Fear of the woods.

Today I was out seeing if I could capture a photo that I could manipulate in Photoshop enough to create a feeling that the woods were scary.  (Xylophobia, fear of the woods.  Phobias are a topic for an upcoming photo challenge.)

I am actually a huge fan of the woods.  I love wandering around amongst the trees.  But here are my first attempts at making them appear scary. 

 

I am not sure any of these quite succeeded, so I might head out around dusk and try again.

See on,
Julee

Cats and rubber bands.

A weekend at home.  My dear husband is working on trim in our spare room, and so I'm spending my weekend working on my photography skill. 

Before you scold me for not helping with the house project, know that this trim project has been ongoing for more than a year.  I was of the opinion we should hire someone to do the work despite knowing it wouldn't be done too perfection.  My husband wanted the room done to perfection and so I leave him to it. 

Plus I have a ton of photo challenges on my plate, and what better than a cold, sunny weekend day to shoot pictures.  The challenges I'm working on include rubber bands, fall foliage, and phobias.  First up, rubber bands.  I found some awesome, colorful rubber bands and was hoping to get my cats excited about playing with them.

(And do not worry, the cats were fully supervised around the rubber bands and they did not ingest any of them.)

I'm not sure any of these are challenge worthy, but I am a fan of a shot I got with colored pencils.

I will play around some more tomorrow.

See on,
Julee

Fall is still here.

I took another outing over the noon hour today to McCrory Gardens on the search from some awesome fall colors. I decided not to carry my tripod, and since it was quite windy and slightly overcast, that was a minor mistake.

None of my shots today were as sharp as they could have been.  (But only one was downright blurry, and I did not post that one.)

I am aiming for any bit of uniqueness.  There is a photo challenge on 'Fall Foliage'.  Well, I assume there are going to be 100 photos, mostly excellent, of pretty trees.  So I figure if I can come up something slightly unique I might get a few nods for originality even if my photo isn't perfect.

I came close today, hopefully a trip back tomorrow with a tripod will land me something great!

See on,
Julee

Windmill II.

My husband was curious about the noise level around windmills, apparently when we move out to the country he wants to have lots of windmills on our property.  But on the news occasionally you hear complaints about the noise they make, so we had to investigate for ourselves. 

We found a route where we got up close and personal with half a dozen or more windmills.  (While managing to stay legally parked and not trespass.)  We were maybe 50 yards from the closest windmill, and we didn't think they were loud at all. I don't think the noise of windmills would even disrupt me sitting right on my porch while reading.  It seemed like rather quiet white noise.

I suppose what I'm not considering is that the white noise would go on ALL THE TIME.  (Taking that into account and they probably would get on my nerves.)   And that light at the top flashing all night might get annoying too.

But they're still cool.   

See on,
Julee

Forest of White.

Two days in a row capturing photos I found exciting - wahoo!  (And what a fabulous way to start a Monday.)  I thought I would see what kind of fall foliage I could find in the local botanical gardens when I came across a grove of white trees.

As of yet I do not know if they are birch or aspen?    (I have watched a few youtube videos, still not totally sure.  Both aspen and birch always seem to be singe trunks where nearly all the trees here are clumped together.)  Perhaps I'll be able to get back out to the site this week yet and examine the leaves and bark more closely. 

But for now, I was happy enough with some pretty photos.  

See on,
Julee

Fall foliage.

It was a gloomy fall day.  There was almost no sun, some rain, and even a few flakes of snow, but I still wanted to see what kind of fall colors I could find.  (Spoiler alert, I had luck!)

The colors in Watertown have pretty much come and gone, but just 80 miles south the leaves are still green.  My husband and I drove down to the Lake Poinsett area, about 20 miles south of Watertown, where I was hoping there might be some wonderful fall reds. 

What I found was a mix of everything from trees with no leaves to trees still green.

And I got a few shots with it all in one photo.

We also drove out to Lake Norden where our timing gave us a sky with some blue, and a huge tree with some nice yellows. 

 

So despite the less than beautiful weather, I found some pretty shots. 

Luckily I had taken both my Nikon V1 and my Nikon D5100 because the D5100, my DSLR, which should be my better camera, captured me poorer photos all around.  It seemed a bit like the focus was always off.  But it was very windy outside and with the lack of sun maybe I should have used my tripod.  The shutter time was quite slow because of the lack of sun, so combined with the wind, blurriness probably shouldn't have been a shock.  (I also neglected to take along my glasses so properly reviewing my exposures on the tiny little camera screen wasn't successful.)  The Nikon V1 however, GORGEOUS performance.  It is unbelievable fast, even lower light. 

