Faces
The irises at the end of my building have begun to bloom. Sadly, they never stay around very long, but I enjoy them while they’re here and try to get some nice photos of them. Irises are not my favorite flower – that would be tulips – but they are pretty and I enjoy taking photos of them.
I was out the other day taking photos when I suddenly noticed a fun little “oddity” in one of the ones I was photographing. It was, at least to me, somewhat amusing. I could see “faces” in the flower. At first I thought it was a trick of the light, but I took several photos and decided I was seeing faces and it was not a trick of the light. I guess these kinds of things are in the eye of the beholder because some people I have shown the photos to are not able to see the “faces”. You tell me. I have the faces in this photo pointed out with an arrow.
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Simple
Sometimes we try too hard to get the “perfect” picture. Focus, center, objective, lighting, exposure; it gets complicated. Occasionally the shot is lost. Sometimes, though, the “perfect” picture is the simple one. I have taken some really nice photos since I got back on my feet, but I think my favorite one is the one below, expressly because it IS simple. And that’s all I’m saying about that.
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Spooky Nature
Once again, it’s that time of year where pumpkins are carved up and placed on front stoops, hay bails and scarecrows decorate the lawns as well as spooky characters from witches, black cats to ghosts. And, of course, the scariest of all: parents and adults dressed up!
Occasionally, however, Mother Nature surprises us with a “spooky” character of her own. Such was the case for me last weekend as I was out visiting a “new to me” park near my apartment. Since I am not much of a people or event photographer, I’m always looking for “different” things in nature to photograph. I had just finished taking some photos of a bird when I turned around to leave and had a creepy feeling I was being watched from somewhere near to where I was standing. Looking around I was alone; no other soul in the park that I could see. And then, I looked up, and there it was. No, not a squirrel, or possum, or bird or snake – nothing in the animal family. No, it was like something from a children’s play had wandered in and settled down and it fixed on me. And I just had to laugh.
You are being watched!
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One of those “funny” photos
Once in a blue moon you’ll go out to take photos and as you take them you catch a quick look and all looks fine. All excited you get home to upload them to your computer and see what they really look like. And there it is. You know what you took, and it is indeed that photo, but there is just the way it turned out, which isn’t what you saw in that quick glance. Sure, it’s that object, but with a twist.
This is what happened with a photo I took several days ago. There was a pretty iris next to my apartment building. Well, yes, it was pretty, but it also wasn’t dynamic. This poor solitary iris had to work to even look like a flower. It was droopy and in need of watering and apparently the sprinkler right there wasn’t doing the greatest of jobs, so the flower was struggling. I really wanted a photo of it, but, bad me, not in that sad looking condition. I waited. And then, it started looking better, so I grabbed up my camera and went out to take a couple of dozen photos from different angles. Along the way I glanced at some of the ones I took, but it wasn’t until I uploaded them to my computer that I saw it. I guess this photo could fall into the “caption this” category. I think it has become one of my favorite “funny” photos.
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Short Update
It’s been a slow, warm Summer for me. That basically means that I haven’t taken very many photos. But, I have taken some, mostly of the irises and day lilies that are in a little garden close to my apartment building. I would say they aren’t the best photos I have taken, but they are certainly not the worst, either. I wish I had a macro lens so that I could take close-ups of flowers, something I really enjoyed doing with my Canon PowerShot Pro 1 camera. But, right now, it wouldn’t matter much because it’s been breezy, which means flowers sway back and forth and capturing them in closeup is like trying to catch a rambunctious puppy: next to impossible.
However, I’ve never been the best flower photographer, so this is good practice for me. My ex-wife takes beautiful flower photos and I am envious of her abilities. Her success, though, makes me a better photographer because I try to emulate what she does while keeping with my own style. There is nothing wrong with making comparisons and then trying to emulate photos of someone you admire. There is no competition, but it makes you a better photographer, at least in my opinion.
I am looking forward to the weeks and months ahead and getting back into the swing of photography on a regular basis. For now I am just concentrating on getting my strength back. Believe it or not, holding a camera requires back muscles that you never notice until they’re cut or strained.
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Posting
It’s been a while since I last posted. There are a few reasons.
One, I had back surgery last November, and that put me off my feet for four months while I was learning to walk again. Only had my phone because rehab isn’t a place you want to keep a good camera and I certainly didn’t want to lose mine. While I can carry my camera now, it does take a lot out of me. Heck, just walking takes a lot out of me! I have taken some photos since I got out in March, but have yet to download them to my drive. Yeah, I’m slow.
Two, once again I have moved. Hopefully it’s something I won’t have to do for a while now. I really love my new apartment, but it has taken me far from my usual “haunts” of the State Park and Fort Worth Botanical Gardens. So, while I am again driving, those two places take driving to a considerable time. And, because of my back, unpacking is taking time because I can’t bend over a lot or like I used to, I can’t really carry anything heavy [not that I have a lot that is heavy], and I have chosen to unpack alone. It’s a personal thing. It means that unpacking is S L O W, and I have to rest a lot. This means I’m usually not physically up to taking any photos because I am basically still weak despite really wanting to be out with my camera. Just not happening right now.
