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You Capture – Favorites of 2010

The “assignment” this week was not to take pictures. It was to select our favorite 10 photos of 2010 to share. Taking new pictures would have been SO much easier. Really. As I said the other day, I took more than 10,300 pictures in 2010 with my digital SLR alone (big camera)!

But I did it. Finally. It took quite a bit of time and required a plan. First, I went through lots and lots of pictures and copied my favorites into a separate folder. That was the top 65. From there, I narrowed it down to the top 25. Finally, I was able to narrow it down further to my top 10.

Remember, the theme is my “favorites,” not “my best.” What makes a photo good anyway? Does it always have to be in focus? Nope. Does the light always have to be perfect? Nope. Does your subject have to be looking at the camera? Must his/her entire face be visible? Does your subject need to be centered? Nope, nope, and nope again.

This assignment has already consumed so much of my time that I am just going to shut up and post the darn things already. Okay? Here are my favorite pics of 2010, in no particular order. Don’t even ask me to rank them from one to ten. The mere thought of having to do that has given me the cold sweats…

Go ahead, knock. I triple-dog dare you.

This is definitely my favorite dog pic of the year. I like the reflection of the sunset, but I love the look in their eyes. They are scanning the horizon, anxiously awaiting my return. It doesn’t matter if I am gone for five minutes or five days, the girls are ALWAYS glad to see me when I return. As with many of my favorite images, this one was completely unplanned. I’d actually been outside taking pictures of the sunset. When I turned to go back inside, that is what I saw. I had to tweak the lighting a bit in PS Elements, mostly to get rid of the ever-present nose prints on the glass.

Are They Crazy or What?

This shot makes me smile. Every single time I look at it. I could’ve removed the red eye, but I think that adds to the craziness. These two play like this practically all day, every day. Yes, they really are playing and not trying to bite each other’s face off. You’ll have to use your imagination for the growls. It can be quite entertaining to watch. Sure it gets annoying at times, too, like when I am trying to participate in a teleconference. But I’m so glad all of our dogs are here.

I chose this picture not because it shows off our grandchild. If that were my goal, I’d post a picture of all of them. (In fact, I’m going to cheat here a bit and give you a LINK to my favorite picture that features the grand kids.) My goal here really is to show how “favorite pictures” don’t have to be favorites because of the subject, quality, composition, etc. My favorite images are usually the ones that evoke the strongest/best feelings, reflect a certain mood, capture a particular moment, etc.

A Great Day for Soup

This picture of Joey was shot during the late Spring. Actually, I think it was Memorial Day weekend. We had made all these grand plans to take the kids on a bike ride, but then Joey got sick. I volunteered to stay behind with him while everyone else went riding. He sat for the longest time making “regular soup” with water and rocks in these containers. All I could hear were the sounds of the birds and insects in the forest, Joey’s giggles, his running commentary, and the dogs playing.

Even the weather was perfect. It was one of those moments you just want to freeze in time because it feels really, really good to be alive. When you realize wouldn’t change one single thing about your life, no matter how difficult, because if you did you’d erase all the good, too. And moments like these are definitely good. The best, actually.

Loving Nature

I like this shot mostly for its symbolism. As the caption says, I love nature. I’d rather be outside doing stuff than inside, that’s for sure. I especially enjoy watching the seasons change. The Winter to Spring change is one of my favorite times of the year. I always look forward to the blooming of the Redbud trees. This heart-shaped leaf is on a Redbud tree at the end of our WV driveway. If you look closely, you can seem some pink in the background. I could have chosen a shot where the pretty, pink flowers are in focus. But I like that the emphasis is on the leaf here. The heart-shaped leaf to be exact. You’ll appreciate this picture so much more if you click on it to see the larger version.

Details

When you look closely at stuff, you really do see so much more. That’s the theme for this selection. It really is true, too.

This image is simply a fern frond. Not real exciting, right? But if you look closely (click on the image to see a bigger version), you’ll see the intricate patterns on each leaf. The depth of field in this picture (how much of the image is in focus) is what makes the image so powerful to me. It draws your attention right into the middle of the frame and makes you look at the individual leaves. And, as the photographer, that’s exactly what I wanted you to see.

