Week 4 Assignment

For our Color Scheme assignment this week, I choose to work with the fall colors.  I was inspired by the long drive down to Killington last week for my sister's wedding and would have taken a million pictures of landscapes turning colors, but our camera battery was dead.  And our battery charger was plugged in all ready to go.

At home.

Boo.

So I have been scouring the landscapes around home looking for the perfect nature scene to capture and found this loverly little place near my home on my way to work that I always love to look at when we drive by.  Which gave me nothing.  So we went all over Route 15 hunting for something interesting and found a nice church parking lot with interesting things to take pictures of.  So I did.  And here are the results. 


Picture 1: Monochromatic Variation of Gray
Fungus on a Tree
This was an interesting picture because of the the growth pattern of the fungus and how the gray transitions to a darker greenish-gray type of fungus.

Picture two: Analogous photo (Red, Orange, Yellow)
Marigolds 
I love color schemes of analogous colors; they appease the OCD gods and make me happy.  And this came out really bright against a rainy background.

This was just an interesting more monochromatic picture of smushed down grass under the glass of a fish tank drying out in our back yard with some new greener grass shoots coming through and bleached out clover.

Week 3 Assignment: Macros

Contrary to gamer speak in which a macro is a set of instructions to be carried out with one-click icons or keystroke logging, in photography speak a macro is totally different.  Close up pictures were the name of the game this week.

My daughter and I went looking for interesting things to take pictures of around the house at about noon so the sun was really bright which helped make a lot of the colors really pop.  It was incredibly windy today, so we had a lot of fun running around like crazy monkeys trying to get a shot of a butterfly.  The alternating cloudy/sunlight made for some interesting shadow effects.  It was really interesting to see the differences between what she wanted me to take a picture of and what I was interested in finding.  Her perspective brought to mind last week's Point of View assignment so I enjoyed having her view point as a second set of eyes.  This was a really fun assignment because I got to see just how close I could get to things before the image wouldn't focus any longer or just turn out blurry.  It was also interesting to watch the images develop texture with the up close and personal photo session.

This first collage represents the images around my house.  I tend to like bright pictures and pretty things, so was surprised to find myself creeping close to a hornet's nest to get a shot as well as bees on flowers.  The background is of an actual field of wildflowers growing over the rise behind the berry bushes in our back yard.  I choose that as a background because the green, whites, and yellows made the other pictures come together more cleanly to my eye.  I really like the different colors in my yard and tried to get a rainbow of color going.

This second collage has the same images but cropped to make the details pop a little more.  My favorites are of the bee, the tomatoes, and my daughter's little "elf ear" with her brand new birthday earrings.

Below are the individual shots, cropped to bring out the focus.

 

As always, feedback is more than welcomed even when you don't like it :D   My sister's wedding is on Saturday, so I expect to take some macros of the flowers, the cake, the rings, and so on, so I will probably add to this assignment then!

Point of View Assignment

Assignment Week 2: "Post two of your favorite images from this shoot to your blog and add text comparing and contrasting them. Why you chose them? Talk about the photos, which one do you like best and why? How does perspective, or point of view, change the photo's impact? Why?"

POV 1:   Subject: tree in front of my house.  Point of view: taken from the exact height of my youngest daughter.

I choose this first picture because I was inspired by all the nature shots coming from people this week.  When thinking about POV, I was inspired by my children, especially my youngest two, one of whom is beginning to walk.  I wanted to see how they saw things and choose this picture because the tree seems to be so very large especially from my daughter's vantage point. 

This is the same tree with a picture taken at Bella's eye level (what she sees right in front of her).

And this is the picture Bella requested I take of what it's like to see the tree from her younger brother "Finny Boy's eyeballs"

 

"See Mommy, Finny Boy has to look way way WAY up!  Look up, Finny Boy, look up!".


 POV 2: Subject: lone weed on the road next to a guard rail  Point of view: from the passenger side window while driving down Skunk Hallow Road in Jericho at 40 miles per hour

I choose this picture because I was playing around with the different settings on my camera and wanted to try out the Sports Mode while driving.  I was basically started clicking repeatedly while counting for ten seconds while we were driving down the road.  This was the first one out of a serires of 10.  This was the result that I liked the best.  I like the symmetry of the weed in the middle of the guard rail as well as the wind bending the tall grass in the background.  I feel that when driving we tend to maybe glance at what we're driving by, but can get complacent with what we're actually seeing so I wanted to take a picture of what I can really "see". 

This is Picture Nine taken nine s seconds down the road.

POV 3: I know we're only supposed to choose 2, so the above ones are my formal submissions for the week's assignment, but this one is one I took on our road next to our house with me hanging out the window looking upside down at the trees with the leaves just beginning to change color.  I especially like the single ray of sunshine that is coming down ever so slightly just of center.  This one makes me feel like the trees are angling towards the mid-line directly over my head.

This is the same spot taken with the Landscape setting (which accidentally included the neighbor's roof).

 POV 4: Help help, I'm trapped in a mirror ;-)  Aka: more fun with picture taking while driving!

Happy Thursday!

What makes Thursday so great, you may ask.  Why would Thursday be anything to celebrate?  It's not Friday.  It's not a weekend day.  Thursday must feel pretty bad that no on appreciates them.

But on this day, this mighty day I APPRECIATE YOU THURSDAY!  So by now you are probably reading this (yes you 37 readers I appreciate you too!) and wondering "what is going on here?"

Let me share with you the glory that is Thursday.

It started off with a phone call from work. 

Naturally I have my work phone number saved with all the various possible extensions to my phone.  Naturally.  So at first, my phone rang (well vibrated since I never have the volume on which drives Tim nuts to no end, but that is another gif for another time).  My first instinct was the fear of being called in early because I am horrible at saying no and I have so much to do today.

But I answered the phone.

And my boss gave me the night off.

So for real, HAPPY THURSDAY!

Now I can focus on the important things in life.

Which is relaxing for the rest of the day.
The.Whole.Day.