Fall colours

This one I played with a little bit in post-processing.

This scene and therefore the image already had great colours. Late fall gave the gorgeous reds and oranges, and the sun was setting, leaving the pinks on the left. The water was quite still, giving a very beautiful reflection. So, what did I do to this?

First, I cropped it. I actually cut out most of the sunset, because that isn't what I wanted to focus on. Then I added some "warmth" to the picture. It gave the sky a slightly odd cast, but I think it made the rest of the colours pop even more. Third, I increased the saturation a bit, again, just to bring out those gorgeous colours even more.

I love this picture.

Christmas: Poinsettia

Ho ho ho! Time to get in the spirit of the season and enjoy some holiday themed pictures!

I was really quite impressed with how well this came out - because it's a cell phone picture! This is a very pretty Poinsettia. I contemplated stealing it.

Is this a museum?

Not the types of objects you see every day... a real payphone and TWO paper phone books!

I took this picture with my cell phone. It's not a great shot and I was trying to avoid being too obvious to all the people milling around! But I took it anyway and I'm posting it because it's part of my idea to look in all places for photo opportunities. From straight on I think this might be a really neat image, with that brilliantly yellow wall. (Yes, Butterdome.) 

Sunrise

This is NOT the result of post-processing. It really was that spectacular.

Skyfire - Wordless Wednesday

(These are the real colours, not post-processed.)

Winter Berries

I know I've shared something similar before, but I really love the contrast of bright berries on a snowy background. So here's another! This is also from when I was travelling all over the countryside. I took a little break to admire these beautiful berries.

I'm not sure how well my attempts at editing this one worked. In trying to brighten all the details, I think I may have made it a bit grainy or pixelated. I did crop it quite a bit, trying to take in to account some of the things we were told after the last competition. I also tried cloning out a few little dark items from the snow, because they were distracting without contributing anything.

Contrasting colours

More killing time while waiting for people to walk by! I loved the contrasting colours between the pale leaves and the rich berries.

1/50 sec, f/4.0 aperture, ISO 80, 16mm focal length

Wordless Wednesday: Coloured Fire

So many things are wrong with this picture... but the colours are so right!

1/4 sec (with tripod), f/3.5, ISO 200, focal length 10.4mm

Roses are pink, in Alberta

This was taken on the same day as Just buzzzzing along.

Our provincial flower is one of my favourites. There's just something about it that hits a chord with me. In this shot, I love how it's peeking between two fuzzy, out of focus leaves. It looks kind of shy. I also really like the way the pink pops out from among the greens and browns. It really stands out!

0.01 sec exposure, 5.7 aperture, 100mm focal length, 200 ISO

Focus Control

On this particular day, I was working on controlling my focus - my camera has a great ability to put everything in focus, but I want to be able to be more selective.

A brilliantly sunny day, an aperture of f/2.8, and a 5mm focal length (macro) gave me these bright pink flowers in lovely focus, with the conference centre in the back a recognizable but out-of-focus object. I think the shape of the building adds to the picture, without taking the shine away from those beautiful flowers.

On the flip side, here I had fun looking through a tall, grassy plant that is blurred, while the hillside on the opposite side of the river is clear and sharp. Aperture f/4.0, 15.5mm focal length. (Note the horizon isn't actually crooked, the hill just isn't straight. I should have pretended it was and tilted the camera slightly to compensate.)

In both cases I tended to focus on what I wanted to have clear, and then recompose the image to get the shot just how I wanted it. This is a neat trick I learned from my last instructor, and I really like it.

Flowers in Winter

As I've mentioned before, this winter is leaving me uninspired. The best way to deal with it? Ignore it! (Okay, probably not, but it did make for a nice picture in this case.)

What I like: The way the flowers and leaves fill the frame. The bold purple and green that say HERE!

What I don't like: The background is way too over-exposed. Dealing with a dark subject against a bright window with snow reflecting the light like crazy led to a lot of trickiness. Either the flowers were too dark or the background was too bright. Obviously, I preferred the latter outcome to the former, since this is the picture you are seeing.

1/60 sec Exposure, aperture 4.0, 800 ISO, 0 exposure bias, auto white balance. (Yes, I've changed the order of these to reflect the order they show up in Flickr. It's just easier that way.)

Video cards, part 2

Day 2 brings us a fabulous red card! A brilliant background for contrast. I did use a tripod, but in an effort to allow in as much light as possible, it turns out I was on a bit of an unfortunate angle.

I knew in the drawer of treasures would be cards of all colours, and I was not disappointed! With this one, the white lines around the silver solder are strongest, but the paler red lines on the dark red of the card itself are also fascinating. I still can't decide whether cropping would have made it more powerful, or taken away the magic... So, you tell me! Here are 2 very different crops. Which of the 3 images do you like best?

I need a stronger macro lens. This should be sharper. That issue aside...

This wasn't the center of the original photo, so it's not perfectly focused. But it's still a very cool image!

Auto white balance, 0 exposure bias, ISO 800, aperture 2.8 and 1/25 exposure length, no flash.

Disappearing act

Whoops, sorry for disappearing for a few days!

This came from the same set up as the last picture with the green bubble wrap.

The background is neutral, it's just the wall. What I wanted here was to capture the colour diffusing in to the glass. It's just plain tap water and my assistant was dripping in grenadine. It didn't really come out the way I thought it would, so the pictures weren't as neat as I was hoping, but I do still like this one. The bottom of the red is sort of what I had in mind, and I do like the thin string of red towards the water's surface.

Auto white balance, 0 exposure bias, ISO 800, aperture 4.0 and 1/80 exposure length, no flash.

Fill the view

A great little tip I read the other day was to fill the view with whatever it is you're shooting. You don't necessarily need - and often don't want - a lot of other background. So here's a great macro shot that does just that!

I love the way the individual fibres stand out, and how the whole image is just filled with that rich red. Can you guess what this is? That's part of the fun and magic of this type of picture!

One extra for Challenge Blue

I took this picture for Challenge Blue. Initially, it didn't make the cut for pictures to be posted, but I keep coming back to it, because there's just something about it.

To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what it is about this picture that grabs me. Maybe it's something raw about having an emergency button on this "rough" basement wall - yes, it's all painted white, but there are lines for .. power?, cut outs for access doors, and electrical boxes all over the place. Things that would normally be hidden, are acceptable in the tunnels under the city. And then there's this sharp blue - bold, clean, clear that just stands out against all the white. (As it should, for an emergency button!)

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.