Art Interrupted

This reflectofrog shot is the perfect example of how unplanned stuff sometimes makes an image. I was trying to get a shot of myself reflected in the frog’s globe. I did. But I also got a shot of K’s leg in the foreground with her whole body reflected between me and the frog. Because I can’t go anywhere/do anything without the dogs coming along to see exactly what it is I am doing. They’re nosy like that. I don’t know if that’s a dog-in-general thing or a Brittany thing. But these three dogs of mine are VERY curious about everything. And they are rarely far from us at all. Not that I am complaining. My dogs make me happy. But it really is like having little kids around trying to “help” you do stuff.

A Picture-Perfect Motorcycle Day

This shot represents a picture-perfect motorcycle riding day in the Greater Appalcahian Valley. Blue skies. Big, puffy white clouds. Smooth, empty road winding through the foothills and into the mountains… does it get any better? If you look really close, you’ll see Hubby in front of me. I was lagging behind a bit since I was riding one-handed at about 45 mph while shooting pictures with my point-and-shoot camera. None of that craziness in 2011. This year I get to use my new HELMET CAM! 🙂

Almost Heaven

This picture is a great example of why we chose to build a house in West Virginia. Mountains. Lots of mountains. They’re no Alps or even Rockies, but you know what? We have discovered plenty of great motorcycle roads. I’ll begin sharing that info pretty soon (stay tuned for new project announcement). For now, you’ll just have to look at this picture and the previous shot to enjoy the scenery we encounter on a regular basis near our WV place. This picture was actually taken from the Dolly Sods Wilderness Area.

The Kids

The kids together at Christmas. They’re not all here. Amy’s hubby is deployed. But this is the first time in a while that Shannon, Amy, and Eric have all been together with us at the same time. (That’s Eric’s girlfriend, Kelsey, on the right. She’s a real sweetie.) It was nice having them all here relaxing and enjoying each other’s company. I was enjoying it, that’s for sure.

Jaufenpass!

And finally, Hubby and me right after climbing the Jaufenpass on motorcycles during our tour in Europe. I’m with my favorite guy on the trip of a lifetime. What more could a girl ask for?

There’s no way for words to describe what it felt like to ride on the Jaufenpass. For me, this was my favorite part of the whole Europe trip. It was fun, Fun, FUN! The road was technical, but not so technical that I couldn’t race through it. I think I smiled broadly the entire way, feeling like I was riding in a video game. (Wanna know what it felt like to ride the Jaufenpass [pronounced hoff en pass]? Watch the first 60 seconds of this YouTube video [not mine]. Be sure to leave the sound on so you can hear the engine scream. It gets particularly interesting around the five-minute mark as the road climbs higher and higher. You get to see what it feels like to encounter a bus coming in the opposite direction and how I wasn’t exaggerrating when I said the road hung onto the side of the mountain.)

That trip was by far the most fun vacation ever. And we’ve had some pretty cool vacations. It wasn’t just the motorcycle part either.  The tour was awesome in every regard, but the week after the tour we got to visit two different sets of friends in Switzerland and Belgium. Even if we hadn’t seen more really cool stuff, seeing our friends would’ve been enough to make me happy.

Anyway… that was my 10 favorite pictures of 2010. I can’t wait to see which ones other people chose. If you’d like to see, too, visit Beth’s You Capture page.

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You Capture – Holiday Favorites

Those of you who saw my post the other day know that my currently deployed son-in-law is home for a brief visit.

What I did not explain is the fact that their three kids were at another grandparents’ house for a few days so they could have a little bit of adult time. They knew, once the kids saw their father, there’d be no such thing as adult time. They’ll be on him like glue. Not just any glue either. Super Glue.

I’m proud to say that my obsession with photographing or otherwise recording special family moments has completely rubbed off on Amy. It was her idea for me to accompany her to the airport so I could get pictures of the reunion. And we were both thinking about possible video opportunities. The only problem was that the kids weren’t staying at our house.

No problem. At a little after 6:00 AM, she called us (under normal circumstances, that would be a no-no) to say she was bringing her husband to our house. She dropped him off here then went and picked up the kids and brought them here, too. At Hubby’s insistence, I was positioned behind TJ with the video camera. Shannon was on the sofa with the still camera. It was Hubby’s job to answer the door and corral the kids in the foyer so they could remove their coats before coming all of the way into the house.

It worked like a charm.

Oh wait. I forgot to tell you to grab a tissue, didn’t I? Sorry!

The video is awesome, yes. But this next picture is most definitely my holiday favorite this year. Can you see the glow of happiness on each and every one of their faces?

