Wild trees of winter.

I have just fallen in love with the trees this winter.  I love that over winter you can see each bend and branch of every tree.  I find them just gorgeous.

It helps that my hour long commute in both the mornings and evenings takes place very near the magic hour, when light makes everything incredible. 

Here are some of my favorites from Sunday.

The cold can sure be miserable, but finding something lovely to photograph sure helps me forgot about it.

See on,
Julee

Dancing Trees.

Today was a beautiful, sunny day.  Had it not been bitterly cold I would have had a delightful time out making photographs today.

But I braved the cold for a good two minutes at a time before scrambling back into my car to warm up.  It was darn cold.  Colder than it should be for February.

But my reward were these Lenbaby gems.  They are my dancing trees.

I could not decide which I liked better.   In the top shot there is nothing in focus, but the trees appear more 'active' to me.  In the second shot there is a tree just slightly left of center that is in focus, but the trees aren't dancing quite as much to my eyes.  But with the second shot I also got trees throughout the scene.  (I suppose I can fix that top photo to where trees fill the scene quite easily in Photoshop, there is just no time tonight.)  Both photos were taken with my Lensbaby Sweet 35.

So you decide.  Is one better?  Or maybe you like sharp photos and neither of these appeal to you.  (Sorry.)  I got a few shots with my regular lenses but I'm off the watch the Olympics - more later...

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