Photo Challenge #5

Here we are already at challenge #5. This challenge is about creativity. First we need to shoot a couple of subjects in macro. Second, we need to shoot 2-3 representations of "time". Third, we are shooting our creative spaces.

First is Macro:

I'm usually not particularly fond of spiders. Especially if they are in my house! Watching them outside in their own habitat is fascinating though. I love to watch them catch prey in their webs. Sometimes I will help them out by throwing some bugs in their web for them and watching what they do.


Anyways, this spider is a Argiope aurantia and was found in my parents garden. This spider was huge!!! She measured about 2"! When I showed the boys they ran off quickly!








Next is a cicada. These guys are insanely loud nowadays and are easily spotted!










Here is another spider that was spotted by my neighbor. This one was pretty good size with a yellow jacket caught in its web.












I thought I need to offset the icky spiders with a beautiful butterfly so here she is. All I had with me was my little Pentax p&s. It's difficult shooting moving insects with a p&s which brings up the subject of "time".







A split second doesn't seem very long until you are trying to shoot a butterfly!! Trying to time the lagtime with my P&S is very hard! I was lucky enough to get the first shot when this butterfly decided to land for a few seconds and take a rest. I was really wishing I had my DSLR before that!


I was really thinking about the subject of "Time" and I couldn't think of anything until yesterday when I suddenly had all this "time" on my hands! We planned on being at the baseball field all weekend because both of the boys had games on Saturday and Sunday. We woke up to rain Saturday morning and it has not let up. I thought this would be a good example of time and how our time was going to be used up at the ball park but we suddenly had all this time on our hands!
























My first idea for time was this last picture of the kids' first day of school. Seeing them off to school makes me think of all the extra free time I'll have while they are in school! Even though I work the mornings on most days I get home earlier than they do and have a good 2 hours to get stuff done before they come home.






Last is my creative space. It's not very impressive. I've got a small corner in our sun room right off the kitchen to work. It's always a mess because I'm usually working on several projects at once. Right now I'm working on a pencil portrait of "Maggie" the dog and also working on jewelry. A lot of my scrapbooking supplies are stored in my secretaries desk but I haven't worked on my scrapbooks in a long time.


I've been working on the computer either at the kitchen table or in bed. I just took a picture at the kitchen table. I just got this laptop and I love it! I like being able to work on the computer from anywhere in the house!

I used to be stuck downstairs at this computer desk for doing computer work. It was hard in the winter because this corner is really drafty and I would have to bundle up and wear a glove on my right hand that was working the mouse because it would freeze up!!

Well,

that's it for now! I hope you enjoyed this challenge!!!

Challenge #4-Portraits

We recently took a little vacation to Jellystone Park in Wisconsin and we were able to take a little hayride with Yogi bear.

Michael and Ryan were the first ones in line to sit next to Yogi.








Here's my dad blowing out his birthday candles in June.


















Here's Ryan snuggling with his daddy.

















Michael enjoying an ice pop at a pool party.

















This is Maggie. She is a Great Dane and she belongs to one of the doctors that I work with. I was playing with photoshop to come up with this image.


















Here's my little neighbor Frankie. He's a year old and his feet were in the first challenge! Here he is just starting to think about walking. Now he's practically running all over the place!
















This is Auggee. I've been taking portraits of Auggee every few months since he was small. Here he is about 8 months old. His mom wanted some pictures to make a graduation announcement when he graduated obedience class :)













Here's my self portrait. My least favorite and most challenging photo to take. Thank god for photo shop!
















Thanks for looking!

Photo Challenge 3 - Landscapes

This weeks photo challenge is Landscapes. The subjects are rural scenes, urban scenes and a photo you could put in a tourist guide for my region. The bonus shot is a statue. So... I'll start out with my worst photo. I had high expectations for this one but it didn't turn out the way I thought it would. Oh well. I will post it anyway and see if anyone has any suggestions.

I thought I could take a landscape picture at dusk when the fireflies were out. Same concept as the fireworks basically. I set the camera on a tripod and did a timed exposure. This on is 15 seconds. I thought I would able to get all sorts of firefly streaks across the picture but if you look at this picture, there is one streak on the left side of the picture. I believe if I made the exposure any longer it would be over exposed. This picture looks like day light!