The Happy Family

I told Amy I thought this just might be her new favorite picture. I wonder if I was right?

As an aside… this is the sort of thing these soldiers of ours and their families, both here and abroad, have to sacrifice every day. So the next time you see a soldier, be sure to say thanks. Okay?

To see what everyone else is calling their holiday favorites, be sure to visit the You Capture page on Beth’s blog.

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You Capture – Outside

I have not been the most consistent You Capture participant this year.

But I couldn’t NOT participate this week. The theme was “outside.” And I actually happened to take a few outside pics that I wanted to share.

As with most of the United States, we’ve been in the grip of a pretty long and intense cold snap. It’s been unseasonably cold for weeks. It’s not even Winter yet and we’ve had morning temps in the teens for at least a week now, maybe longer. The image above is the patio at the WV place this past Sunday morning.

I love wet pine needles. To be a bit different, I did some editing to this image. I thought it would be interesting to apply some texture. If you click on the image, you’ll see a larger version. I doubt you’ll even be able to see the texture unless you look at the larger version.

Here’s a version without texture and not cropped.

Do you think the texture adds interest?

The image above is pretty indicative of the weather on that day. Cold, wet and dark. It may not be Winter yet according to the calendar, but it sure feels like Winter has arrived.

The next few shots are examples of why I carry a camera with me all of the time. Unless I forget to put the darn thing back in my purse.

These next few images were all taken with my point-and-shoot on Saturday when I went into town to do some shopping. There’s a craft store on the outskirts of town that features the work of local artisans. One of the owners also likes to collect old stuff. He apparently has a penchant for old tractors.

I did some editing to the picture shown above, too. I wanted the whole picture to have a vintage feel to match the tractor.

Again with the editing. The texture is a bit more apparent in this one. I like the end result. How about you?

That last tractor image is probably my favorite tractor shot of the day.

I think I should go back to this place with my DSLR sometime. Would you like to see more old tractor shots? Or do you think these are boring?

This next shot, taken at the same place, is my favorite.

It’s a koi pond in front of the shop with a fountain. The aforementioned cold snap turned the fountain into what I thought was a very interesting ice sculpture.

It wasn’t shot in black and white. I used PS Elements to remove the color. I softened the focus a bit, too.

It’s my favorite shot of the day, mainly because it is so unique and was so unexpected.

A “normal” person might have seen the fountain and found it interesting. When a person with a photographer’s eye (yes, we do see the world differently) like me sees stuff like this, everything stops. I just HAD to have a picture. In fact, if I hadn’t had my point-and-shoot with me, I would have driven back to the house to get a camera.

I did take a few shots, but this one was the best.

Just because I’m curious as to what other people think, I decided to post the same shot similarly framed, but still in color.

So, which fountain shot do you like better? Color or black and white?

And are my tractor pictures nice? Or over-edited?

If you want to see what other You Capture participants saw OUTSIDE this week, be sure to follow that link and have a gander. You’ll see some amazing stuff.

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You Capture – Orange

This week’s You Capture theme was ORANGE.

My attempt at capturing some interesting photos of orange stuff was pretty lame. But at least I tried.

I just don’t get out enough.

One good thing, though. I did finally lose the inhibitions with regard to taking pictures at the grocery store/supermarket. Here’s proof.

Creative Soda Display

That shot would’ve been more relevant if they’d used the Orange Crush boxes to make the football guy. But at least there’s ORANGE in there. And you have to admit, the football player fashioned from Dr. Pepper boxes is pretty creative.

Fruity Wine Tags

Sunday afternoon, while making a pot of delicious French Onion Soup, I decided some wine was in order. I knew Shannon would agree, so I got out the wine tags to mark our glasses. I got to be the one with the ORANGE on her head. It’s there, really. There are some grapes, a banana, and an orange. I just HAD to take a picture.

Really though, despite the fact that this is October, and I’m sure 95% of the You Capture posts will feature pumpkins or squash, pumpkins were not the first thing that popped to mind when I saw that orange was to be the theme.

While it would have been cooler to go in person to see the first orange thing that popped into my mind, I couldn’t. I didn’t have time. And Hubby would have been upset if I’d gone off without him to see this particular orange thing.

Wanna know what it is?

The picture isn’t great, but it’s the best I could do.

The first orange thing that popped into my mind.

