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.

March 12, 2006

Dory (Dori?), the little fish with the little memory

And I can so relate to her. Last week, after work, the boyfriend of one of my students was following me home to give me an estimate of some work we need done around the house. I KNEW this guy was following me. I had made a conscious effort at 6 or 7 redlights to not drive through them and leave him stranded. Yet, when I got ready to turn into our general neighborhoon area, I thought to myself, "Why is that guy following me????" I felt like such an idiot and immediately thought of the scene in "Finding Nemo" where Dory offers Marlin her help, then "runs" from him because she doesn't know why he is following her.

I so did not want to take a picture today. :( Sad, but true. But, here it is. The wonderful background is a computer image from a screen saver or something. Shot with a 2 second exposure. ;) (DPC's challenge this week is 2" exposure, I think I'll try to make all my PAD's 2 seconds).

March 11, 2006

Jello on a bed of feathers . ..

Originally shot for the speed challenge at dpc. Unfortunately, it called specifically for green jello (and as you can see, this is red). I was going to hue shift it to green, but it just didn't look right. Plus, I didn't really want to look at this picture on my dpc home page all week. Just don't like it that well. ;)

March 10, 2006

Did I Do That?

He was outside playing basketball with his dad. I was in the van with little sister (who took her first steps today!!!!!!) and snapping pictures. Not sure what he did to elicit this response, but I thought it rather humorous.

:)

March 9, 2006

As I Lay Dying

Based on the book by William Faulkner. Not *planning* on using this in the Literary challenge at dpc, but you never know.

I wanted something contrasty and depressing looking, 'cuz that is how the book is.

March 8, 2006

Can I Use a Calculater?

If my students have asked me once, they've asked me a thousand times. (And no, this isn't for the education challenge at dpc. At least I hope not.)

And I thought the computer keyboard was dirty. ugh. FWIW, this calculater stopped working about the time my son, at around age 2, started playing with it. ;)

PaD for February 26. It is no longer on the front page, and I wanted everyone to see it.

March 7, 2006

Sleeping Prince Charming

March 6, 2006

Bianca from Disney's "The Rescuers"

When I was little, I used to have a bunch of 78s (for those young ones, those are the little records) that read a story to you. When you heard Tinkerbell ring her bell, you turned the page. One of my favorites was from "The Rescuers." The two rescuers were mice named Bianca and Bernard (or as Bianca would say, "Bahnahd, dahling.")

This is a Happy Meal toy from a couple of years back.

Not a high art picture, I understand, but I was wanting something new for my profile picture. Since I am married to Bahnahd, I figured I could portray myself as Bianca. ;)

March 5, 2006

Ahhhh, daily dose of Chocolate

Another kind of chocolate mint. These things were awesome!!! Of course, I had to sample a couple of them while shooting. ;)

This is an outtake from teh "Square Crop" challenge. I will also add that this is the one Bernard thought I should enter. Judging from my score right now, he is probably right. :(

March 4, 2006

Waiting to Ride

We decided to take Travis to see a rodeo. We figured he would like the horses and stuff, and he did. His favorite event was the barrell racing. Why? Because that is when the girls rode. The little guy goes absolutely bonkers about girls. ;)

I enjoy people watching at things like rodeos. There were people there in their Wranglers, western shirts, boots and cowboy hats, and the funny thing is, they didn't dress special to come. That's just how they dress. They also knew the words to every single country song that was played. I had on jeans, a black shirt and tennis shoes and a black leather jacket. I looked out of place. BUT, I was comfortable in that environment. Growing up here, and living here all my life, being a little bit redneck/good ole' boy is just a way of life. (I, however, did not know the words to the country songs, and my son was ready to leave. Country is the one kind of music he absolutely does not like to listen to).

This shot was taken from about 75 yards away with my 200. I had it on 1600 ISO so that I could use a decent shutter speed. Looking at it now, I need a bit more contrast in it. When I used the noise reduction, it softened up the focus and the bw a bit.

Oh yea, this gal was a bullrider. They were stretching and getting ready for the event. While they (the other bullriders) didn't completely ostracize her, you could tell she wasn't really part of the group. I suspect largely because she is a she. I, personally, don't understand why anyone (male or female) wants to crawl on a large animal that doesn't want them there, but they seem to enjoy it. For whatever her reasons are, I hope she gets what she wants and enjoys the ride. All 8 seconds of it. ;)

March 3, 2006

Wallpaper

This was the wallpaper on one section of the wall where Bernard and I stayed this weekend. I thought the texture was cool.

March 2, 2006

Jelly Belly jellybeans

March 1, 2006

Two pictures (well one picture pp two different ways).

I liked the color one because it means SPRING IS COMING!!!!!!!! But, I also wanted to play with bw because this just wasn't a really thrilling shot to begin with.

I really wanted to get "under" the flower and get it truly backlit, but I was not dressed appropriately to be lying on the ground. hahaha. So, I held the camera next to the ground, and without looking through the viewfinder, took the shot. This is cropped just a bit.

(And since someone asked, this is 3/1's picture and 2/28's picture is down there V. I've not missed any days, just made a text only entry. :) )


Flower in Black and White

Flower in Color