The Merry Month of May!

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It’s May! When I was teaching, May was a big CRUNCH month: testing, Open House, Authors’ Party, Mother’s Day presents to make, field trip, parent helper gifts, student gifts, end of the year party, report cards, room pack-up, etc. etc.  It makes me tired just to think of it! Now, May is SPRING, for sure, and summer isn’t far behind. And in Arizona, I know monsoon season is only 6 weeks or so away!

Our latest lesson for BeStill 52 asked us to find an unique vessel for flowers or whatever to use in our stills- so I thought of this new teapot I bought this week to replace the cracked one, which didn’t make the cut when we moved.  Turquoise is becoming one of the colors I love to use in our Arizona house, although my husband thinks it doesn’t match our multicolored walls.  So far, I’ve acquired Mason jars, a bowl, a lantern, and now this teapot in shades of turquiose.  I just really love the color and am so glad that it’s popular again!

Teapot1 Teapot2In my life, a teapot isn’t an unusual vessel for flowers, but I do have an idea for another take on this challenge. Stay tuned!

Linking up with Kim’s Friday Finds today.

Melinda7 Comments

Tumbling

One of the new experiences we’ve had since we’ve moved to Arizona is tumbleweeds in our yard.  Last week we discovered a new one, and before my husband could capture it for yard waste, I picked it up with gloved hands to take into my garage studio for some macro and still life shots.

tumble_duoThe first photo above was edited with Kim Klassen’s kk_moody-ish preset; the second just converted to a high contrast black and white.

The photos below (showing how sharp and prickly these guys are!) were taken with the Lensbaby Sweet 35 with macro converters.  All have Kim’s kk_organic preset applied.

tumble_trio

Melinda2 Comments

Tea for Me

I was in the mood for still life yesterday, but wasn’t inspired by the current prompt (music). Ideas were swirling around in my head, but just swirling, not yet in focus. I decided to look to my Flickr Daily Challenge group (which is becoming a monthly challenge for me these days. . .) for ideas, and found that one of the topics is Tea Time- a perfect still life topic.  I have many tea cups inherited from my grandmother which I am aways intending to photograph, and I had a single rose- so the still life easily came together.

Here are two of the images- I’ll probably post a couple more later in the week. The top photo was edited with one of Kim Klassen’s Lightroom presets (kk_today), and the second was without a preset.

20150427-MMA_4398_melinda_anderson 20150427-MMA_4422_melinda_anderson-EditThe teacup is Royal Chelsea (made in England), the sugar and creamer say Venice on the bottom, and the little dish with the teabag and rose on it is Limoges.

Linking up today with Texture Tuesday.

Melinda11 Comments

Where Ideas Come From

20150420-MMA_3344_melinda_anderson-EditThe above image is the latest of my still life photos for The Studio- a continuation of the One Thing theme.  This time, my one thing is not the subject of my composition, but the background – my walls.   I thought it might be interesting to explain the evolution of the idea and execution of this image.  I’ve read that photographers find their inspiration everywhere- from nature, from music, from paintings, from the color palette in an advertisement- ANYWHERE.

In this case, my idea came from a movie.  We went to see The Woman in Gold with our friends, Debbie and Dale the other night. The movie was a fascinating true story of a woman (played by Helen Mirren) who sued the Austrian government to have them return her family’s paintings (by Gustav Klimt!) which had been stolen by the Nazis and were now “owned” by the Austrian government. No, this photo was not inspired by the Klimt paintings.

In one scene, as I remember, there was, in the background, a painting or photograph of a still life composed of a dry arrangement (wheat?) in front of a two-tone wall. I somehow noted it and then dreamed about trying to recreate that image, using my colorful Arizona walls. That was the beginning of the photograph above.  I took quite a few shots of these dried weeds and flowers in front of my bright walls, gradually moving away from the traditional still life I was envisioning to a textured black and white closeup image which is my favorite. All the photos were taken with my Lensbaby, which I’ve been practicing with every single day for the last 3 weeks.

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Melinda5 Comments

One Thing Again . . .

I think I might be finished with the One Thing challenge for BeStill52 and The Studio, but no promises. . .