Anyway, a relaxing afternoon indeed. 

See on.
Julee

Playing with lasers...

During several days of solid rain I tried out some 'light painting' just to see what it was like.  I got out my green laser pen, setup my camera on my tripod, and put on a headlamp to make it easier to see in the dark when I needed to mess with my camera's setting.

I focused my 18-55 mm lens on the drapes hanging at the front windows, guessed at some manual settings, and shot away while waving the laser around. 

 
Hello light!  I probably haven't mentioned that I am not much of an artist.  And after two night's of playing around I have concluded that drawing with light is not any easier than drawing on paper. (Plus I had the red light of my headlamp on during some of these, whoops.)

 

Yep, that was my best stick person.  It sort of resembles a person.   Perhaps a star will be easier? 

 

 

Ah, nope.  But it does look like a star at least.  Now onto a flower.  

 

Better had I been able to stay within the right area.  Oh, and do you see the little cat tail near the bottom right side?  Both of my cats watched, but were not quite sure what to make of mom's strange actions with their toy.  (This is the laser pen we use to play with the cats, but they were not terribly interested in the laser on the wall.)

 

Hey, there's a thought.  Maybe I can outline a cat?

 

 

That's a no. Note to self, moving targets are not easy to outline with lasers.  (I've been told this looks a bit like a sumo wrestler.  I can see that.  What I don't see is a cat.)

 

But I got the circle down pat!  (Although another learning curve, the little bumps that you see, those are the bumps in the curtains.) 

So I've got lots of work to do this winter during the darkness.  I have a book coming to help me learn more about light painting.  I am intrigued by the possibilities, especially the types of light painting that don't require highly refined drawing skills.  (There are some neat photographs of light painting with more diffuse light around landscapes and larger scenery, hmmmm.)

See on,
Julee



Surreal trees.

Apparently I am a fan of nature photography.  I'm not terribly good at it, I still struggle with coming up with decent compositions sometimes.  But I continue to be drawn outdoors and when all else fails, go wild seems like a good motto.

This winter I plan on mixing it up by adding light painting to my repertoire - so stay tuned - so long as I don't burn the house down with any experimentation with steel wool - it should be cool.  But for now here is some fun I had with trees this weekend. 

(Warning.  Some of you will probably dislike - I seem to have some weird taste for unusual, surreal photographs - but I had fun capturing these - and I actually do like them.  No Photoshop here, these are straight from the camera, and taken on purpose just like you see.)

See on,
Julee

Robins.

Today I found a neat spot on a local pond where robins were feeding.  I liked the shape of one of the branches and so I setup my tripod and waited.  (I was hoping to get a nice shot of a robin centered on the branch.  And of course I missed the one split second when that happened, although in my defense I had been standing in the same place nearly an hour so I was starting to lose focus just a bit.)

I also discovered that the robins were a bit smaller than I might have liked, or maybe my telephoto lens was not quite telephoto enough...

But with some adjustments and cropping in photoshop, I got a couple of neat photos. 

 

The robins were also drinking and bathing in the pond right in front of the branch, so I did a bit of moving my camera back and forth.

I loved the big belly on this guy.  There was an earlier version of this post where I commented on something being off about the placement of this bird's beak - ummm - I had mistaken part of the swamp for his beak.  Then during the creation of the photoshop layer, I masked the swamp rather than the beak.  Error corrected and now the actual beak has a bit of yellow like it should. 

 

Below is the full branch where I was hoping a big bird would land right in the middle. In this shot you can see the bird way off to the right.

See on,
Julee

Red Leaf.

As is typical in South Dakota, just as fall truly takes hold we get a massive wind storm and all the leaves come off the trees before we get to enjoy the pretty colors.

Well, I still found a red leaf...

Actually I found three.

Gorgeous!

The red leaves were a bit of an afterthought because I came across them while spending much of my afternoon photographing lamp posts around my neighborhood.  Some of the older neighborhoods in Watertown have these cool, old-fashioned lamp posts that are beautifully aged looking.  One of the photo challenges this week is 'Texture - capture beautiful texture or unique material.' 

I wonder if they'll like this one?  It has a unique perspective I think, and there is certainly some texture - but maybe it won't be beautiful enough?

See on,
Julee

Fountain, take two.

After my dismal showing in the photo challenge with my fountain picture that I, quite frankly, loved, I thought I would try again to see if I could improve the shot.

