Week 25 - COLOR

I'm a wee bit later posting my weekly photo than usual, but not behind! 

Still on track, and can you believe it, next week I'll be halfway through this project? This has been so much fun, I think I want to do another 52 week project next year, who's with me? 

Anyway, this week's theme was COLOR and I decided that I wanted to look for one color and how it popped out in a scene. 

Earlier this week when Yip was painting his sign to sell his Captain America Shields I loved how the early morning light was coming through the lattice blocks but the red paint wasn't completely washed out. 

(He's still selling his shields by the way. He's made $15, enough to buy a real Captain America Shield off Amazon.) 

1/100 sec., f10, ISO 1600

I did overexpose this shot so I did tweak the brightness on this one slightly. 

And look, Yip again. It's not often that he's the subject of my photos. Yap and Yahoo are usually my camera hams. 

1/100 sec., f9, ISO 1600

More red. 

They don't mind getting their pictures taken but they don't usually want to sit still for very long or in a certain place to get a picture taken. 

My kids are not good "posers". I wish they were. 

Next week; 

Week 26 - Eat! 

Maybe one of my goals next week is to shoot someone eating other than my own children, hmmm, we'll have to see how that one works out. 

Thistles

I love thistles. I know weird. But I just like the bushy purple flowery part. 

Anyway, these were taken behind my sister's house during our visit home to Inidiana. 

Week 21 - Black

This week's theme is Black. (Whoops, I'm a few days behind :) 

My FB friend, you would know her in my comments as Jester6, who I am doing this photo theme with did the coolest thing for Black. 

What my friend had to say about her photo, "I had a late night grocery trip this evening and while putting groceries away I spotted the glow sticks on the top shelf. It was late. It was dark. I decided, WHY NOT!! :-)

I didn't take the time to grab the tripod. The picture is completely grainy. Who cares? It was fun. :-)

 "

 

It was fun!! That's the point of photography right? To enjoy ourselves and have fun. I'm so glad my Jester6 has such a fun laid back attitude towards photography. Although we both want to improve our photo taking skills what's the point if we are ALWAYS stressing about fstops and tripods and getting "the perfect photo"?! 

I've been packing this week for our vacation to Indiana and decided to take a page from Jester6 and not stress over BLACK. When the right moment came to shoot, I'd know. 

And I did. DR and I were in the living room reading and working on the computer as the sun slowly set. Only when it was dark in the house did I realize this would be a perfect time to shoot! 

All of these are hand held, no tripod...just holding my breath and trying to stay as still as possible. 

These were fun and were all shot at 1/6sec, F5, ISO 1600

I'm on vacation right now and am not sure when I'll get to shoot the next couple weeks themes so I'll keep on eye out for both of them. 

Week 21 - Rest and Week 22 - Architecture

Weeks 18 & 19 - Icy and Flexuous

Last week was crazy busy for me and I totally spaced the fact I needed to shoot my 52 week project for Week 18, Ice and didn't get a post up. So I'm playing catch up today by posting Weeks 18 and 19 together. 

I wasn't quite sure what would be a good way to approach it so I just tossed some ice on my driveway one evening. I did go back over and edit all these photos quite a bit. I decreased the brightness and increased the contrast to really make the colors of the driveway pop out. I definitely overexposed the ice and probably should have reshot but I didn't get a good look at the photos until evening. Snow and Ice are still things that are tricky for me to shoot. 

1/320 sec., f5.6, ISO 1600

1/320 sec., f5.6, ISO 1600

1/320 sec., f5.6, ISO 1600

Week 19 - Flexuous

Although I had an idea of what flexuous meant I still decided to look it up. flexuous: Full of bends or curves; sinuous.

I thought my pea plants fit this week's theme very well! I love how the plants are getting all tangled together...a good sign of a healthy pea plant. 

1/125 sec., f10, ISO 1600 

1/125 sec., f10, ISO 1600 

1/100 sec., f10, ISO 1600 

I like this one the best. 

Week 20, wow 20 already?

Week 20 - Black 

Week 16 - Clean

Week 16 theme is clean. I was doing dishes and wanted to try shooting bubbles. This first one originally was very bright and I had to do a lot of editing to get the stream of water and details of the bubbles to show up. 

f7.1, 1/13 sec, ISO 1600

f7.1, 1/10 sec., ISO 1600

The second was a bit better but I still ended up tweaking the contrast some. This one is my favorite though with the shallow depth and the blue reflected on top of the faucet. 

f7.1, 1/20 sec., ISO 1600

Next week....Fire. That could be fun. 

