Final Day: Colour Challenge Blue

This picture didn't end up the way I had in mind, but I think I like it better!

This almost accomplished by accident what I was trying to do with the pushpin, of fore- and backgrounds out of focus, and something else sharp. But what I really like about this one is the ridges of shadow. They add so much depth to the table cloth.

Colour Challenge Blue - not-quite-successful

Here's an image that didn't quite work as planned. Because as I've mentioned before, you can learn a lot from failures.

The intention here was to have the blue pushpin in focus, and the fore- and backgrounds out of focus. Well, the foreground actually is out of focus, which is a success, but the background is sharper than the pin, so that didn't go quite right. I was using the manual focus option on my not-DSLR camera, so it's not as precise as true manual focus. Plus, I was actually shooting up the side of a wall, so the positioning of me and the camera were also working against me. I still like the idea though, and I will continue to work on using the manual focus to get exactly the look I'm trying for - this is closer than I would have come letting the camera look after the focus.

Continuation of Challenge Blue

A friend of mine often comes with me if I'm doing a photo challenge over a lunch hour. I definitely enjoy the company and the help finding appropriate subjects! She spotted this gem.

Taking this picture actually had an added dimension of difficulty - the fish tank is part of a wall that divides the children's library from the entrace to the main library. I felt the need to try very hard to ensure there were no children in the shot, behind the glass, in addition to hopefully getting the fish in focus - and I succeeded! He almost looks like he's staring out at the camera. I've seen plenty of blue-tinted fish before, but this guy really stands out. I may go over there before the library opens one day (so no risk of appearing creepy!) and see what other shots I can get of the fish - maybe using colour accent to really make a fish or a plant stand out.

Second day of Challenge Blue

A friend spotted this one for me.

This is actually the same friend who picked the colour for this challenge. I walked up to her and said "Pick a colour!" "Blue! ... Why?" I knew she'd answer first and ask why second, which is what I wanted. I'm just glad she didn't say puce or something equally difficult to find.

There is an incredible amount of blue and blue-grey in this stairwell, so there were quite a few options of what to do. However, since I was at work I couldn't spend TOO long goofing around with angles and such. This is another picture that I may play with cropping and such once I have my proper computer back up and running. or I might just go back and try taking more pictures on a lunch break one day.

The blue challenge

Part of my challenge with this blog is to stretch myself in to looking at the world in different ways. Therefore, my next challenge was a colour - blue!

For this picture I used a Scene setting on the camera called "Color Accent". It picks out a specific colour I choose, and the rest is done in greys. It really makes the one colour pop! It's a fun little feature to play with, although I can see getting a lot of "failed" pictures if you used it for too many things.

Before the snow

I took this one before the snow fell. It was a bit of a random shot as I was walking home from... somewhere or other. I looked down, and there was this neat-looking spread of leaves, so I clicked!

I think it looks neater the larger it is, so feel free to click on the picture to see a bigger version of it. I think it might look better with some cropping - maybe I'll give that a try later and edit this post to add a second version.

Snowfall

The snow accumulates and hangs off our eaves trough in very strange ways.

This was taken from below, and on the left is the bottom of the eaves trough (dark) and a bit of the roof (light). On the right is actually sky - it was full dark by the time I went out to take pictures, which I think works really well to contrast the snow. Some shots I took the next day, during the daylight, are much less clear because there is just too much light reflecting off the snow. A few shadows are good! I like how this image captured the lumps and bumps that formed as the snow accumulated, as well as the striations horizontally.

Silly camera

Strange things can happen when you let the camera make decisions for you. Part of this week's challenge was "favourite colour". Okay, well, it's my fave, so I have several items in that colour. My initial idea was to make some sort of colour block collage... but this occurrence side-tracked me. This is the clipboard I started with:

But since I didn't really want the ugly orange couch, the carpet, etc, in the picture, I figured I would just zoom in to a solid block of colour - simpler than cropping - but not!!

I'm not certain if the problem was that I was blocking the light, or if it was just that zooming in on a solid block  of colour overly removed the context so the camera no longer had any idea how to process what it was seeing. The texture of the clipboard is essentially in focus, so that wasn't the problem. I'm not sure what was going on! But the outcome was neat, and an important lesson came out of it - pay attention to the colours the camera is showing you! If they aren't accurate, you may need to monkey with a few things to trick the camera in to seeing things properly.

sunrise

In my opinion, daylight savings is only good for one thing. It robs me of sunlight after work, and still leaves me with none in the morning. Wait, that's not good at all... okay, it's useless. However, the shift did mean that I caught the first part of the sunrise while on my way to work this morning!

