning, I took these photos of some chrysantheMUMS- for the theme, starts with M (only a few days behind on that one. . .) . . .
and I also took this self portrait, yesterday’s challenge. This is what I look like every morning when I look outside, wondering what in the world I will take a photo of today (except that I am usually in my jammies- and I already did a self portrait of me in jammies back in December).
Day 38- Rainy day flowers. . .and a berry
Hurray for rainy days- the first in a LONG time! I doubt we have had an inch, but I know we need it. The theme for yesterday was water, so I went out with the intention of capturing some raindrops on flowers.
Raindrops on a geranium bud
I got distracted by the stamens on my azalea blossoms and ended up focusing on them rather than the water drops.
I submitted yesterday’s blackberry photo to my Flickr critique group for the topic, negative space. It was criticized for not having enough negative space, for the negative space being white, for not showing the whole berry, and for having a shallow depth of field (which was a deliberate choice I made for that image).
I went back and found this photo from yesterday which I do like, except I don’t like the shape of the berry. I submitted this one to the group- the jury is still out. . .
Day 13- Rosemary
A quick trip to the garden to find FOUR of something to satisfy today’s challenge yielded this sprig of rosemary with four blossoms. I took a few shots outside, but the cold wind (yes, there is a tiny bit of actual weather here this morning!) made it difficult to achieve focus. I broke off a little bit and took a couple photos inside using my tripod.
Day 9- Warmth of the Sun
Here are more late afternoon images, warmed by the sun.
Gerbera Daisy (still blooming)
My oranges (debagged this time)
Day 6- Light Seeker
Since Christmas I’ve been in a bit of a photography slump, exacerbated by my joining a new Flickr group with weekly themes, high standards, constructive criticism, and some very talented and highly skilled members. I’m not sure it is for me.
Last night I was browsing the forums on Clickin’ Moms, when I came across a post asking for help in taking her photography to the next level, becoming more creative etc. One of the responses was from a CM photographer whose work I admire very much; I’ve tried to find the thread to quote exactly, but can’t find it just now. She basically said to stop trying to take pictures OF things- just go find the light.
So today I took my 85mm macro and looked for the light.
And I found it.
When I pulled into my parking slot at physical therapy this morning, the light was shining on the tree bark in front of me, and I took this shot.
The red in the background is the car in front of me.
Then when I came home and was eating lunch at the kitchen table, I looked out the window and saw light hitting the geraniums on the deck (still blooming in January. . .). These geraniums have been photographed by me many times, but perhaps not with the light hitting them this exact way or from this angle or composed just this way.
Anyway, I felt like I got my groove back!
Day 283- Hello
It’s Macro Monday, so I chose to use my flowers again- this time, photographing details of some of the lilies. This image reminds me of sea creatures somehow.
f/14, 1 sec., ISO 160, 85mm
melinda anderson photography 