I suspect in my original shot that some of the poor score was due to poor balance and cutting the top off of the fountain.  But in my opinion I definitely did not succeed in making a better photo today.  There was some magical sparkle that happened that first day that just was not there today. 

I still enjoyed taking my lunch break to wander around the gardens.  And next spring I will be back to try again. 

See on,
Julee

Fall flowers.

The Flower Willows Towards Its End
The Petals Become Scarce...

(Excerpt from A Dying Flower by Ian Humphreys)

I have been waiting and waiting for some red leaves to appear and today was the day.    (The trees did not appear as red in the photos as they looked to my eye.  I suspect the red will get a bit richer over the next few days so I'll will keep trying to see if I can capture something redder, something that exemplifies the elusive beautiful vibrancy of fall.) 

These are what I was able to capture around the house today.
(Lower shots all shot with my Lensbaby.  I love this lens!)

See on,
Julee

Experiment with a candle flame.

The best laid plans...

I had until 11 pm tonight to enter the photo challenge for "The Beginning of the End".  Mother nature gave me several days of rain last week so farmers weren't out in their fields much, and I never found the opportunity to attempt to capture the combining of a last row of corn.

Photographing the last chapter of a book or the T of 'The End' somewhere wasn't the favorite of my ideas so I did not make it to the library to look for a nice book that had some sort of 'finale' or last chapter or some ending I could try and photograph.

So last minute I came up with the idea to see if I could capture a neat image of a candle flame being extinguished.

I submitted the middle photo since it was the most obvious picture of the flame being blown out which seemed to match the challenge.  But I really like the top photo too.

A nice end to the weekend!  It might not be the sharpest photo (I used my Lensbaby with macro attachment, and I was a tad rushed) and I'm sure I did not have the focus absolutely perfect, but once again trying and following through all the way to submitting a photo felt pretty darn good. 

With darkness coming earlier and earlier, this winter might be my winter to work on my 'studio' skills.  Tonight at least gives me hope that I can do it.

See on,
Julee

Fall fog.

A fabulous fall storm rolled into the area last night.  The eastern side of the state is just being inundated with rain while the western part of the state is under a huge winter storm - crazy - it is only October 4th mother nature.

But I'm okay with rain.  Just keep those temps warm enough to melt ice for another month at least please!

There was a nice afternoon fog today as I drove home, so I drove onto some country roads to see if I could find any interesting photo with the fog.

 

Not too bad.  I started with my regular 70 - 300 mm telephoto lens, but as I transferred to my Lensbaby it started pouring.  I tried capturing a few shots from my car with my Lensbaby but I nothing turned out very pretty.  I am still struggling a bit with getting the focus right where I want it with all the bendy options, plus my camera isn't weatherproof so I don't walk out in full on rainstorms.  So my first shot of they day turned out to be the best.

But, the little bit of shooting still made me happy.

See on.
Julee

Pink.

I am really starting to have fun with the whole 'photo challenge' thing.  My first photo entry that was judged, the corn/windmill shot, ended up 81st out of 104.  But instead of being sad I kept thinking about all the personal bests I have coming as I improve.   It actually made me almost more excited to keep trying.

But I know I'm capable, I just have to learn how to scout out photos ideas quicker and then get better at pulling them off.  It'll happen.

Take today for instance.  The challenge 'Pink' was announced, pink for Breast Cancer Awareness Month.  Many flowers don't look so pretty this time of year, but there are still those pink beauties behind my house.  So I already have my shot and will submit tonight - challenge four accepted and completed!  (You've seen a similar photo before, although the one I'm going to submit is with a regular lens, no Lensbaby.  The shots from a few weeks ago used the Lensbaby.) 

The top two photos are the ones I am choosing between.   I really like them both, but am probably leaning toward submitting the top photo.

This last photo is with my Lensbaby and the wrong manual settings.  (Can we say overexposed?)  But I actually really love how it came out.  It has almost a surreal effect.  I can't wait to print and see how it looks in a frame.

My husband drove me around tonight and we found a neat wagon with pumpkins in it.  Unfortunately I captured nothing particularly good with my Lensbaby lenses so I'll go back tomorrow and try again.  (Hopefully tomorrow anyway, we are due for some torrential rains so fingers crossed we get a dry spell tomorrow afternoon.)

And I am also still watching out for the right shot for the challenge "The beginning of the End."  I'm hoping to find someone harvesting the last of their corn, but other ideas are brewing in my head if that doesn't work out. 

See on,
Julee