Green and Brown

I am still working on my last assignment for the class I took~Find Your Eye: Starting the Journey.  Part of my problem in finding my style is that I am still in flux.  Oh, that looks nice!  Oh, I like THAT!  But there are a few things I consistently like.  One of them appears to be the combination of colors of various shades of green and various shades of brown.

This explains why I insist on keeping this picture even though it doesn't help with context of the trip it was taken on or inspire me to make a card or something.  It isn't exactly in my inspiration file, but it might have made it if that building was just a bit deeper brown.  My preference does lean towards a deeper brown~almost rust/red color.

I do like being close up, too.  I have a picture of this complete structure but it does not appeal nearly as much.

Of course photos that have interesting depths of fields appeal a great deal, especially if they have those chosen colors.  It is the first thing I learned I had control over if I did more of the work than my camera.  Fun to be in control, but really it just looks cool.

Another thing I love about photography is that it gives me the power to lie.  In general I don't believe in lying (not even those little white lies that help smooth relationships) and even if my words try to lie my face and tone tell the truth.  But in photography, it becomes okay.  No one feels deceived, because it isn't lying~it is choosing which story to tell.  The above photo could be anything I make it into if I wrote about it.  It is the play equipment at the park we visited Saturday.

Many confused another shot of this equipment with being a park bench which then becomes its own reality.  Odd pictures and crops can inspire the imagination to fill in those missing pieces (though really I just love the above picture because of the colors and interesting shapes.)

But if we zoom out you can see more of the story, but in some ways it can still be whatever story it wants to tell or our imaginations want to take away.  This looks like they are sitting their contemplating life; being deep.  Because of the angle I choose that does not show their faces (chosen due to laziness not creative composition) and that it is only a moment in time, you don't know that the real story is that they are spies sailing their ship into the night~an apparently really speedy ship because they were there for less than a minute.

Now while I clearly do love that brown and green and the ability to crop or clone out distracting bits.  I also love taking pictures of my children (or other people's children since I now have too many of pictures of mine.)

But some of my favorite shots of them really do still fall into that brown and green category.  Plus the light!  I know I shouldn't have shadows on her face, but I like it anyway.  Do you see the pretty bokeh and her bright eyes?  I also love color~especially a pop of color amidst the brown and greens.  Thankfully, that is easy to find because nature is full of brown and greens and my children, well, they almost always pop with color!

Now editing is interesting.  I know many strive to get the best shot SOOC so they don't have to edit~and I am very happy with my images when I don't feel like I "have to" edit.  But I like editing.  It is fun.  But while I would rather not crop, it is the easiest and least intrusive way of choosing the story I want my picture to tell.  Though actually in the above shots only the railroad track is cropped a tiny bit because of some orange construction fencing I could not get out of the frame and get the focus I wanted.  The only other edits I did was in LR3-General Punch preset and on some the Tones Flat preset.  If I had edited in PSE they would have been a "Pure Pop" action. possibly a levels adjustment, and a high pass filter.  Because when the colors start out as colors that I love, I really don't feel a need to get creative.  I love to play with creative edits, but I almost always go back to my clean edits when it comes time to print.  But sometimes, I have a picture that I love, but it is just wrong.  It needs more editing to even become viewable, let alone printable.  If I was a true diehard SOOC (which I am not), I would have to toss it and shoot again.  But this is where editing becomes even more fun.  It isn't about lying ~ look aren't I a good photographer! ~ it is about salvaging those moments that I want to keep.  I'd never salvage a photo of the traintrack~what is the point?  But of my kids?  Then the ability to edit becomes priceless.

The color cast in this is horrible!  I played with white balance in lightroom for awhile, but I just couldn't quite get what I wanted, so I took it to PSE6 (very simple to do from LR3).  Then I followed Ashley's tutorial from Shoot and Edit on adjusting White Balance.  I tried both methods she mentioned.  I also gave it a levels adjustment, "Pure Pop" and cropped.  I would have gone further and might still if I decide to print this, but I wanted to show you the color I got using the adjust for skin tone adjustment.

I should probably play a little longer with the colors here; maybe a warming filter or pink tone, but basically, there you have it~a fun capture of my son that has the elements I love: brown and green with a pop of color, pretty bokeh, close-up, and interesting depth of field.  Why shouldn't I take the time to rescue it~though I'd prefer to figure out how to set my camera when shooting in green light!


If you haven't had the chance yet, I strongly recommend taking Kat's Find Your Eye course~that is if you are prepared to analyze, think deep, learn from others, and desire to take more classes.  I am not ready to move onto the next class (besides not having the money set aside) because I am still mulling over what I have learned. Well worth the $29 (if I hadn't won my spot for free~thanks, Kat and Ashley!).  Actually, I'm not done learning even now as I finally finish my last assignment.  Kat does not expect us to "Find our Eye" in one two week class (probably why the first class is called "Starting the Journey") and thank goodness!