My big plans to get a shot of fireflies looking like fireworks obviously did not work out the way I wanted it too! Maybe that's why I haven't seen many firefly pictures!

I then took another rural type shot. This one I think could be in a tourist guide for my area. This is Round Lake.









Here is my urban shot. This is my favorite! Talk about being in the right place at the right time!!!
Luckily I wasn't driving and I had my camera with me! I kept trying to get this anvil cloud and I would have to wait for a clearing while we were driving along. I have several shots of it but this one was the best since I just happened to get Medieval Times there in the distance! That was just plain luck!!! I would have to say this could go in a tourist guide too since Medieval Times isn't everywhere!


My family has gone to a couple of Flyers baseball games in the past month so I took this shot. The Flyers are a minor baseball team. I don't currently live in Schaumburg but it's where I grew up. This field is only about 2 miles from my parents house. I think this shot along with the Medieval Times shot could go in a tourists guide for Schaumburg!





Bonus:
Here's the statue that's right outside Alexian Field.
It's the only statue I remember seeing since the challenge began. I'm not sure if he has a name.

Tips?? All I can think of is the rule of 3rds with landscape scenes. Also that it is very difficult to take photos of a field of fireflies!! Especially when I was being swarmed by mosquitos!!!

Photo Challenge #2

This weeks challenge is close up photography. This is actually my favorite style. Our subjects this week are nature (also my favorite), water and patriotic. For this I want my subject to be in sharp focus with a blurry background so there are no distractions. A tip is to take as many pictures as possible! Just keep shooting! Especially moving targets. Don't stop to check the pictures. Even though it looks good on the screen doesn't mean it came out sharp!

Nature:

This picture was actually taken out my back window. I noticed the dragonfly so I went and grabbed my camera.

Tip:
Always keep you camera handy!!!







This shot was taken in our tree out in the front yard. We have goldfinches all over! I love taking pictures of them whenever I can!










Patriotic:


My neighbor, who is in the Navy, just put up a beautiful flagpole. I thought it would be perfect for my patriotic shot!





















It is common to plant red, white and blue "purple" petunias to
celebrate the 4th of July!














Water:


This is a geranium right after watering the flower beds.












This shot was just taken the other morning. I still hadn't gotten a second water shot but I woke up and found that the back door had water spots with the storm clouds in the distance so I grabbed the camera. The trick was focusing on just the water droplets! That was a challenge!!





Bonus: Fireworks




This shot was actually taken a couple of years ago. I didn't get a chance to take firework shots this years so I posted this one. It's actually my all time favorite shot.

Tip: I played around with the exposure at the time. Make sure to use a tripod and the delay. I had my camera set on a 2 second delay and I timed it to push the button as soon as I heard the firework deploy. If I remember correctly I think it was a one second exposure.









Here's another one I picked. I have hundreds of firework pics but some just stand out more than others!



Thanks for looking!!!

Photo Challenge #1-Composition

Here are my pictures for photo challenge #1. This was a challenge for me because it really made me think about what I was going to shoot. While shooting I had to be aware of everything visible in the shot.

Feet:














I thought feet was the easiest to shoot. I was done with these shots first but I think they ended up being my least creative and interesting even though they are cute! The first one is my little neighbor Frankie. He is just starting to walk but outside he crawls because he can get around faster that way. You can tell by the way his toes are curling that he is after something!
The next one is Henry the guinea pig. When he relaxing he lays on one side and sticks his back foot out. It's really cute!




















Tea:

Now I thought tea was the most challenging subject for me. I don't even drink tea. I did find a coworkers tea stained cup and thought it would be an interesting shot.
















The second shot I took some tea (from work) and scattered them. To make the picture more interesting I converted it to "colored pencil"









Music:

I had fun with music. I've always loved the way CD's flashed in the sunlight so that's how I came up with this one.



















We haven't had our piggy Henry very long now but I have thought about making a black and white scrapbook of him when I first got him. Henry on a piano, checkers board, black and white tiled floor, etc. This picture came to mind right away for music and now I have my first picture for my scrapbook!! Henry liked making piggy music!