Since we spent a week riding BMW motorcycles through the Alps, I have become obsessed. I want one. I think an orange one would be pretty cool. Although they come in a pretty awesome blue-green color, too.

Can’t you see me on one of these? (I’ll have to lose the assless leather chaps, but it’ll be worth it.)

Do I get extra points for incorporating a self-portrait into the orange display? I should. Not that points are actually awarded or anything…

If you’d like to see lots of pictures that I am SURE are way better than my lame attempts, visit Beth’s blog for this week’s You Capture entries.

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There’s NOTHING Easy About Photoshop

It only took a few comments on yesterday’s post to convince me that I had been misunderstood. Perhaps dangerously misunderstood.

My intention was not to provide a tutorial as much as a glimpse at the many steps involved in photo editing. Trust me when I say there’s nowhere near enough detail in that post to help you reach my end result.

It has taken me quite a few years, and quite a lot of frustration, to figure out how to use Photoshop. It is not user-friendly. It has taken a lot of reading and a lot of trial and and error for me to figure it out. And I am one of those people who can typically open up a computer software program and figure it out for myself.

There’s nothing easy about Photoshop. Really. Even people who think and/or convince others that they are pros bungle things. Check out the fun Photoshop Disasters blog if you don’t believe me. It’s a bit of an exercise in “what’s wrong with this picture” that sometimes I don’t even get, but it can sometimes be entertaining.

If you have used Photoshop and were thinking of buying it for yourself, I would definitely steer you toward Photoshop Elements, which is really just the layman’s version. But, if you have never used it, it is not something I would ever recommend as a first step image editor. Especially if you are not tech savvy and/or don’t have hours to spend visiting other people’s blogs and Web sits to read the myriad tips and tricks that are out there. Not to mention hours on end practicing the various techniques.

I’d been using Photoshop for several year before switching to Elements a little over a year ago. I was able to start using Elements pretty much out of the box, but only because I was already familiar with the various tools as a result of my previous Photoshop experience.

A couple of my readers say they use something called GIMP. I’ve never used GIMP, but they both have. And they seem to like it.

The most compelling reason to try GIMP first is that it is FREE. As in, it doesn’t cost a cent.

Also free are the basic editors built-in to Flickr (sponsored by Yahoo) and Picasa (a Google product). Many cameras come with software you can use for image editing, too.

Now, I am not going to download and try GIMP because I don’t need to. I already have Elements and am perfectly happy with it.

But I would try it if I were considering the purchase of that sort of software. Does free software scare you? It shouldn’t. Not all free stuff is bad. I know that goes against the “nothing is really free” mantra, but there’s lots of stuff out there, good, quality software, that you can get for free. It’s known as Open Source.  Simply put, it is software programmed by people who share their programs AND programming code so that other like-minded folks can use the programs and/or tweak and improve upon the code.

This is not a technology Blog, so I’ll leave it at that. But first, I should also tell you that I use an open source version of the MS Office suite, which Hubby discovered, and it works just fine. I can open and manipulate Word and Excel files. I can create Word and Excel files to share with others. It’s called OpenOffice, if you’d like to check it out.

Anyway… I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t misleading anyone into thinking I meant to say Photoshop and/or Elements are easy, go buy it today. They’re both hard to learn how to use. There are lots and lots of tutorials out there to help, but there seem to be plenty of GIMP tutorials, too.

If you’re a GIMP user, I’d love to hear about your experience.

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Take Your Images to the Next Level

One of the cool things about participating in You Capture is not only getting to look at other people’s pictures, it’s also having other photographers see what you have done. Let’s face it, if you are not “into” photography, you have no idea what it takes to make a good picture. Can you capture great images if you know nothing about photography? Absolutely. When and if you are lucky. But there’s actually a lot of thought that goes into capturing good pictures. So it’s nice when people appreciate your efforts, the thought that went into getting a certain shot, etc.

I had another conversation recently where someone compared my photos with someone else’s. That someone else essentially has the same camera that I do (Canon Rebel). But according to the person I spoke with, this other person’s pictures aren’t nearly as good.

Because it’s not the camera.

And you know what? Sometimes it isn’t just the photographer, either. MANY of the pictures you see nowadays in magazines, on Web sites, in galleries, etc. have been enhanced with image editing software. This is commonly referred to as post-processing.