My Black and White Wednesday Post is over at my other blog; I'd love the visit!

Butterfly Bush

I didn't take as many pictures this time, but even if I did when my subject is not my child, I find the weeding process a lot easier.  I don't know exactly how many pictures I took, but after my first pass I had 75.  In the end I only have 4 to share, and the rest will be deleted.  I don't need/want to remember every angle or bit of our butterfly bush, just the pretty parts.

I did shoot from every angle and with the complete group, several groups, head on, etc. but this angle with the soft background appears to be my favorite.  Most of the others were easy, easy to cut.  This exercise did prove to me that once again that I really do like close-up photos.  The pictures of the full bush were deleted on the first pass even though a part of me thought about keeping them to illustrate my point.  The most aggravating part was that  I couldn't get close enough.

This butterfly was the only one flying around, and while this was the best angle and focus I could get, it is cropped too close to be printable.  So fun to have a blog to share it on, then.  I would love a macro lens or extension tubes, but right now I need to focus on learning the equipment I do have.  I am not really satisfied with the sharpness of my focus (or lack of sharpness) but I was zoomed out to 200 and the wind was blowing.   I probably should have waited for a less windy day, but the lighting that day was glorious. 

And I do love the rich colors with light.  When a photo combines the two I can just drown in it.  Look at that pretty purple circle.  The flowers are almost irrelevant to me in this photo.

I did have three other photos I worked on for posting--one including a sunflare--but as I moved from these that I loved to those that I liked, I liked those even less, so I plan to delete them, too.  Need to make room for more pictures of my kids, I guess.  But this one, it is my favorite and worth the hour I spent taking pictures.

I think this is my best picture of a bee yet, and I love it with the purple and browns.  Love the sparkle on his wings, too.  The most frustrating part of taking pictures of flowers (besides getting the right focus and close enough in) is that unlike kids, you can't tell the bees to turn around and smile.   Oh wait, that doesn't work with kids either.   Next time, I might wait until it is not 85 degrees out.  The kids were playing in the sprinkler the whole time which is another 189 pictures!

Thank goodness for long lenses!

I don't mean to sound so complainy about how many pictures I need to sort through and edit.  One thing I learned from this exercise and in taking pictures the last few months is that while I love looking at my favorite images and editing and sharing, if all I did was take photos for an hour and then reformat the card, the pleasure I get while choosing settings, framing the photo, reviewing the histogram after they are shot would still exist.  Granted I wouldn't be able to ever improve if I never looked at my images again, and I wouldn't feel the satisfaction I get from looking at images or sharing them, but that enjoyment as I shoot is real, intrinsic in the process, and strong.  If I lose my images*, I can always take more pictures of a butterfly bush, but that contented hour of peace as I enjoyed nature, my children, God, and my hobby cannot be lost.

*Do not misunderstand; we have lost a hard drive before and paid for photos to be recovered, so I know that can be a painful loss.  Always back-up your pictures.

I Might Be an Over Acheiver

So for the class I am taking, Find Your Eye, we were supposed to choose a subject we frequently photograph and take at least 50 pictures of it exploring lots of different angles, compositions, etc.  Since Sunflower is in at least half of my pictures, I chose her as my subject.  Then I went outside with her for 1 hour and came back in with over 500 pictures with my 55-200mm lens.  I had planned to take more with my 50mm lens, but the neighborhood dog came into the yard so Sunflower wanted to go inside. To be fair, I always take 50-100 images (if not more) so that part of the assignment was easy (unless she meant limit ourselves to 50 photos).   Mostly I feel I need to take that many because I am still experimenting.  I know mathematically which combination of the exposure triangle makes a good image, but I still don't know exactly what I love in a photo.  Actually, I do have an idea, but Sunflower moves so fast, I have to keep shooting to try to catch it.  Still, I know I should slow down but in the moment I still forget.

I don't want to forget the curve of her cheek or the shape of her nose.

The biggest problem with 500 images is culling it down.  I have deleted down to 183 pictures--all of Sunflower in our backyard in the same outfit--not really necessary to keep them all.  Then I went through the star my favorites and came down to 44 images, but I cannot quite bear to just delete the other 139.  But you do not want to see 44 images of my sweet Sunflower, and I don't want to resize 44 images for the web either.  So I cut it down to 10.  Should I probably just keep these 10?  Yes.  Will I?  Not yet.  Not yet.

Is this the photo with the best nose crinkle, or should I keep the others?  The lighting isn't as pretty here.

But really, it doesn't matter.  I can take as many pictures as I like and take as much time to delete/keep them as I need.  The experience of taking the pictures is so worth it to me.  Sunflower and I had so much fun during that hour and while I was snapping away, I was also playing with her and letting her play.  Occasionally she would pose for me...

