In a world of so many great photographers and writers, I am venturing into some unknown territories, leaving comfort zones, finally very willing to practice the art of seeing. By maintaining the practice of posting daily photos, I hope to continue learning about the possibilities that I trust are out there for the taking.
Another attempt at the corners assignment.
Shooting corners
An after-sun-has-set daily view.
A nightly scene.
As I mention every chance I get, Carol Leigh is my online photography teacher and mentor. Today I got to talk to her and feel so much better about my day.
Two pearls of wisdom from Carol:
1. What is important is becoming, not being.
2. Look for the effect, not the technique.
I got lucky yesterday. Carol left an instructional comment regarding a photo I posted yesterday. Here is what she said: Linda, regarding your “Tranquil Morning” photo, what if you were to crop in from the left until just before you reach the first tree? But there’s more: What if you were to crop DOWN from the top so that we don’t see the top “horizon line?” NOW your photo is all about a small strip of truncated trees up top and their elongated reflections below. Forget the bird — he looks a tad overexposed anyway. Do I sound harsh? You know I don’t mean to. To me, the artistry in your photo lies in the trees and their reflections, nothing more is necessary. — Carol “feeling overly simplistic this morning” Leigh
Hopefully, I cropped this photo below per her suggestions. I like the photo so much better. Thank you Carol. And, thank you for making time to talk.
Cropped version per Carol Leigh's suggestion.
This week’s Photomotivation assignment is Corners, paying attention to light and color.
Here are 3 photos I took today and posted in Carol’s Photomotivation online class Yahoo group.
Assignment: Corners 1
Assignment: Corners 2
Assignment: Corners 3
Good news: I got up out of my computer chair and shots the very active early morning egret antics.
Bad news: One more time my panning didn’t render an in-focus shot.
Solution: A black and white filter!
I shot about 100 photos before I retreated back inside the condo. I was wearing my jammies and the golfers had started to play the 2nd hole where they could see me.
7am activity.
Here are some shots of what I was watching from inside, that called me outside this morning.
Crazed birds.
Tranquil morning.
Peggy and Linda on the Saturday MHCC hike.
Ray giving Katya a golf lesson.
Quincy taking a picture of San Jacinto.
Quincy and Katya arrived around 1:30pm. Why? Because tonight Quincy spoke here at St Margerite’s and Katya decided to come down and hear Quincy too. They’re spending the night. Right now I hear them giggling in the guest room as they get ready for sleep.
We Three: Quincy, Linda and Katya.
Quincy and Katya just before we left for the meeting.
We were in a hurry to leave for the meeting when I decided to ask Ray to quickly shoot our photo. The small compact just couldn’t do the job, lighting wise, and the on camera flash played havoc with the finished shots.
Ended my afternoon walk when I spotted these guys.
Testing zoomed shots.
A highly cropped shot with a Topaz deNoise filter added.
Tonight there was a package at our front door when we arrived back home from a long day in LA.
Ray walked inside with the box and asked, “Would you like your Valentine’s present early?” Yesssssssssssssssssss.
Before I saw the box Ray had in his hands I said, “It’s too bad you didn’t know I wanted a Canon G11 camera.” I forgot that Ray’s desk is behind mine and my large 2nd computer monitor is always within his view while I’ve been going back and forth over the last couple of months’ reading about the G11 (a new hiking/backpacking camera) and the Canon D7 (The new Big Girl Camera I also want).
One hour later after opening my gift (12:14am!) I am now familiar with my new Canon G11 and can’t wait to try it out tomorrow when I’m not quite so exhausted.
Thanks for my camera Ray.
Earlier in the day at Borders doing what we always do each Thursday before we meet with everyone.
Not much time with my camera today, but since I always have the compact camera, I couldn’t resist taking this photo of Baby Noah who is brought to our Wednesday JTBP meeting every week by his parents, Cynthia and Dusty.
Noah is the most beautiful, well behaved baby I’ve ever been around. I have a very special attachment to Noah as Cynthia asked me to be with her husband and Sandi in the delivery room where I shot zillions of photos throughout the day and during Noah’s birth. Photos from Noah’s birth are viewable here. Be forewarned if you are squeamish. And yes, I did get permission post these photos.
Baby Noah, now almost 2 months old.
This week our Photomotivation assignment is Art for Art. We are asked to find a mural, someone else’s photo, a photo from our archives, etc., and look for and select out a special area to create our own art from a previously rendered work. Our teacher, Carol, emails out a 3 page pdf explaining what she wants us to do.
Hopefully these examples explain a lot better than I did, what I mean. Can you see where, in the original photo, I took my crop from?
Original photo of door.
Cropped photo of door.
Original llama photo.
Cropped llama.
Original sign.
Cropped sign. (Wish I'd seen this for the Faces in Unlikely places assignment.)
All the week’s veggies are cooked: Steamed kale, brussel spouts and green beans, baked spaghetti squash and acorn squash. (And plenty of broccoli and baby carrots on hand as Ray doesn’t like cooked, soft, veggies. It’s a texture thing.)
Costco’s 2-to-a-package flank steak has been dehydrated for healthy snacks. (Who says you only make beef jerky for backpacking trips.) Ray is a happy camper as his favorite golfing snack is the beef jerky I make.
Chicken is cooked and vacum sealed for air tight freezing.
While looking at the finished chicken, I thought, “I could kill two birds with one stone………A blog photo and cooked, ready to eat chicken”.
Planning ahead.
So I remember:
Canon EF 50mm 1:1.4 lens
Exposure 4.0 sec at f/20
ISO 100
Manual focus
I took a number of shots. I got out the diffuser/deflector and tried holding in various positions to alter light from the kitchen door, hopefully preventing bright/hot spots on the pan. I noticed I got rid of the hot pan spots but then the chicken lacked highlights and looked dull. I ended up taking a flash light and quickly moving it over the chicken during the 4 second exposure.