Photoshop is the most widely recognized name in image editors. It costs about $700. There are other high-end editors out there, but there are lots of less-expensive options, too. Photoshop Elements is what I use. It costs about $80. And it is soooooo worth it. (If you’re interested, read this interesting article about the Photoshop vs. Photoshop Elements debate.)

When looking through the work done by other You Capture participants, it’s cool to see the SOOC images (straight out of camera, i.e., no post-processing) some people show, while others post processed shots. Some images are obviously processed. With others, the processing is more subtle.

Why use post-processing? Because it’s fun to take an otherwise ordinary picture and enhance it however you like. It’s like the difference between serving Hamburger Helper prepared strictly according to the package directions with the ingredients provided and serving Hamburger Helper that’s been spiced up a bit.

I decided to show you a high-level overview of the steps involved in post processing. How an ordinary shot gets turned into something that’s more a work of art (in my opinion). This is just one example of what you can do.

I started out with this otherwise ordinary picture. I mean, it’s cute. But it doesn’t really stand out for me.

The first problem for me is that it is too bright (over-exposed). Some people like bright pictures. I tend to prefer darker tones.

So I used the Filter/Render Lighting function to make it darker. Yes, I know it is now too dark. Bear with me here.

The important thing to note here is that I made a copy of the original image. The original becomes the background and the copy is the duplicate layer. It’s the duplicate layer that I made dark.

Next, I wanted to add some texture. So I added a texture layer and pasted a texture onto the shot.

I wanted to change the lighting on the texture, so I applied something called Color Burn. I cannot possibly explain all of these steps in great detail here. Color burn makes the colors darker and more intense. This was the result.

That looks pretty messed up, right? To fix it, I changed the opacity (degree of transparency) of that layer, which makes the underlying layer more visible. I still get the burn effect I am after, it’s just not nearly as extreme.

Even with my texture/burned layer at 20% opacity, it’s still dark. So I added a fourth layer so I could reapply the same texture. I got this again.

Instead of color burn, I adjusted this layer using Soft Light. I could see the image again.

But it was still a bit dark.

To lighten it up a bit, I did not add another layer or adjust the light on that layer, I adjusted the opacity of the underlying layers until I got the result that I wanted. Not only can you adjust the opacity (how strong or weak that effect is), you can also turn a layer off.

I like the way it looks around the edges, but my subjects are still too dark. Since it has consistently been too dark, I’ll turn the lighting layer off.

Too bright again! So I turn the lighting layer back on. And just use my eraser tool to selectively erase the lighting layer that is making my subjects too dark.

Much better, right? But there’s still one problem. I notice that my texture layer has resulted in a splotch of unwanted color smack in the middle of Joey’s nose.

I zoomed in so you could see what I mean. I tried the eraser on a couple different layers, but didn’t like the result. You gotta love UNDO! Instead I used something called the healing brush, which corrects little boo-boos like that one.

No more ugly splotch. I zoom back out so I can see the whole picture and realize I’m liking what I see. My editing is almost done.

Looking at the whole picture now, I realize I don’t like seeing the back of that car or the signpost. So I crop those things out. Cropping is basically resizing the image to remove unwanted stuff around the edges.

Much better, right? Cropping alone is a very powerful tool. Especially if you are the type who can’t compose shots through the lens, while shooting. You can compose at your computer.

I decided to get even more creative and add a frame. I tend to favor white frames with thin black lines around them (like this one), but I didn’t really like the way it looked. So I added some little corners (a basic Photoshop Elements effect).

None of this is rocket science. It is all simple stuff. You just need to do some homework to learn how to use these functions and techniques. And you need to practice. It does take a lot of time, but I think it’s worth it.

Or, you can take the easy way out, and use something called actions. Think phone apps. Actions are effects where all of the steps I described here are pre-recorded and applied to your photo with a simple double-click of the mouse.

Here are some examples of the same otherwise ordinary picture with three different, free, Pioneer Woman Actions for Elements applied.

Colorized

Heartland

Fresh Color

You can learn all about using Photoshop Elements, applying actions, image editing in general, etc., at various places all over the Web. If you want me to point you in the right direction, let me know and I’ll do a future post on the topic. My goal, really, was just to show you what post-processing can do and the different steps involved.

Here’s the end result again.

Now that I see what it looks like on the Blog, I’m not all that crazy about those dark, black corners. But it’s just an example, so I’ll leave it at that for now.