...and I love this picture too, cheesy, stiff smile and all.  I love the colors and the bokeh and the light in her curls and her crisp eyes.  Mostly though, she just played and I took pictures.  Time flew.  I meant to switch lenses at 50 pictures, but I didn't.  I did have to consciously back up to get her completely into the frame.

Very few of my stand back and capture the whole scene made it into my top 44 or 10, and I couldn't resist cropping this one a little closer.  I definitely love the close-ups, but I did want to capture the outfit so I could send a picture to Auntie L~the giver of the dress.  The next full dress shot is probably my favorite photo of the outfit though I took it to play with framing.

But Auntie would probably like to see Sunflower's eyes in her photo.  Plus I really like this shot in black and white best...

which means it is not optimal for documenting the details of my child's life and clothes.  But I love her little fingertips and the way she is standing and her expression.  So cute!

But 10 of this pose made it into my top 44.  One day I went through and starred my favorites from this set/moment in time, the next day I did it again, not checking which ones were already starred.  I ended up starring 5 one day and the other 5 the next day.  Her eyes were very visible and clear in each photo and yet her expression was different.  I can't keep only one forever, but today I decided to share the pursed half smile that says, "Mommy!  You're so silly!  I'm getting down!"

I just want to reach out and brush her hair out of her face, and frequent gesture of affection here.

The most frustrating part of the shoot was that she kept running in between the sun and the shade.  Sometimes I missed a photo or took it too dark because I wasn't fast enough at changing my settings as she went in and out.  I did take some photos in Aperture priority mode to fix that problem, but the camera kept choosing too slow of a shutter speed for hand held so I was missing the shot anyway.  That may because I have limited it's ability to change ISO to too small of range.  I should probably check that if I decide to try that again.  However, while the sun sometimes blew out her skin and caused her to close her eyes, I love how it made her hair gleam and the way the wind blew her hair around.

Here her hair isn't as bright or flyaway, but this is the soft cheek I love to stroke.

In the shade, her skin doesn't get blown out, but her hair isn't as shiny.  The lack of glittering hair becomes irrelevant when the photo is converted to black and white.

I did explore other compositions, too.  Usually I do focus on her face, but sometimes a shot of the feet or skirt makes for a fun photo.

But this photo doesn't make sense without the fuller shot of her sitting down blowing bubbles, but those didn't make it to the top 10 (actually one would have, but I'm saving it for a bright and colorful prompt I will need soon).

And then, because I cannot resist filling lots of negative space with text.

No doubt about it, I love taking pictures of my daughter (and my boys, too).  It was a little disappointing that when I laid on the ground to get a different (and unusual for me) angle was when she decided to play in her little red and yellow car.  If I did this shoot again, I would try to take more from this new angle, since none that I took made it to the top 10.  The car gives a horrible yellow cast to every photo and I had to stand up before too many shots because she got the car stuck and wanted help.  Next time I'll get on the ground when she is no where near the car.

Ummm, kind of boring commentary, but the class is about me thinking about my photography.  At least you can enjoy the pictures, I hope.  I have 75 pictures of a butterfly bush to talk about later.  I thought it might be a good idea to try this on my other top subject--flowers. 

Homework Assignment #3, no #2 {sigh}

I am loving, yet feel so behind in, my on-line photography class~Find Your Eye: Starting the Journey.  We were asked to create a file of images that bring us joy, and I went through the exercise as explained, but it is a mess.  I cannot limit my file to 20, 40 or even 60 images over the last three months or more.  I cannot limit the ones I love from each time I pick up the camera to 60 images!  In my file I have 4 pictures from the Mall shoot I took of Sunflower last month--in this one I love the expression, in this one the bokeh, in this one her eyes, in this one her smile!  Yes, I know, I'm learning I love Sunflower, but if I didn't already know THAT I wouldn't be a very good mom, would I?

Okay, that isn't fair.  I also have lots of pictures of SnapDragon and Huckleberry in my file--usually because of expression or their beautiful eyes.  So I'm narrowing some things down.

I also have photos of flowers, some bees, a waterfall or two, and lots of other people--people who I don't have permission to post.  I was surprised at how many pictures of other people made it into the file.  And they were all candids with the people smiling or even laughing naturally or interacting in some real way.  So in some ways my "style" has not changed.  I still love capturing that brief moment that illuminates a person's character and/or emotions. 

I have just expanded into nature and gumballs.  Maybe I'm not quite ready to define my eye.  Truly I feel fairly new to the whole world of photography.  I am still exploring and enjoying the exploration itself~sometimes more than the end product.  I love this photo of the river, not because I'm into landscapes, but because of the technical aspects and that they all pulled together as the books said they would to create this photo (tri-pod, slow shutter speed, narrow aperture, etc.)

