angles

Well, I posted two pictures last night, but I thought they were pretty lame so I tried again...not really happy with these either. I did enjoy the challenge though of trying to look at this plant at all possible angles....oh, except I didn't climb on top of something and look down at it. I will have to try that later. My orginal plan was to take a picture of just a single water droplet like I have seen in other photos, but my lense won't get close enough...even with a mulitplier. I will have to do some more research on that.

Here are a few pictures that I have taken over the past week. I am tying to get close-up shots of the kid's hands, feet, ears, and things like that. I'm going to try some more as soon as Nathan comes home with my camera. He went to AZ and took the camera with him. I am having serious withdrawal issues! :) The next best thing is to edit pictures I guess.

Lights

I was messing around the other night with lights. I just thought this one was odd.

Anyways, I was reading something about macro lenses (I want to take more water pictures), and I ran across something that made me laugh. I went out with Rebecca to take those pictures of Seattle at night. My pictures didn't turn out because I didn't have a shutter release cord or what ever those things are called. All of the pictures had different degrees of blurriness. Then I read that you can always set your camera's timer to take macro stills to avoid the blur. I felt like an idiot! I would have never thought of the timer! So anyone who would like to take pictures that require a tripod and should have little to no shake...use the timer! ;) Just thought I would share that.

I also wanted to take another picture of the moon. I would like to get a picture with the sky blue. Has anyone taken pictures like this? The sky looks blue when I take the picture, but then in the picture itself it is black. If I decrease the shutter speed, it overexposes the moon. The only thing I can think of is to find a full moon out right as the sun is setting. Any ideas?

Chair...Couch?

I don't have chairs...well, besides the ugly fold up kind so I used the couch. Hopefully that counts. We have benches to eat on instead of chairs...anyways! The kids had a few moments before their first day of school so I took some pictures of them on the couch. They are by the window which was not producing very much light. The majority of pictures were very dark and blurry, but a few turned out.

20 ft

Well, I tried out some new things this week. I tried to stay within the rules of this week's challenge. I have really been wanting to practice taking pictures of fire. I was a big time pyro. I tried taking pictures of matches, but that didn't work so I resorted to candles.

I saw a cool picture a few weeks ago of a drop of water. I tried and tried to take a similar shot, but I couldn't quite do it like they did. I do like the water drop pictures, but I haven't figured out how to get rid of the grain. I must have taken nearly 300 pictures to get those three water shots. It was pretty hard to get the drop in focus and the timing right. My poor kids took turns dropping the water out of a dropper! :)

I also tried looking around at things in the house. I had Cameron put on that hat, and then I took some pictures of the chess board.

Seattle Skyline

Well, here are the pictures I took the other night with Rebecca. Unfortunately, I don't have a shutter release cable for my camera, and these were the only ones that "turned out". The are still a bit blurry, but that is the best I could do. I learned that in order to take pictures at such a low shutter speed, I have to have more than just a tripod...need remote! :) It was a blast going and taking these though! Maybe we should all go take night shots sometime. Anyone is more than welcome to use my camera if you don't have Shutter Priority mode.

Too Much Fun!!!

Whether my pictures turn out or not, I can honestly say that I have never had so much fun taking pictures of just stuff! This has really helped me reach out and take pictures of things I wouldn't normally take pictures of.

That yellow picture is of a Kiwi. Maybe it is a bit too close.

I am into making things look old, so I tried to make the baseball picture and the cowboy boot pictures look rustic. I am into film grain these days too. :)

Yellows

I spent quite a while outside the other night trying to get a decent picture of the moon. I had a hard time getting the exposure right.

With the trucks, I was messing with the aperature to see if I could get all the trucks in focus. I have a hard time with that. One is usually in focus while the rest are blurred. I took that one today while I was waiting to take pictures at scout camp.

My Cheating Yellow

This is way cheating, but I was messing around with this picture last night in Photoshop and decided to try and use it for the yellow challenge. I totally cheated by not taking a picture that was actually yellow, but I will try and take a real picture in the next few days. I think Cami looks so funny with the hat and goggles on. :)

Here is the original photo.

Here are a couple of summer fun pictures. Preston's picture was under exposed a lot, but I was trying different croppings with the picture.

Ky just makes me laugh...he looks so silly.

I LOVE taking pictures of Bryce. He is a fun kid to take pictures of.

Blue Eye

This picture almost turned out kind of gross! I can't stare (sp) at it too long. Looks weird to me. :) I did alter the photo a bit in Photoshop. I used a macro lense. That is why I was able to get up so close. That was as close as I could get with the lense I have.

I was getting some pictures ready to print out for some friends of mine that I hadn't seen in a while, and I ran across this picture I had taken last October. I didn't like the picture in color, and I didn't like it in normal B&W. Then just recently, I came across this professional photographer's B&W conversion. He made it into a Photoshop action. Anyways, I decided to try turning this picture B&W using his conversion. There was such a difference! If anyone has Photoshop and would like to try this action out, I can email it to you. Oh, the one on the left if the one using the professional's conversion action, and the one on the right is the normal B&W conversion that Photoshop does. I also added a little bit of a sepia look to the picture.

Here is one blue picture I guess. I tried taking a picture of the lightning, but it is very hard to know when it is going to strike. So I would just push the button and hope there would be lightning! :) I think this will have to do for my blue picture. I have been trying to take a picture of just my son's blue eyeball, but so far I haven't gotten it to work.

Glasses

Just a funny little candid picture I took of my daughter. She loves those Mr. Potato Head glasses! Thought I would share it because I thought you might get a little chuckle out of it. :)

Red Fireworks

Well, here is my red picture. I wish that I could have zoomed out a little bit, but that was all I could do with the lense I had. :)

Well, I still haven't found that "red" picture yet, but I have a few ideas after seeing everyone else's. I did take an action shot this week that I thought was fun. My kids really enjoy playing in the water so I took a bunch of pictures of them jumping over "Mount Tiki Soakie" or whatever it is called. Here is a picture of Ky. Hopefully, I will come up with something red soon. :)

Braedon loves Buzz Lightyear, and he loves to wear pajamas. So I took a picture of him with his Buzz Lightyear in his matching Buzz Lightyear pajamas. I don't like that the couch is in the background of the picture, but I don't think I can take it out. :) The lightsource is our large window. I enhanced the colors in Photoshop, but I couldn't get that orange out of his hair with my usual methods. I decided to be lazy and just leave it there. Most of my pictures have a very orange tint to them. I will have to figure out how to get rid of it. I might have to start getting into the habit of setting the white balance manually before I take any pictures.

Here is a picture of Cameron. I took this on top of the kid's bunkbed where she isn't supposed to be. So the light source was the lamp in the room. It is pretty grainy, but oh well. Not a great picture, but I like the expression on her face. She is looking at Ky.

This is going to have to be my new photo of the week. I don't have a lot of time this week because I am sewing several teddy bears for Ky's class, and I don't sew!!!! It has been hard for me! :) Anyway! I stuck Breadon in front of our window. His face is washed out more than I would like, but I mostly wanted to see how the pastel blues from his shirt would look. I am trying to impove the colors in my pictures.

Blurry

I haven't used "blogger" for very long. Any ideas as to why a few of the pictures look all choppy/lossy when you click on it? Do I need to make sure it is a certain size so it doesn't blow it up for me? I was just wondering if there is a set size for the picture, and if it is too small, will it enlarge it for you. That is the only reason I can think of as to why the pictures are so lossy.