My First “You Capture” Entry

So, I did tell y’all one of the reasons for this new blog was to highlight my journey toward becoming a better photographer, right?

One of the best ways to make sure I do that is to take on assignments. Not paid assignments, unfortunately, creative assignments. Those assignments come by way of Beth at I Should Be Folding Laundry. who came up with the cool idea of You Capture, a weekly photo challenge for her followers.

I’m new to this challenge and was slightly confused until today when the proverbial lightbulb went off in my brain. I am not going to share the details as to why I was confused.

Anyway, this week’s theme is Love Around Your Home, which can be interpreted pretty loosely. It’s art, right? Since I was confused, I did not take any pictures for this specific challenge, so I’ll be sharing some recent photos I have taken around one of our homes that I love…

Yes, it’s a repeat from a recent blog post, but I LOVE this picture. And my three dogs. 🙂

The image shown above was taken this past weekend at the WV place. I have always been fascinated by the various colors and textures that appear in our world naturally.

These are just weeds sticking out of the snow. It’s from this past weekend, too. I was actually stooped down, petting K, when this caught my eye. I like the lines in the shot. I love that I can use the presets in Photoshop Elements to convert color images like one into a black and white image with all the right levels.

I know this image probably will not win any photographic awards, but I love the way K sits on the steps (butt on one step, front feet on lower step), and this image captures it perfectly. Although it’s funnier from the front.

Finally, I love the way the sky has been looking lately. The colors have just been phenomenal. They don’t last long, though, because the angle of the sun has to be just right.

The last two pictures are SOOC shots. All I did with Elements was convert them from RAW and re-size them. No color or lighting tweaks at all, which means I am starting to get the hang of this aperture and shutter speed thing.

These two pictures are perfect examples of that sun angle thing. The image above, as the caption says, was taken shortly after sunrise. The picture below was shot just before sunset.

I hope you enjoyed my first You Capture post. Next week’s theme is Color. Be sure to let me know what you think of these images.