I Heart Faces "Paper" Challenge

"The Letter"

My sister loves to sew; this photo is of her dressed up in an 1840's gown she made based on a dress in the movie "Cranford." If you have seen the movie, the character Sophie Hutton wears a gown similar to this dress. This was a fun photo shoot with her dressed up reading a letter. This theme interested me because there are so many ways you could use paper in a photo! It was fun to set up this shot; she had to get all dressed up, we curled and pinned up her hair, I wrote her a two page letter with my quill pen and sealed it with red wax.
11-27 ~ I just found out I made the top 10 with this photo! 9th place - yippeee!



 

Garlic is a Beautiful Thing

Do you ever have the urge to take pictures of the randomest things? (Is randomest a word? If it wasn't, it is now). I have that urge all the time. :-) Like taking pictures of garlic. I filled up our garlic reservoir (can you tell we use it a lot??) and it hit me. I HAD to take a picture. Or several. And then I couldn't decide which one I liked best... so I'm posting them all.

I couldn't decide if I liked this one horizontal or vertical... I lean toward horizontal, but then I look at the vertical one again and I like that too.

Two questions I would ask you about these, if you have the time to comment and answer me:

1. Which is your favorite?

2. Would you buy one of these as a print to hang in your kitchen? Or is your first thought, "Why on earth would I hang a picture of garlic in my kitchen?"

You never know, if I get some responses to my question I just *might* consider giving away a print... unless everyone's response is "are you crazy?" :-)

Please vote for me!

*EDIT: Thanks to everyone who voted! I ended up in 11th place in the voting, which counts for 40% of the score, the remaining score to be counted by judges. Winners are supposed to be announced on Dec. 10.*
This is not photography related - but I entered a kid's bedtime story contest and need people (lots of people!!) to vote on my story. I'd really appreciate if you would vote for me HERE . You can vote multiple times (once per day, per person, per computer), so please come back and vote each day. It ends November 22, 2010. THANK YOU!

I Heart Faces "Silhouette" Challenge

Confession: I have never taken a silhouette photo before. Ever. (I take that back - I did take one of a hummingbird once, back when I really knew nothing about photography!). So this week's i heart faces challenge was intriguing to me and made me try something new! My original ideas didn't work out so this was a very last minute, "quick, try this!" photo. I figured I might as well enter it as not. :-) Visit i heart faces to see some really fantastic silhouettes!

Japanese Maples in the Fall

We have several Japanese Maple bushes on our property. They have beautifully shaped leaves and their color is beautiful year round, but especially in the Fall like most trees and bushes. I was outside (without a coat - I know, very smart of me) and it was frigid but I took a second to snap these photos of the leaves.

P.S. Don't forget to vote daily HERE! Only a week to go!

My Feline Friends

I love the kitties in my life. People who don't love cats must never have owned one - my personal belief is that they are far superior to dogs. You may beg to differ; everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

This is my charming Gavana. She drives me batty at times, but she makes up for it by being the poochiest, cutest kitty ever.

And I have to admit she has some great whiskers.

This is Bertie. He belongs to some very dear friends and is just the sweetest thing. He loves to give kisses and he is so pudgy. Talk about a cat with character.

As a general rule I like to do minimal editing on my photos to keep them natural looking, but this photo had some sun haze and I decided to do some vintage-y processing on it. Thoughts?

And here's Smoochie - Bertie's little sister (not littermates - but both live with the same family). Smoochie is a crack up; she goes crazy whenever my sister holds her. But she's a darling snuggler when she wants to be.

And last but most certainly not least... our sweet Basha. Basha is 16 and is not doing so well now. She has lived a full life and has brought us much joy. I don't think we'll ever have another cat like her.

Crabapple Blossom Close-Up

To put that in perspective, that flower is approximately the size of a quarter. I always love taking pictures of crabapple trees in the spring because of the clouds of tiny flowers, but this past spring I found it was fun to get up close too.

I Heart Faces "Orange" Challenge

Here is my entry for the i heart faces "Orange" challenge. I had a hard time with coming up with a photo for this one (I guess that's why it's called a challenge, right?) but finally decided on this picture - my lovely sis!

Tickle the Ivories

This is a SOOC (straight out of camera) shot of the keyboard of our antique piano... yep, the keys are real ivory!

Fall Portraits

Here are a couple of portraits I took of my sister the day I got my 50mm lens. There are some things I would change - like having her put on a more neutral scarf - but I was excited to use my lens and they still came out ok. :-) I love the bokeh!

Sometimes it happens...

Ok... I wasn't crazy about taking a photo of scrambled eggs of all things. BUT - we just bought some fun white square plates to use for photography, and I just needed to try them out. And I happened to be eating scrambled eggs for breakfast. Well, sometimes you are setting up a shot and something happens...

...like your cat decides to sample your photographic subject. Of course, had it simply been a prop I wouldn't have minded, but I was planning on eating those eggs when I was finished. I was able to rescue my breakfast after snapping the above photo.

The Moral of the Story is: You know you are a photographer when your cat decides to eat your breakfast and your first thought is not to pull the dish away from her, but to take a picture.
- Quote by my sister, Tara

Shooting Self-Portraits

This is a self portrait I took the other day. That's me with my baby - my beautiful harp. I actually have two babies; my harp and (you guessed it) my camera. At any rate, I was struck by the fact that self portraits are not all that easy. Especially when you are shooting with a wide aperture (which is my favorite mode for portraits!).

I was using a tripod, but it still took several tries to get the photo to come out how I wanted it. I'd say it could still be improved by sharper focus but my harp was sitting on the damp grass and I didn't want to leave it there any longer than was absolutely necessary!

Shooting self portraits with a small aperture (higher f-number - more in focus) is easier; but here are a few basic tips to follow no matter what size aperture you have:

Use a tripod. Duh. :-) Or if you are taking a spontaneous photo, find something steady on which to prop your camera.

Use a focus point. In my case, I had my harp there to give me an idea of where to focus. Wide apertures are very touchy so if you are sitting in front of your object, set it just a hair closer. You could also have someone pose for you so you can set your focus and then you take their place with the timer going. You may have to tweak it a few times like I did!

Drooling yet?

Chocolate. Peanut Butter. Pie.

Go get the recipe here - NOW.

The Cuteness of Wildlife

This is one of my favorite photos that I took earlier this year. This pesky squirrel was eating our birdseed, but I'm tempted to forgive him because he posed so perfectly for this shot. :-)