Week 11- Smooth

This week has been spring break for my kids and although we haven't gone anywhere we have sure kept busy. The weather has been in the 80's and we've spent a lot of time outside riding bikes and playing at the park so it's no wonder that I waited until almost the last minute to finish this week's theme of Smooth.  

f14, 1/250, ISO 400

During Yahoo's naptime yesterday all was quiet in the house. The boys were playing at the park with friends so I slipped outside for a quick walk around the house looking for smooth but everywhere I looked I noticed textures. I sure hope texture is a theme for one of my 52 weeks. 

f13, 1/200, ISO 400 (This one is too over exposed to suit me)

The sky was pretty empty and smooth looking so I tried to take emphasize the blue while including some elements that put the sky in context because a rectangle of blue may be smooth but I don't think it would be interesting to look at. 

f13, 1/160, ISO 400

I like both of these exposures and just love the colors that came out in the pine needles. 

f13, 1/200, ISO 400

Next week's theme is DOOR. I have the perfect doorway I've been waiting to shoot too! I might go on a country jaunt to find some old rundown farmhouses if the weather is nice. 

Week 9 - LOUD

Week 9 - LOUD

f/22, 1/25 sec., ISO 100

I was trying to work on panning Yahoo on the swing to get a lot of noise in the background but keep her sharp but I think I need to practice that. My ISO and fstop was as low as it was go but it was so bright out that I couldn't get the motion I wanted without overexposing so I did a lot to this photo to play down all the light but get the motion I wanted. 

f36, 1/4 sec., ISO 100 on a tripodI went running outside this day when we were getting 40 mph wind gusts. I had headphones playing music under a sock hat and the wind still roared in my ears and I thought wow, what LOUD wind. I tried to capture how much the wind was moving with this tree but I'm not too happy with the results. 

Next week's theme is QUIET. I'm a mom of three kids. I'm afraid next week's theme may be impossible for me! Oh, and I'm trying to talk my mom into joining my friend and I in this challenge. If I'm successful I'll start putting up her photos too. Come on Mom! Don't let us down! 

Week 7 - Plug

Week 7 - Plug

I really didn't want to shoot an electrical plug or anything obvious like that. I was trying to think of things that plug holes; a pacifier in a baby's mouth, dang..no more babies in the house. 

Then I stepped on a Nerf dart. Man!! Yip has three or four different Nerf dart guns and I am ALWAYS picking up Nerf darts all over the house. 

 But...Nerf darts PLUG up a hole in the Nerf gun. Great!! I've got my subject. 

1/125 sec., f 7.1, ISO 1600

I only got four pictures taken before Yip got tired of modeling for me. If he had been a bit more patient I would have played around a lot more with depth of field. As it was, I was probably really lucky to get these shots. HA! 

1/100 sec, f 6.3, ISO 1600

Next week's, Week 8, theme is Fall.
Well wrong time of year to shoot pics of pretty leaves.
I sure hope I don't have to take a picture of boys falling. That could only mean an injury.

Anyone else out there doing any kind of photo project? 

Week 6 - Wire

Okay, I admit....I whipped this photos out fast and didn't give much thought to how I shot...I just had to get em' done this week. I hate the idea of falling behind as early as Week 6! I barely even looked at my camera's settings. I know I could have done better if I'd given it more thought, or time! Things are just rushed this week, aren't they always? 


First two are shots of this hair twisty thing I wear all the time. I just threw it on my day planner and took some shots. 

1/40 sec., f 5.6, ISO 1600

1/10, f 16, ISO 1600

1/8, f 5.6, 1600

And a quick edit in black and white.

I was manually focusing today with slow shutter speeds so I know that the focus on these is probably wonky. 

Speaking of edits, I have used picnik.com for my editing for a couple years now. But they are closing down their site in April and merging with Google+. I've tried editing through Google+/Picasa albums but it's now more cumbersome and time consuming than before. 

I did find a new online editing site that I tried today, very quickly, and I think I might be hooked. It's pixlr.com. I'm still not convinced that I need to buy fancy Photoshop program when I can free sites on the web that will fulfill my purposes.  

Oh, I almost forgot, next week is....

.....Plug. 

Crap. Why don't I start looking ahead when I post? I could have used this one next week too! 

Week 5 - Steel

Week 5 of 52 Weeks of Photography Themes 

Steel!

I have to say I am loving these weekly themes. It's so much easier than trying to come up my own ideas for photos. 

I ran up to Dodge City over the weekend, by myself!, and being the the Queen of the Cow towns brought the railroad through this part of the state I found myself taking a lot of railroad themed photos. 

f 5.6, 1/125 sec., ISO 100

The Cow Catcher 

f 9, 1/13 sec., ISO 1600

 Controls for the engineer and fireman on the inside of the cab. 

f 8, 1/100 sec, ISO 800

Parts of the steam engine's wheels. 

