Inspiration Assignment

I have been learning that the thing that most attracts me to photos of people is the color in the pictures.

I also love pictures that focus on the face and have a very shallow depth of field. The pictures I've taken focus on these to elements.

Make a picture better

This weekend we went to a celebration of Texas and specifically Dripping Springs History. There were a lot of fun activities for our kids to do. They had a great time.

The picture I chose to work on in photoshop was this shot of Sydney grinding corn into cornmeal.

I cropped the picture and adjusted the light levels slightly. Then I straightened the horizon of the picture. I then attempted to sharpen Syd's face while leaving the motion blurred. Then I finished the picture off by cleaning up the stain on the front of Syd's shirt.

zoom

Brent and I spent an hour last night experimenting with night time photography.

This one is an airplane flying through the sky.

Click on the picture for a better view of the colors.

kind of fun.

Negative space

I've also really been debating on how to set up my negative space picture. Today I finally had a few minutes to play. I'm not sure that the picture is a great representation of negative space but I did have fun with what a came up with.

playing catch up

I have finally posted the cropped version of my preferred wide angle shot.

vacation

Something Old

We have some really interesting trees around here. A few months ago a found an "Ent" (walking, talking tree from Lord of the Rings) in our neighborhood.

Today I found wood nymphs....How many can you see in this picture?

The "Ent" picture is posted just for fun.

Happiness is....

Telling that "big fish" story at the end of a long day of fishing.

Dallin was "fishing" in a puddle about the size of a wading pool with a big fat stick and told me all about that big fish he caught.

Ordinary

My caught my kids while playing with ordinary bubbles. It's the ordinary activities that bring the most joy and peace in life.

Re-crop

I read your comments about my beach picture at Grand Cayman. Here is the same picture with the tree cropped out. Does it seem to work better?

Anything Outdoors

Someone sent me an email of some photographs taken by a well known photographer. He typically takes pictures of places where people are frequently found but he takes them after the people have left for the evening and the place is vacant. I decided to try something similar to what he does.

For Fun

The sunset from the back of our cruise ship.

color

Seven Mile Beach on Grand Cayman.

wide angle

View of Cozumel from the cruise ship.

Photo Challenge Catch-up

black and white

This is a pirate ship that we saw in Grand Cayman.

This is the one Brent likes.

More flash

I had another opportunity to practice that flash technique today. Check out this bee in a prickly pear cactus bloom!

Another Red, White, and Blue.

Red, White, and Blue

I tried taking pictures of the Texas Flag but they just weren't that great. So I discovered after our family outing today that I had some additional pictures to choose from. This is Bri in the hiking back pack. We played peek-a-boo.

Sorry, I'll give you a summary of what John Shaw said.

aperature at f16, shutter speed between 200-250, flash, and make sure you are close enough to your subject so that the flash actually lights it up (roughly 12 inches for my lens). It is supposed to work really well to capture insects in motion and not having to use a tripod to set the picture up. Unfortunately I didn't get to try it with the insects because their weren't any around. (I bet that's a shocker, isn't Shell?)

Flash

I found a technique in the "John Shaw" wildlife photography book that I decided to try out. Unfortunately there weren't any insects to test it on, only flowers.

Also I discovered that the wild flowers are getting old so it was hard to find good looking flowers.

While Shell Was Here

I took a few snapshots of the kids while Shell was here taking pictures. I loved this picture of Bri and Dallin but poor Bri had a pretty good sunburn on her face so I made it black and white. Maybe someday when I learn more about photoshop I'll be able to put the pink ribbon on Bri's dress back in.

This one is just for fun. Check out the feet on this bird!

Anything Outdoors

Yeah! I'm ahead this week! This swan posed just for me.

Up Close

This isn't my favorite but I had a really hard time getting my subject, Bri, to keep her hands and feet where I wanted them...

This was my best out of them all.

I posted the before and after so you can see the cropping and editing that I have been playing with.

At Your Feet

Dallin found these wildflowers at his feet this weekend. He and Syd had fun picking the wildflowers and posing with them.

Big Picture

Okay all. I have finally found a subject for the "Big Picture". Rachelle picked a fun location for her photo shoot while she was out in Austin for the weekend and I was able to use it myself.

I learned how to find correct aperature and shutter settings and adjust them for the sun in the background so the subject in the foreground is not burnt out. Then Rachelle showed me how to use an overlay on the picture to create a more "artsy" feel to the colors and picture itself.

Love it!

Thanks for coming Shell!

Elements of Design

I love color and texture and the grass and leaves add great texture!

I'm also trying to learn a little about photoshop.

Light continued

Even Sadie has catch lights but pet photography is more difficult than I had imagined....especially when the animal wants to be 3 inches from your camera lens.

Light

Well I learned a few things from this weekly challenge. I hope someone else did too.

I learned that catch lights are pretty easy to capture once you know to look for them. (However you can't use the flash and still capture catch lights, at least not when I tried.)

I also learned that my camera seems to have an automatic ISO setting at 800 and it resets when the camera is turned to automatic mode (I guess). I'm very frustrated that I didn't know that beforehand as I thought my pictures were taken at ISO 200 and then when I saw that they were grainy discovered that it somehow had returned to ISO 800. Aaargh! I'll have to be on the lookout for that.

oranges

Thanks for your input, Brent.

Reflections

This challenge was a little difficult for me. I thought of many things that would work for the topic but actually capturing my ideas was not so easy. Here are the two that I though turned out the best and were more technically interesting.

Dallin's Birthday

Bri loved Dallin's birthday cake.

Out of Focus

Here are a couple of other images. Let me know which you like the best. You're input sure helps me learn.

These also remind me of how quickly? children grow up.

My blog is about everyday moments. I am learning how to capture those everday moments through photography.

The first photo challenge I participated in was under the theme, "Around the House". I tried to capture the child handprints on the windows, the piles of laundry, stacks of dishes, and empty bookshelves. What I want most are reminders that they won't be small forever, blankies will be discarded, handprints will be washed away, but the memories will be treasured.