This was taken with a very basic point and shoot. I did set it to "sunset", in order to capture those rich sunrise colours - otherwise, it can look very washed out. I also cropped the picture a bit to clean out the cars and lightpoles, but I didn't alter the image in any other way. I know I've shared sunrise pictures before, but I find the colours just so stunning that I don't think it hurts to do it again. I really like the ripples in the clouds.

Things I would change: Well, if I wasn't running for a bus, I would have walked over a block to get past the power lines, although the black silhouette they make is kind of neat.

Something old

Another of the 30 day challenges was to capture something old. I have a lovely cabinet that fits the bill, but since I'm trying to stretch my mind when it comes to how to portray something, I decided against just taking a picture of it against the wall. Instead, I took several pictures of different details on the cabinet.

 

The cabinet has a key that opens several doors and such. It's a simple key, but I've always loved it's old style. Since the key is at least as old as the cabinet, it qualifies as "something old" all by itself, but I think this image gives it some context, in an unusual way. This is looking down the cabinet, towards the floor. I'm pleased that the key came out perfectly in focus, and that all the background is blurred - that was the intention, and it's always nice when plans pan out.

late day

Very late today, however, it's still Sunday, so it still meets the requirement!

One of the 30 day challenges I assigned was a bird. Here are two pictures of the guy I caught!

I honestly thought I had missed this guy completely. I looked up, and 2 mapgies were coming straight at me between the houses. This picture is not cropped, that's really how close I came to missing him. However, since catching a bird in motion has been a real challenge for me, I'm still quite pleased with the picture, because he's not just a blurry smudge, he's actually fairly clear.

And here's a nice picture of where he landed. As I've said before, I love the contrast between the bare branches and a bright blue sky, and with that fluffed up magpie, I really like this picture. I did try to get around more to the front of him, but he flew away in short order. The challenge of trying to capture uncooperative wildlife!

Cannot choose

I admit it, I can't choose which of these two I like better! This strange cat, instead of running off when it saw me, actually kept walking closer. Not quite straight towards me, but sort of parallel to where I would have been going, if I'd kept walking.

Technically, I think this is a better picture. Despite the fact that it breaks the rule of thirds, I like the composition of it. The cat's in focus, but he's further away and had his eyes closed (although that's interesting in and of itself.)

In this one, the cat takes up more of the shot. His face is focused, but his back end is a little blurred. I also like the background much less on this one. He has very striking blue eyes, although in this picture he looks cross-eyed.

New 30 day

Life and my computer have gone haywire, so I am once again behind on the "daily" aspect of this blog!

I'm going to try a new 30 day photo challenge. I will not post them all, because some just won't be that interesting (or good!) but I like this particular one. Day one: pretty pattern. I wanted to avoid what was (for me) the obvious and choosing a fabric for it's pattern. So on my day off, with the weather being cooperative and moderate, the camera and I went for a long walk.

There's actually two patterns here. One is in each individual pane of glass, and the second is the cross itself, formed of different panes that the surrounding ones. I love how simple and understated this is. The designer clearly didn't feel the need for this cross to scream out it's presence, but it's still easily seen and obvious. Two, very pretty, patterns.

So many levels of wrong

I'm posting this one in order to make myself list everything that is wrong with it, in the hopes that that will drill the mistakes in to my head so I won't repeat them.

Too dark: this was caused by me not checking a couple of different settings - one, it was on -1 in whatever that setting is called that allows you to darken or brighten a picture as you take it. Two, I wasn't using my now-regular camera, so I didn't think to check the flash and it went off. Three, my bf used this camera last, and it was still on a program mode that let him preset several settings - to things that were conducive to his needs, not to my mall shot.

Too far away: this could be fixed by a simple crop, or I could have used the zoom that the camera is equipped with. The first solution is an acceptable one, as you can crop things out, but you can't put them in if you never took them.

So a few successes, partial successes, and an epic failure mark the end of this foray in to people photography for me. I'm not sure what's coming up next, but I'll figure something out!

Watching a watcher

I'm sure a philosopher could come up with something very "meta" about this, me watching a man watching a cat. I wonder how long he sat there, because I found it cool but not cold, however he was quite bundled up.

Caught!

 So I'm snapping a couple of shots across the square of these two kids. The one on the right was doing something with her cell, the one on the left seemed to be playing with a loose string on his sleeve, or something equally exciting. then the girl leaned over and...