Shooting the steam engine that sits out front of Boot Hill Museum in Dodge City was tricky because the sun was so very bright that day. I kept having to fiddle with my camera. My ISO was all over the place. Although I've always loved how bright it is in Kansas all the sun tends to wash out the colors in my photographs. But it's hard for me to shoot other than during the brightest time of the day. 

f13, 1/125 sec., ISO 100I stopped for a bit on the way home for a shot of tiny steal barbs. I just love how blurry the windmill in the background is. 

Let's see..next week, Week 6 is...

...Wire.

Whoops. Maybe I should have saved the barbed wire until next week! 


P.S. - I have a Facebook friend who is doing this project with me and this was one of hers for Steel. I just love it!! 

Week 4 - Lines

Week 4 - Lines

This week has been super busy so I'll make this a short post. 

ISO 200, 1/125sec., f13

My garage with power lines overhead and shadows of my clothesline. I loved all the different directions I found in this one. 

ISO 800, 1/160sec., f11

Timbers in my yard with shadows of our fence. 

And just for fun, some crazy editing of the last shot. Invert and extra contrast. 

Week 5 - Steel.

Hmm, so what's made of steel? Does Superman count? 

Week 3 - Dirty

Week 3 of 52 Weeks Photo Themes 

 Dirty! 

And I was fully anticipating taking photos of my kids amongst a giant mess of one sort or another. Imagine my surprise when this week's subject was my hubby DR instead. The weather was unusually warm this past weekend, upper 50's and low 60's, which DR took advantage of and worked up the dead organic matter and compost into our garden plot. 

f5.6, 1/100sec, ISO 100

f7.1, 1/320 sec., ISO 100

I haven't a clue why but this picture should be rotated 90 degrees to the left. I tried ever trick I know to get it turned but I couldn't get it to work.

I'm really happy with these photos. It was a beautiful day although tricky with the bright sunshine and the freshly turned soil smelled fabulous. It's one of my favorite smells in the world by the way.

Next week, Line(s).
Hmm, I'll have to do some thinking and looking on that one.

Snow - 52 Week Project

52 Week Project; week 2 - Snow 


I did these shots early in the week because I was afraid if I didn't there wouldn't be any snow to shoot. It's been awfully warm here this last week. 

f/11, 1/25 sec., ISO 1600

I've been missing the cool winter temps and have secretly been praying for another blizzard. Hey! We still need the moisture. Don't judge me. 

f/8, 1/80sec., ISO 1600

These photos are okay; I don't think there is anything exciting about them. 

Next week's assignment is Dirty. Shoot, I have three kids that one should be a breeze...well, at least I'll have lots of material to choose from :) 

Eggs - 52 Week Project

Last year I tried being a good photographer and doing a 365 project.

Well, that fizzled out after about 6 weeks. 

But a friend of mine suggested that we do a 52 week project together, more accountability that way, with a theme every week to motivate us. 

f 5.6, 1/160sec., ISO 1600

Week 1 - Egg

I only had one egg in my fridge the day I chose to shoot...but I kind of like it that way. I did a lot more editing to this photo than I normally would, mostly turning it from color to black and white and adjusting the highlights and shadows and contrast. 

f 7.1. 1/60 sec., ISO 1600

I thought it would be fun to draw on a sad face to the lonely egg and Yahoo felt the need to comfort it as it sat all alone! LOL..

Next week's photo theme - Snow. Gee, I hope I still have some by then! 

Vote on my Christmas Card Magnet!

DR and I started a Christmas tradition when our boys were only toddlers. We send a wallet sized family photo on a business card size magnet along with our Christmas cards. It's been pretty popular with family! I've been to a few people's houses where our growing magnet collection is on their fridge! And of course once we started Grandma expects it every year and I can't disappoint Grandma! 

For months I have been trying to get a good family photo for our magnet! Yip and Yap seem to think normal smiles are over rated...gggrrr. 

Finally, Sunday morning before church I dragged everyone outside for a photo. Bbbbrrrr, it was in the 40's and cold and I was in no mood for any funny business. We were going to do this quick! I had seen this idea from a professional photographer, posing a family reading books. Since we are big readers I thought it would be cute! Well, we rushed it and couldn't get a photo of Yap with his eyes open but I did manage to narrow down our options to these two photos. 

Option #1 

Option #2

Yap's eyes are closed and this is Yip's version of a smile.

*sigh* ...at least they are natural I suppose. 

So, help me out. 

Tell me in the comments below which photo we should send with Christmas cards!