PAW 3 delayed a bit

Please accept my apologies for not having a "Friends & Family" shot ready for today. The friend who was supposed to fill that slot this week had a death in the family, so I decided that being there for her in whatever way I could was more important. It's been a rough week for her.

But there have been some good things, too. It snowed for the first time (well, that stuck!) last night. And the Bears are going to the SuperBowl! So here you have another photo of behind my house and the almost two inches of snow that fell. I've been playing around with the High Pass filter and different blending modes lately, so this photo is pretty heavily processed. But I wanted to give it a very different feel from the other shot of the backyard.

Tried to go out again today, hoping to catch a picturesque barn at sunset. Sorta failed in the driving mission again. Since moving, Chris and I are still trying to learn some of the back roads. Hopefully we'll get the chance to make another short trip tomorrow. Maybe went a touch overboard on the processing, but the sky was very overcast and blah.

Went out driving with my husband after I got off of work in attempts to get some more "rural" pictures. We didn't see quite what I was looking for, but we did come across several small herds of deer. Hadn't brought my long lens, so this is about as close a view as I can get you.

On saturday morning, my husband and I will begin to chase a dream of ours :-) We have an appointment with a travel agent to start planning a trip to Italy! It's something we've talked about for a couple of years and are finally putting into action. We don't know exact details yet, but we'd like to go for 14-16 days. The plan is to hit Rome (with Pompeii and Herculaneum), Florence, Assisi, Capri, and Sorrento. Then we'd like to hop over to Greece and hit Olympus and Athens.....cause hey, if you're flying across the world, you might as well see as much as you can :-)

Needless to say, the camera will probably be glued to my face for most of the trip. No worries for filling the PAD on those days ;-)

Before we leave in September, I must secure a good wide angle lens suitable for landscapes.

Our turn for dinner

It was our turn to cook dinner tonight, and while preparing the vegtables (to be sauteed) I was attracted to these green pepper seeds. The top of this particular pepper just came off so nicely and all the seeds were still clinging tightly inside. So I got my camera and used my 70-210 macro to snatch a shot.

Dinner was Chicken Breast marinated and baked in Pesto sauce...incredibly yummy and good for us too! Accompanied, of course, by the veggies. First time we tried this recipe and it really worked out well. We're making a second batch of the chicken right now to keep as leftovers for lunch tomorrow.

More Pheasant Feathers

My husband hunts, and he was kind enough to bring me home a pheasant ruff and some feathers from the last time he was out. These birds are so beautiful to me. When I was younger, my Dad and I would drive the motorcycle through a local forest preserve area and count all the different animals we could see. Deer, of course, and hawks. And there were buffalo (farmed) as well. But the pheasants were something that we were particularly proud of being able to spot from the back of a bike. I remember being so amused at the way they ran, almost like our own Midwest version of the Road Runner. Their little brightly colored heads sticking up out of the prairie grass to watch as we passed.

I don't feel as though I've really captured the colors or the texture that is part of what makes these birds so stunning....so I think I'll keep working on that this week. Didn't really do much to set up this shot, so tomorrow I'll try a different lens (shot this with 50mm) like my macro and add some different lights....or any lights really :-)

PAW Week 2

This is my friend Shoshanna :-) She is an AMAZING artist who does work that really touches my spirit. Currently she's challenging herself to do 50 watercolors in 50 days...something I couldn't even conceive of. It seems hard enough just to snap a photo every day--I cannot imagine creating what she does on a daily basis. She's a full-time artist, creating spectacular visions for the rest of us to enjoy. Please, please take the time to visit her site at the link below and see some of her watercolors:


http://www.shoshannabauer.com

*EDIT* Until I figure out how to make a hyperlink work, the above is the site address if you're interested in checking out her watercolors. From there you can also find a link to her prints for sale....amazing work! I'm ordering the Phoenix print as soon as I decide on canvas or watercolor paper.

My weekend

My weekend has been fabulous! Chris (hubby) and I left friday evening for Chicago, with plans to visit my folks and many of our friends who live up there. And it's been a great weekend with lots of laughs and games--plenty of good times. All of which I've documented with my camera!!!

Unfortunately, none of them can I share with you until I get home to Urbana later tonight. Because I left my camera cord at home :-( And my dad shoots Nikon, so that's a no-go with the borrowing. So forgive my apparent lack of photos. I assure you that they've been taken for each of the days and I'll upload them onto my comp tonight when we get back.

For now.....

GO BEARS!!

Saturday

On Saturday Chris and I went to a party with my old roomates :-) There used to be 7 of us all living in a house together.....can you imagine? And we all survived. No hair pulled or boyfriends stolen :-) Anyhow, we only seem to be able to get together about twice a year so it was really nice to see everyone again. This is Matt and Rin...who you'll likely be seeing again sometime soon as they live in the same town as me. But don't they make a cute couple?

Friday

This is my parent's dog, Toby. He's a long haired dauschund. He's very cute and loves to play! Especially likes licking toes.....weird dog :-)

Today I had a photoshoot with another friend who's an artist. She's going to be my PAW for week 2 :-) She's also doing a project of her own--50 paintings in 50 days! I'll put a link up to her artwork on sunday when I post her photo. But for now, here's a taste of her studio....just wait till you see her work!

