Some Sunflower Snapshots

I have been following Katie Lloyd's 31 days to releasing your inner artist.  I've spent so much of my life thinking of myself as anything but an artist--the literal one, the one good at math, the geek...it is taking me time to accept that in photography I might just be an artist.  It has definitely always been a "creative outlet" and now more so than ever, but art?  That is really hard for my mind to wrap around.  I really dislike reading posts about how you can learn all the technical stuff but an artistic eye cannot be taught.  But there is still a lot of the technical side of photography for me to learn before my photos start being judged solely for lack of art.  Anyway, that is just a thought I'm mulling over.  Am I an artist?  Do I have what it takes?  Does it matter?

In the meantime, I'm reading all I can to learn more and taking a lot of pictures to get better...I certainly haven't maxed out my potential yet.  And Katie challenged us to find inspiration in what we have around the house since we cannot always go out to capture beauty.  I feel like it is almost cheating to participate since over half of my pictures are taken at home...and are of the same subject that is with me everywhere.  But it is true that my daughter inspires me...to be more active, to be more creative, to have more fun, to be a better mother, to be a better example...each and every day.

She also makes me laugh and laugh and laugh so I'm also linking to Simplicity's Photo Challenge: Laugh Out Loud.  (Simplicity is hosting 31 Days of Inspiring Photography for the month of October.)

Here is where she tells me that this rock is her "pecial rock...it's precious to me."

This is right after I told her that she could not go into the house and bring her stuffed animal into the wet yard.  "She's my baby!  It's dry!  Daddy said I could!"  Ummmm, still no.  (Yes, this makes me laugh.)

Here is where she decided to change her clean boots for the boots the boys had left out only to discover a spider web in one of them.  "Get it out, Mommy."   No.

"Push me, Mommy!"  No...again.

"I could have climbed up the slide better if you'd helped me put on those other boots."  No, I don't think so...but I will give you a hand.  It seems like these stories are more about me saying no than laughing out loud, but I assure you that her sheer enthusiasm, determination, persistence, and overall energy can usually crack us up.  She is a real joy to be around.

As my 7 year old said yesterday, "Mommy, was I as funny as Sunflower when I was her age?"  Ummmm, sorry, but no.  He came into his funny a few years later.   His idea is that if Sunflower is ever homeless she could make money by going around and making people laugh. 

Texture Tuesday

We still have roses.  New buds are still even coming in, but it is starting to get colder, and they won't last much longer.  But today they were beautiful with the dew and the sunlight.  Too bad I messed up my focus on most of them.  Still fun, though, and perfect for textures.

Here is my original (cropped a little):

Here is my textured version:

Pure Soft Summer Action--masked off of bud
Kim Klassen's Texture -- Dream 49% hardlight, 38% masked off of bud
Kim Klassen's Texture -- Canvas Magic 100% softlight

I wish I had more time to play with pictures tonight, but we are busy with some other paperwork...finally!

I hope you have a fabulous Tuesday, and if you need a pick me up be sure to check out all the beautiful art over at Texture Tuesday!

Week 41 good to WOW SOOC Pumpkins

I'd almost finished my post when I had to take my son to school.  I thought, I'll actually be early (for me)!  When I get back from school I can have my post done and linked up by 9:00 a.m. PST.  But then I saw the angle of the sun and the lack of clouds and the millions of dew drops and decided it was a perfect bokeh day!  So I spent an hour taking pictures instead.

And I had fun, and Sunflower had fun playing outside--luckily she has boots to keep her feet dry from the wet grass.  I've gotta get me some of those!  But my focus was off on pretty much every single shot...particularly the close-ups...and there was NO wind and my shutter speed was quite fast, I'd even stopped down my aperture some in order to get a wider depth of field.  Turns out that little circle thingee you can adjust so you can see without your glasses was turned by a quarter.  Doesn't matter if you are taking pictures of bokeh, right?  Well, hopefully we'll have more sunny and dewy mornings, because the great light has passed for today.

My white balance was set on auto instead of cloudy which I have found also makes a difference in my contentment of my pictures outdoors, though I am fairly happy with this SOOC shot of Sunflower.

1/1250    f/1.8   50mm   ISO 100

Do you see my reflection in the sunglasses?  I'm not sure how to edit this, because I'm bound to lose the haze with my usual processes...usually I want to lose the haze.  Maybe just add a little warmth (which would have been there if my white balance had been on cloudy) and dodge her face a little?  Any suggestions would be great!

Now back to my originally scheduled programming.  We saw many, many pumpkins at the zoo Saturday.  Here is my SOOC shot for Shoot and Edit.  I had one identical whose framing I liked better, but the focus was not as sharp.  So I'm choosing the one I will need to crop, but has all the elements I need to make it what I want.

1/800   f/1.8   50mm   ISO 100

The rest of these pumpkin shots I am sharing with Monday Rewind over at Chic Homeschool Mama.

We were greeted at the entry with pumpkins:

But the most fun for the boys was the professional pumpkin carver.  Who knew that was a job option?

They stood there in complete fascination and asked lots of questions.

We were supposed to go meet Dad and Sunflower inside for lunch (Sunflower needed the bathroom), but we lost track of time.  The boys watching the carving, and I taking pictures of all the pumpkins around.

I was apparently quite intrigued by the curve of this pumpkins stem because I took a lot of pictures of it...even switched lenses.

Finally Daddy and Sunflower did come find us and we had lunch and then finished the zoo.  Only to find a few more pumpkins at the end of the day.  By then my camera battery had given out on me--it only lasted 1500 pictures (plus the 150 at home).  Well really.  

So I used my old camera...A Panasonic DMC-FZ3 3mp camera...a very good camera for it's time.  But I do want to gently suggest that the next time someone says "your camera takes good pictures" please ask them how old their camera is before giving them a lecture about food and ovens.  (Not that I don't agree, but some people really do just have horrible cameras that are limiting their ability to ever become good photographers.)  I used the manual settings to try and creatively compose my shots, but changing settings is beyond awkward.  My old camera does have a really fast shutter speed compared to other cameras 7 years old, but I had to run significant noise reduction to deal with the noise produced on ISO 200.  In fact, I'll first show you a SOOC shot so you can see.

1/200  f/2.8  7.5mm (yes, I don't know what that is compared to dSLR) ISO 200

Yes, I know the bad composition is my fault (something my new fancy camera does not fix), but the noise in Huckleberry's sweatshirt, the lack of color range...those are my camera.  Even with 2.8 (widest aperture) the dof is not terribly interesting...right for this photo, but not interesting.  8.0 is the narrowest aperture option.  Those translate to some other number on a dSLR, but I am not going to look them up.

Anyway, after color boosting, cropping, and noise reduction, I was able to produce a reasonable shot.

Actually, one of each child...clearly we are getting tired :)

Next item on my purchase list is definitely a spare battery for my Nikon!

Have a fantastic Monday!  I plan to...after I fold 8 loads of laundry since we were busy, busy, busy all weekend.  Being productive is a joy in and of itself...no matter the task, right?