March 30, 2006

Ribbon Curled

March 29, 2006

Another yellow idea

March 28, 2006

Digital Art

March 27, 2006

Yellow idea (admittedly not a very good one)

And now my PaD is caught up!!

March 26, 2005

Kristi

Someone still had her ISO set on 1600 (whoops), so I used a lot of neatimage to get rid of the noise. It made it a bit soft, but I thought it worked with her.

March 25, 2006

Charlotte Convention Center

Don't know exactly if it has a purpose. But it hangs down in the middle of the Charlotte Convention Center.

March 24, 2006

From far far away with ISO 1600

Taken with my 70 -200 from about 25 - 30 yards away in a darkened convention center hall. This is actually a crop from a larger image.

March 23, 2006

Father and Son

March 22, 2006

Orange Hairball

The surface this was sitting on was a yucky yellow color. I wanted it white, but couldn't get it to work without washing out the color of the orange. (I was trying to follow dpc's basic rules).

So, I played with the levels, saturation (totally desaturated the yellow), and contrast and brightness a bit. Then, at my husband's suggestion, I inverted the colors to a "negative." I fully expected it to do something, but not what it did. The orange turned back orange and the yellow turned almost white. More contrast adjustments, and I got it close. The other nice effect was that I got some shadows giving it a bit more depth and dimension.

Lite touch of neatimage.

And there you have it.

This is a toy of my son's. It is like a really big koosh ball, only the "fingers" are thicker. It is called a "hairball."

March 21, 2006

I'm Ready for Spring!!!!

March 20, 2006

Water Abstract

The driver's side window of my van . . .

March 19, 2006

An outtake from the 2 second exposure contest. Mine is recognizable, so please, either vote objectively, or don't vote at all! ;)

I gotta stop waiting until the last minute. . .
I laid down to get my daughter to sleep (my children seem to have an aversion to being rocked), and when I woke up it was 25 minutes to midnight. Oops. Quickie set up. Fortunately, I knew exactly what and how I wanted to set it up. Took a few shots. Edited one (this is the result). Wasn't crazy about it. Changed a couple of things. Shot some more. Edited. Submitted. at 11:54.

I like it, but who am I to say? I figure it will be low 4's simply because there is nothing "moving" in it to *show* that it is a two second exposure.

March 18, 2006

Little River in DuPont State Forest between Brevard and Hendersonville, NC (cropped and resized only, no other edits)

March 17, 2006

Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid


Just for the record, I am a UT Volunteers fan, but I don't expect them to go too far in the tournament. My husband is the Carolina fan, and our son, pictured here, claims to be a Duke fan, but was helping his dad out!

March 16, 2006

Today, for your viewing pleasure, three pictures. But only because I didn't want to leave someone out.

I would have posted what I think is going to be my low-key entry, but will wait.



Travis AND Kristiana (who is chewing on my lens cap)

Travis

Kristiana

March 15, 2006

Romance

Trying to get my brain around "low key" photography. I am also wanting to use something besides a person. I thought this was kinda cool. The red gave it a bit of color, and it is back lit with a flashlight. High tech, ya know?

I had to clone out some of the background where the light hit. (Oh yea, it is also a 2 second exposure).

One thing I would like to do with my photography is become more emotive, yet still refine the technical. I think the two together work very well. The downside is that emotive shots make teh photographer vulnerable, and no one likes to feel that way. Hmmm, so it goes.

March 14, 2006

Capturing the Magic Moment

If you see this somewhere else, just move on and pretend you didn't. (IE -- don't vote on it, unless you can be 100% objective about it).

My son, reaching for a lightbulb. Set the camera to bulb mode. Cut the lights off. Son posed, camera fired, manually fired a flash, "painted" the lightbulb to make it brighter, stopped exposure.

Post processing -- Brightness/Contrast adjusted. Converted to greyscale. Colorized it to warm it up a bit. Resized, submitted.

I figure the viewers that "get it" will like it, those that don't won't. :) The point -- As a teacher, there are moments when I can almost see the lightbulb come on. It is indeed almost a magical moment. After struggling to teach a concept to a child that just isn't getting it, then all of a sudden they have the "A-HA" moment, I am almost in tears. It doesn't happen to me often (perhaps because of the quality of my teaching????), but when it does, I wish I could capture it on "film" (or memory card) because it is awesome.

The model is 4 yo travis from Canton. He works for jellybeans. He gets one jellybean for each exposure, then when he gets tired, I double his pay. He got 9 tonight. ;)

Wish this had been advanced editing, and I could have gotten rid of the little light trail on the lightbulb.

March 13, 2006

Flower with raindrops and spiderweb

Wasn't a two second exposure. :) The only chance I had to take pictures today was around 3, and it was simply too bright for a 2" exposure. I tried. I used a ND filter, polarizer, played with aperture, everything.

I am thinking of starting another photo blog called "From the front seat." This may be the first in that series. I am notorious for not getting out of the car to take a picture (actually "as I Lay Dying" from last week would work as well). Sometimes it is because I am lazy, but more often than not it is because I can't -- the kids are in the car, too much traffic, etc. I've gotten some interesting shots from the car.