For some reason or another, one of the things I really enjoy in life is more "old fashioned" writing. I learned calligraphy in 4th grade and still enjoy it. I'm trying to practice learning different scripts and fonts, though it's not always easy going. But to me, there's something special about a bottle of ink and a pen to dip in it. It feels like it gives any written word more weight, more meaning.

So here's my attempt to capture my feather pen & ink.

Random, I know.

There are stories behind these items, though they're not related. And they're even more boring than these pics.

But I told myself this year that I was going to post something EVERY day even if it was mediocre. As a musician I know that sometimes you hit wrong notes, even in performances......as a photographer (even a hobbyist one) it's harder for me to accept that. Doesn't mean it's any less true though.

I'm a SLACKER!

Welcome to my first Slacker photo of the year. Is it a little sad to have a slacker photo up on January 8th? Yeah....maybe. But I worked for nearly 10 hours and then spent the better part of the night trying to figure out exactly what it is I'll need to get the radio transmitter for my lights mounted on my camera. Wanted to make sure I had all that worked out before I place the order for the whole kit & kaboodle.

So my drooling became more important than taking today's picture :-) Shake your heads if you must.

But, despite the extreme volume of slack involved in this photo (including neglecting to change my ISO back to anything remotely reasonable before shooting) there is actually a bit of a connection to my life. Ever since I was ten (so...16 years) I've played the flute. Normally I play your standard every day silver flute. But on a band trip in high school I came across this wooden flute which really kind of captured me. I really enjoy all the different sounds of different kinds of flutes--one of the oldest instruments in the world, you know. Made from a variety of different materials in nearly every region of the world.

Jaime

Let me introduce you to my friend, Jaime :-) She and I met through some mutual friends about a year and a half ago. We've become close friends, and now it seems like I've known her all my life! There are lots of things that I appreciate about Jaime--her loyalty, her silliness, her compassion. All in all, I'm very happy to have had the time to get to know her. So, here she is now, introduced to you. I hope you enjoy her company as much as I do.

My backyard

I was running out of time to get my photo done today! We have plans for a short drive to hang out with a bunch of friends and it looks like it'll be another long night. I wanted to get a nice sunset shot, but the atmospheric conditions apparently didn't agree to much. So, looking out over the backyard and the farm field behind it I decided I'd try to do an HDRI of the shot. Still need a bit of practice with that. People keep suggesting Photomatix, so I might try that out.

But here it is, the scene from my back porch :-)

Games!

Went out tonight to play some board games with friends. I realized all of a sudden that it was a quarter to midnight! Yikes! So this is a photo of the game that we were all playing--Order of the Stick. It's kind of similar to Munchkin in terms of how the game works. It's hysterical because it references so many films, jokes, and other games that we all know.

Sorry to be uploading this one so late, as I know it's technically the next day. But we just got home, so you'll have to cut me a little slack ;-)

By gum, I think she's got it!

I solemnly swear that I won't post anymore water droplet shots for several months!!! :-) But I feel like when I try something new, I want to keep at it until I get the results that I was looking for. So many times when I set out to shoot a photo, I have a specific look or idea in my head. Maybe it's trying to mimic a great image I've seen or simply trying to evoke a particular mood....but I find it hard to move on until I've got something at least close to right!

So thank you for your patience as I've posted several similar shots this week....but I'm very happy with my results tonight. This is pretty darn close to what I was looking for. I think that having some studio strobes would probably be about the only part of the equation that's missing. The added light would allow me to get a better focus, use a better DOF, and reduce my ISO.

Soon. I will have them soon. *I hope!*

Every week my husband and I have dinner with two other couples that we're good friends with. We take turns, rotating who cooks and hosts, and generally a fabulous time is had by all. We've been doing this for about a year now. It's really nice to be able to take the time to make a good homemade meal (maybe even something fancy and new!) and have good conversation with some of our dearest friends. Tonight we both got to sit back and relax as it was someone else's turn to do the cooking!! Of course, I brought my camera and snagged a couple picks for my PAD. The first one is a little more serious than the second one ;-) Though the second features our lovely chef, who will undoubtedly be modeling for my PAW theme! Some from DPC may recognize her as the model for my shot in the Wind challenge. She's awesome :-) But more on her awesomeness later.

Tried the water droplets again tonight. This time I used a different dish--a shallow blue plate, which I think worked much better. It allowed me to shoot without capturing the edge of the baking pan I used last night. I also added one of my halogen lights to the set-up which (I think) is responsible for the clarity of the water. Upped my ISO to 1600, causing some noise that I had to soften with the blur tool.

But all in all, I think it's a better capture than yesterday. Still not *quite* what I was looking for....but better.

Water droplets

I wanted to try my hand at capturing water droplets in stop motion. After doing some reading and searching the house for a turkey baster I apparently don't really have, I decided to give it a shot! The only light came from the light in my bathroom and my on-camera flash. Usually I'm not a big fan of on-camera flash, but in order to get the shutter speeds necessary to stop the motion, I had to make some concessions.

Decently pleased with the results...not "wowed." Unfortunately, there was nowhere to add extra lights in the bathroom I used. I think maybe tomorrow I will try again in another sink that might allow room for my little halogen worklights.