A couple Lensbaby shots:

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Top down with my 35mm 1.8:

20150413-MMA_3216_melinda_andersonAlso with my 35mm 1.8, softened with a couple of Kim Klassen textures (linking up with Texture Tuesday today):

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Melinda6 Comments

One Thing

We were challenged to photograph one thing, shot different ways, different days, with different props in both BeStill and the Studio.  I decided to use my blue lantern, which my son gave me for Christmas.  I’ve done a couple different photo shoots and plan on doing more this week. All of these were taken with my Lensbaby and Sweet 35.  The top one has a couple textures added.

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Melinda2 Comments

Saw this. . .

One of my favorite things about photography is how much I NOTICE now! And it’s contagious- even my husband notices more.  As much as I enjoy creating a still life, the most exciting part of photography for me is when I happen to catch a glimpse of beauty in the every day. Then the challenge is to somehow capture what I saw.  The other day, it was this reflection of a tiny bowl on the black surface of my dad’s dental cabinet.  The Edge 80 was on the camera, so that’s what I used.

20150407-MMA_3002_melinda_andersonI edited the photo in Lightroom, and then I took it into onOne’s Perfect Effects 8 for a couple finishing touches.  I realized recently that I have never really MASTERED this great program (and now there’s a newer version!), so I’ve been playing with it more lately.  I’ve even used it to add textures (you can import them from your hard drive or use the ones within the program).  For this image, I adjusted the color, added a bit of glow to emphasize the reflection, and then added a vignette.

 

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Crated

One of our recent assignments in Bestill52, was to create a still life in or on a crate.  I have had two pepsi crates since our early married days.  One is for individual bottles; the other is for 6 packs, I think.  Because this was before the days of shabby chic, we stained the crates to make them darker (and to go with our antiques).  They hung on our walls in each of the places we lived, until we moved to our Arizona house. I haven’t quite decided what to do with them here, but they work well for still life props.

crateAll 3 images were taken with the Lensbaby and Edge 80 optic.

Melinda3 Comments

See in a New Way

I wasn’t too excited about the eggs theme for The Studio Online this week and felt pretty uninspired- until I cracked eggs for my scrambled eggs breakfast yesterday.  Aha! A cracked egg in the composition- I haven’t done that before. And this would be a challenge for the Edge 80 optic on my Lensbaby (the optic I can never get off once I put it on- but that’s another story. . .).  The weather was warm, with  no cold wind knocking over my props in my garage studio.  For once, things went smoothly with the set-up AND, most importantly, with the focus.  In fact, I will have more eggs photos to show you- probably tomorrow.

The first photo was edited with Kim Klassen’s darklight preset (tweaked and at reduced opacity in the Fader).  The other two are edited with one of my own.

20150401-MMA_2641_melinda_anderson20150401-MMA_2618_melinda_anderson 20150401-MMA_2622_melinda_andersonNote to non-Lensbaby folks: See in a new way is Lensbaby’s slogan and pretty much my mantra!

Melinda2 Comments

Sunflowers: Light and Shadow

Back in the studio again! Spring is really here, and it was actually pleasant to work on still life assignments in the garage. Here are my “official” light and shadow images for The Studio.

Playing with Kim Klassen presets:
top row- moody-ish, organic
bottom row: chocolate, barely color

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This one is a more standard, “clean” edit.

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Stacked Up

While in La Jolla, we stayed at a tiny little rental cottage with cute things all around. I was inspired by all the great props to create a still life one morning; I hoped to get a few more done as well, but the beach was calling.

stacked-EditThis diptych was created in response to the “Stacked Up” prompt for The Studio Online.

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Organic

Our latest assignment in BeStill 52 was to create a side lit vignette with an organic theme- wood, twine, natural materials etc.  I confess I didn’t take a lot of time with this, because the garage was FREEZING; I didn’t even open the door, but used the little windows in the garage door for light.  And of course I was limited to my iPhone (but I’m hoping to have my camera back in a week!).  I edited the photos in Lightroom with Kim’s organic preset, and called it done.

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Here is another slightly different version of the above image- slightly different, because I edited it for Instagram in Snapseed and Stackables (my new favorite app).  I used Snapseed to selectively lighten and darken parts of the image and Stackables to add tones and texture.

Photo Feb 27- 9 48 00 AM

 

Melinda2 Comments