Once I recover sufficiently and have a bit more time, I will be able to post more. Until then keep taking those photos!
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When a bad photo looks good
I have finally come to believe that not every photo has to be perfect, sharp, completely well framed, etc. Sometimes the “misses” can turn out quite interesting.
I went to a Marina over the weekend, late in the afternoon, to take photos of the ducks there. Lots of ducks, lots of people feeding ducks, lots of duck photos. Well, not really lots of photos. It was getting dark and I don’t really care for flash photography; I do it when needed. But, anyway……
For the most part I don’t really look at my playback screen, although sometimes I do because I know that a photo I have just taken has turned out badly and I will delete it, especially if I have little idea of what it was because of blur. That day was no different.
So, I got home, uploaded the photos to my external hard drive, and started going through them. And there it was. A bad photo that was actually cool looking. I had tried to take a closeup of one of the mallard’s head, but just as I hit the shutter button, he turned his bill down. The result looks a bit psychedelic but I think it turned out rather interesting.
What I learned is that you should always take a second look at some of the photos you are thinking of deleting. They could actually be really neat and give you ideas about other “bad” photos and you don’t necessarily need to edit them, either.
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Poking around
I’m like most people – I rarely read the instructions unless I can’t figure something out or can’t find what I’m looking for. That includes how to do things on my camera. Never mind the fact I’ve moved twice in the last two years and the instructions for the camera are “somewhere”, just not where I can find them right now. And that’s not unusual for the moment, either.
While on vacation, I was bored one evening and decided to check out some of the features of my camera that were on a menu that I had only seen but never opened. Ooooo, looky, things to play with! A while back I mentioned to a friend that I was disappointed that on a digital camera there wasn’t anyway to do a “double exposure” like you could on a 35mm, where you could set the shutter but not advance the film. [A cousin of mine who was a professional photographer had taught me about that nearly 40 years ago and it was something I used from time to time.] But, there it was! Overlay. The only drawback is that it could only be done in RAW and not JPEG and I have seldom shot in RAW. Well, not to worry because I could shoot in RAW+JPEG and still use Overlay. I tried a couple of test shots and found it not too bad, but wanted to explore this in more depth later on. So, then I moved on to something else – a coloring effect. Ah, now THAT was fun, and opened up some interesting possibilities.
The other evening I went down to the Park to take some sunset photos, but wasn’t really happy with the results. First, I got there almost too late and felt rushed instead of picking my place for shooting and being relaxed. Photos taken in a hurry show that they were taken in a hurry. So, while I wasn’t real happy with the photos, it did give me a chance to play with the Retouch setting on my camera.
Here is the photo as I took it:
Sunset1
And here is the retouched [in camera] photo:
Sunset1 retouched
As you can tell there is a stark difference between the two, yet all I did in the retouch was adjust some of the colors to give it a greener “alien” kind of view. I seldom do any retouching of my photos, before or after, beyond cropping or resizing for email or to post here. On a personal level I prefer the bottom photo but then, I really like green and blue because those are the colors I can see the best. [I love being a color-blind photographer.] I will admit, however, that before I made any in camera adjustments I downloaded the photos to my drive, and then reinserted my card and did the retouch. Since I had never done anything like this before I wanted to make sure I did not lose any photos and I wasn’t sure how the retouch would affect the photos and end result saving.
So, always check out your camera for those “hidden” effects you can make and/or utilize. I have a number of post-shot effects to check out and will be doing so. These just open the possibilities of your photo taking experiences and helps you to enjoy photography a bit more.
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Back to my favorite “haunt”
I finally scraped together enough money so that I could purchase a Texas State Park Pass, allowing me to spend time at one of my favorite “haunts”: Cedar Hill State Park. There is a pond there that I enjoy going to and it’s there I take a lot of photos. Such was the case last Saturday late afternoon. Although in the upper 90’s, I barely noticed the heat, concentrating on and enjoying my photographic attempts. It was heaven. The photos in the previous post were taken that day. That day garnered me several wonderful photos. I had almost forgotten how much I enjoyed being behind my camera. For me, everything around me is shut out; it’s almost as though I have walked into the photo and all that is there is the subject and myself, yet everything is so alive in a surreal kind of way.
Now that it is September, I can’t wait for cooler weather, rain, and the leaves to change. It has been a very hot Summer here in Texas, and I haven’t been able to get out and take photos like I would have liked. Somehow sweat dripping from my brow into my eyes doesn’t make for easy photo taking, no matter how much I would wipe it away. Sweat, not the photos. Honestly, though, I don’t “do” heat well, but I sure know how to sweat – and sweat and sweat and sweat to the point that within five minutes my clothes look as though I put them on straight out of the washing machine. Cooler weather, cold weather are okay, but freezing weather, well, as I get older freezing weather is becoming much like Summer heat. That leaves me Spring and Fall, and part of Winter. I am not complaining.
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Another Man’s Flower…
… could just be a thistle.
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