I got a great shot! Perfect timing, although that was basically a fluke. You can't see his face at all, but when I zoomed in, she's got this little smile... very sweet.

If I were to do it over...I'm not sure what I'd change. It's a bit on an angle, but I think it works - almost makes it look like she's falling in to him. The lighting is good. Bright enough, but no flares. And since I can't move them away from the garbage can, I think this one I'd keep as is.

A little windblown

I don't know what it was about this woman that spoke to me, but the photo still has it.

The screen on my camera decided to give me a gift and start working again, so I was able to take this with the camera hanging around my neck rather than up to my face. That means it's more on the level she was sitting at, rather than looking down at her, and I definitely like that.

If I were to do it again, I would put her to the left of the photo, to capture more of her shadow. The rule of thirds is proving to be one of the hardest things for me to get a hang of! (And I'm trying not to cheat by cropping these photos in to "perfection" - or something like it. Maybe later I'll explore what I can do with photo editing by comparing before and after photos.)

Basking in the sun

What a gorgeous fall day. Hard to believe this kind of mild weather is coming in Alberta, in November. We may as well take advantage of it while we can, photographer and (unknowing) subject alike!

This lady looked so relaxed, so peaceful enjoying the sun. I did take a closer version, but it had more power with the context provided by the building.

If I were to do it over, I would try moving directly in front of her. I'm not certain I would like that better, but I'd like to compare. I would also not put her in the center of the photo, maybe more towards the bottom, bottom-right.

A new series - People!

I asked my friend the other day for some ideas for a theme I could use when I went out to take pictures that lunch. She came up with several great ideas I was tossing around (and will keep for later), and then she gave me one that made my blood run cold.

People.

Normally, I resist taking photos of people, because I'm very afraid that people will think I'm a creepy stalker. I also have a wonderful tendency to catch them with funny looks on their faces, or strange background objects.

Therefore, this seemed like the perfect challenge for me. Something to push me out of my comfort zone. So over the next few days, I hope you enjoy my forays in to stalker-dom, as I try to capture some pictures of people.

The first shot I'm posting is not actually the first one I took. The rest of the person is actually sitting in a little alcove, but from the angle, you can't see that. What you do see is the reflection of his legs, making it look almost like there are just 2 pairs of legs, from the knees down, lying on the floor.

There were tricky lighting issues because of the windows, which was probably good - my instinct had been to go full zoom and stay far away. But the picture was terrible. So it forced me to get closer to a subject who wouldn't even know I was there, and likely wouldn't care (since he is completely unidentifiable.)

If I were to do it over, I would step slightly to the left so as not to cut off the toes in the reflection. And I would try taking the picture from the other end of the hall, by the red planter, for comparison.

In between time

Tomorrow I plan to start a new theme of pictures, but in the mean time, here's a "blast from the past" - a photo I took in Spring 2008.

This was taken in May, and look how extensive the flowers were already! This sight was everywhere, these beautiful flowers climbing up old walls, snaking around windows and doors. Gorgeous.

A different kind of subject for colours

Colours of fall don't only exist outdoors, they also show up in glorious fashion indoors - particularly in the kinds of foods we eat in the fall.

This weekend I made a wonderful chili - but capturing it "on film" was very hard! Daylight was gone, so I tried a variety of ways to transmit those rich colours in to a photograph - red from the tomatoes, beans and red pepper, yellow corn, orange pepper, and black beans. Tasty fall harvest colours!

In the end, this was taken using a manual white balance setting for "tungsten" lights, as that seemed to do the best job of compensating for the lighting. Other attempts turned the whole thing a rather unhealthy red, or else unappetizingly grey. I still don't think I quite got it, and I may try again if I get home while there's still enough natural light.

Fall? Really?

Honestly, this IS a fall picture! I took it on the same day as all the leaves, and even as yesterday's pictures of the scarecrow and pumpkins.

I'm not bothered in the least that this lovely rose didn't quite get the message that fall is here and it's time to stop blooming. Unfortunately, the petals are so pale and it was so bright out, that if I didn't use my body to cast shade on the rose, it was completely whited out. There was a lovely bush in behind it that had turned completely red, that I wanted to contrast it with. However, it wasn't to be!

Images of Fall

These two are from the same house, but they were a little set apart so I did two pictures instead of trying to fit it all in to one.

I'm impressed that I managed to take both pictures on a slight angle - how foolish! I shouldn't be making that kind of mistake any more. I'll blame it on the fact that I was standing in the middle of the road. Overall, not great pictures, but I still like the subject. Cheery and seasonal. Very nice!