That isn't to say I'm not learning a lot about myself, and I will continue to fine tune my file of images I love as I learn even more.  Reading the other participants self-discoveries has helped me clarify many of my own swimming thoughts.  For instance, I like close-ups.  I have to keep remembering to back-up or zoom out in order to capture the group or my child's outfit for the day because I do want to document those moments but I just love to zoom in on their face or a flower.

I also love narrow depth of field, but I am still fine-tuning on how narrow I can go and still have enough in focus.  The mountain last weekend forced me to play with a smaller aperture to get the greater depth of field required. 

But should this photo go in my file?  I don't know.  I am quite proud at the range of colors my camera captured and given the dirty snow bank in front of me quite satisfied with my intentional composition, but does this picture make me warm and fuzzy inside?  I am just not sure, but I'll keep exploring, digging inside, and maybe someday I will know.

Ummm, now I am even further behind in class!  This was supposed to be a post about my 3rd assignment, not my 2nd.  If it is any consolation, I have already taken the pictures for my 3rd assignment, I just need to write out my feelings about it.  Wait~you don't care that I'm behind and I do not find it consoling!  I do find it comforting to know that the reason I didn't finish both assignments today is because I went to the park with my children, let them play in the sprinkler (while I took pictures sure, but...), and watched the movie "Tangled" with them.  Life before photography, life before photography, life before...

Why Am I Obsessed with Photography?

If you asked me this six months ago, my answer was easy--to document the important details of my life as they occur.  Even before children this was true and I have many bad pictures of people whose names I now don't recall--mostly candids because that was my "style."  After children I became even more obsessed.  Thank goodness for the introduction of the digital camera.  It has saved me hundreds of dollars on film and duplicates.  This is still one of the main reasons I shoot pictures.  I love to capture that special memory of my child, his/her smile, laugh, eyes, hair, activities...the list goes on.  When I get a great (in my mind) image, I will stare at it for minutes or hours reveling in the beauty that is my child such as in this sweet shot.

But in February I got my first dSLR, and I was determined not to waste it.  I decided I would figure out how to master the camera and go back to documenting the details of my life and each of my three beautiful children.  I don't want to forget any piece of their childhood.  What surprised me was that I love the technical side of digital SLR's.  I love figuring out what manual settings to use to get the right exposure or depth of field or focus that I want--understanding what I should do and executing it properly results in more failure than not, but I LOVE the process.  I enjoy fiddling with the settings and discovering how they change my image.  I always took 5 or 50 pictures of any given scene, but now at least I'm adjusting what will happen with each shot.

Knowing to set my lens to a small aperture (f/16 for this shot) in order to capture the sunbeams as opposed to a big yellow blob gives me immense personal satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment.

But a third reason I love taking pictures is that it has opened my eyes.  I see things I would never have seen before.  Following Kat's Exploring with a Camera Series I have started to see contrasts, find form, and this week notice repeating patterns.  Learning to see beauty in everything around me has brought me closer to God and more appreciative of the world around me.  I feel like entering the world of photography has given me glasses that I never want to take off again.

What to do with a shot of the grating on the stairwell, I don't know--unless it is to show it on my blog, which brings me to the fourth reason I love taking pictures.  I have so much fun taking the beauty that I am now seeing and bringing a little joy to others with it.  I don't know if I will ever get into a style of photography that is dark and broody--not because I don't think photography is a wonderful medium for sharing important messages--it just feels that for me currently the message I want to share is one of joy, peace, love, and beauty.  Uplifting if one wants to go cliche.  If only one person goes away saying that post or that picture, it brought beauty or happiness or light into my life or I learned something useful, I am content.  (Thankfully the photogs I've met tend to be really sweet and encouraging so I am frequently content now days.)

I just get so much joy from a pretty flower or a well executed shot that I love sharing that joy with others and encouraging them to keep going and keep learning.  My photography has come so far in the last six months, I cannot wait to see how much further I can take it.  I don't think of myself as artsy or creative, but my photos make me feel like I am creating something, something worth keeping and sharing.  I do dream that someday when I upload 1000 pictures that more of my shots are keepers and that my quality of capture overall will continue to increase, but in the meantime I love taking what I do know and try to capture that perfect shot.  If I don't succeed, oh well!  I'll keep exploring, learning, and dreaming and in the meantime, editing.  I must admit I kind of love the whole world of editing, too!  Seriously, how fun is photography?

CoffeeShop's Perfect Portrait 3 Action, and Kim Klassen's Silent Night Texture on a Multiply 50% Vignette

Linking with Sweet Shot Tuesday, Exploring with the Camera, Texture Tuesdays...


And my class over at The Kat Eye View of the World called Find Your Eye: Starting the Journey.