We’ll see how this goes.
A Pick of Peckled Peppers
Our very kind and very hard-to-understand elderly Chinese neighbors shared their homegrown peppers with us tonight. They’ve given us tomatos, cucumbers, and these peppers. We’ve given them tomatoes.
It’s hard to have a conversation with them, but they speak fluent generosity. :)
Experiment #3: Crazy Like a Phlox
This phlox faithfully reappears at my front door every year, making the doorway to the house a little more inviting… which, I’m sure, is important to the UPS guy and the many people who leave lawn-care/pressure-washing/handy-man flyers on my door. :)
I photographed these little flowers right after a rain, and as you can see, I was able to capture magical light bursts on some of the raindrops. (Hehehe, just kidding, added later.)
Experiment #2: Where the Lucky Charms Leprechaun Lives
Taking all the green in the photo and making a rainbow. Nothing award-winning, but fun. :)
Experiment #1
This week is going to be a week of photo experimentation. I’m only planning to experiment in the post-processing phase, not the subject choice nor shooting technique.
This was a shot of some dainty little flowers we saw while walking along the Suwanee Greenway. As you can see in the original, unedited shot below, it was nothing special. I ran the photo through a series of filters to pull out color saturation and then added some distressed effects. Finally, I separated it into four sections to draw attention to each point of interest in the photo, as well to “spread the color around.”
Leisurely Morning Still Life
Ahhh, the end of the first breakfast al fresco this year. Aren’t these beautiful colors? I love photographing fruit… it’s so vibrant and juicy.
Anyone else use sugar on their grapefruit, or is that just something I learned from my family?
Spathiphyllum
I think the graceful, delicate curves of the peace lily as it blooms are second only to the beauty of the calla lily.
This shot is grainier than I’d like from shooting under less-than-ideal lighting in my office. However, I knew that the bloom might be too fully open by time I get back to the office on Monday, so I made do. (And yeah, that’s my way of working in the fact that I’m off tomorrow. Good Friday, indeed. :)
I’ll Watch Your Back, You Watch Mine.
While walking in McDaniel Farm Park on Sunday, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a very slight movement near the trees. Having my camera with me and wanting to find something to shoot, I headed down the “road” to see what it was. The road was actually just pressed-down grass where it looked like perhaps the groundskeeper’s truck had gone through a few times. About 30 yards down, just inside the tree line, I could make out the white flickering of a deer tail.
I didn’t have my good camera with me, the one with the powerful lens, so I zoomed out as far as I could and started shooting. Sarah commented that she thought there were two. It was only after I looked up from the viewfinder that I saw the other, as they were originally further apart than you see them here.
Shooting though the brambles and branches, I quietly inched closer and closer. I knew that I’d be lucky to get any decent shots 1) because I was still far away and shooting with an average lens, 2) when the lens is extended to its max length, every twitch of my hand, every breath, every heartbeat is amplified and results in a lot of shake and non-focus, 3) with so much “stuff” between the deer and me, the camera wanted to focus on all of that, and not the deer’s faces, and 4) they were likely to bolt any second.
I took about 20 photos, and this one was the best I got before they bounded away. I’m actually somewhat impressed by the detail the lens was able to capture. Perhaps it’s not as average as I thought. :)
Lethal Beauty
I was given direction from my boss today about how she wanted a new printed piece of ours to look… “clean and slick” were her exact words. For some reason, I spun off into wanting to photograph something with those same words in mind.
Thinking of one of my guns, I decided it would be my subject for the evening. I gently rested it on my black glass stove top and used only the range light above it, creating a pretty decent image.
At first, I had the focus at the end of the barrel, but I think there’s more interest (at least at this angle) around the cylinder. I was shooting up close to it at 27mm, so the drop off in sharpness is pretty severe in front of and behind the focal point, but I think it works.
In case you’re wondering, this is a Ruger GP 100, 357 magnum with a 4.2″ barrel, stainless steel with a satin finish. And yes, it’s loaded… with hollow-tipped .38 special bullets.
Be sure to call and let me know you’re coming if you decide to visit in the middle of the night. :)
Don’t Believe Everything You See
This amazing vehicle is a Polaris SlingShot. The husband of one of my co-workers brought it by the office a few days ago, and needless to say, it was getting a lot of attention in the parking lot. It’s an automobile/motorcycle hybrid (an “autocycle” if you will).
So I took a few photos in the parking lot, but decided it was too lovely a vehicle to have all of the parking lot distractions around it. I knocked out the background and “built” a studio background for it in PhotoShop. Just for fun, and to prove a point that you can’t believe everything you see, I changed the color as well. Granted, the reflection is not correct, but that’s because I didn’t want to spend anymore time on working on this one photo. To appreciate the beauty of this ride, you really should click the photo above to see the full-size image.
Here’s the original shot below. What can I say? The girl’s got some mad PhotoShop skillz. :)
Through a Glass, Darkly 