This week’s theme was “hopeful,” which for me is VERY appropriate. I am really HOPEFUL someone looks at my pics since I’m all late posting them. I took these dang pictures days and days ago. Then last night I went to bed at like 8:30. And when I woke up this morning, I forgot it was You Capture day.
I’m posting them anyway. Because I took every single picture with this week’s theme in mind. Really.
You can read more about You Capture if you like. It’s basically a project where quite a few other people post pictures each Thursday inspired by a predefined theme. I love checking out all of the other pics to see how different people interpreted the theme.
There are a lot of Moms who participate. And every week, no matter what the theme, it seems I see a lot of baby feet. That’s cool, because I love baby feet. But I’m sort of jealous. I don’t have any baby feet just laying around to photograph.
Not any human baby feet anyway.
I am HOPEFUL not too many people make fun of me for taking a picture of one of my furbabies’ feet. Doesn’t she have pretty feet though?
One of the "Baby" Feet We See Around Here
I found it interesting, after our last pitiful dusting of snow, the see the ground under the bird feeders covered in bird footprints. I know you can’t really get a sense of scale from this shot, but I know they are sort of large prints left by the gazillion Grackles that have been visiting our feeders. This is evidence that on this day there were a lot of birds HOPEFUL for castoff seeds and/or crumbs.
Grackle Prints
Speaking of under the bird feeders… this cat has stood guard out there for years, HOPEFULly watching the birds come and go.
Hopeful Cat Statue
Look closely at the bottom right-hand corner of this shot and you’ll see Belle’s foot. She was helping me look for bird prints, HOPEFUL that she would catch a bird. She is a bird dog (Brittany) after all.
In case you are wondering, these prints, which are much smaller than those shown previously, are from a Dark-eyed Junco.
Bird Dog in Action
While we’re talking about Belle, here’s a shot of her with her head on my keyboard HOPEFUL that I’ll turn the computer off and take her outside.
Can We Go Out Now?
Once you have dogs, you realize they communicate extremely well. They just use body language, whines and barks. In the next pic, you see K sitting in front of me looking at the door. She’d look at me then look at the door. Look at me, then the door. She was HOPEFUL I’d get up and let her outside.
Let Me Out
Finally, this next shot shows all of the dogs HOPEFUL that Hubby, who just got home from somewhere, will hurry up and open the door.
Dad's Home
That’s it for this week. I am very HOPEFUL that next week’s shots are more interesting. And posted in a more timely fashion.
It snowed on us again last night. Yep, another 6 inches (15 cm) of snow. On top of the 6 inches we got this past Saturday. And this coming Saturday, which is just a few days away, we might get more.
In case you are wondering about the picture, it is completely unrelated to this post. But I like it. It makes me smile. It comes from the Flickr Faces In Places Group, which I cannot give you a link to because you need to be a group member to view the images. But I can link you to the Faces In Places blog, which you really should check out when you have a minute. It is nothing but pictures of things that look like faces. Like the cupcake/muffin shown above.
Back to the snow…
I like snow for many reasons. One of which is that it can make for some pretty interesting pictures. I have added shutter speed (Tv), aperture value (Av) and ISO data to the title of each image for those of you who are interested.
Tv: 1/8 Av: 2.8 ISO: 800
I have no idea why the sky looks red, but I think it looks cool.
Tv: 0.5 Av: 2.8 ISO: 400
The Av and ISO settings let enough light in to make this shot possible without flash. The Tv setting is what makes the falling snowflakes look like scratches on the picture. I did nothing as far as post processing aside from adjusting the contrast and brightness slightly so you could see the snowflake trails.
Tv: 1/8 Av: 2.8 ISO: 1600
I did nothing as far as post processing aside from adjusting the contrast and brightness slightly so you could see the snowflake trails.
Tv: 1/4 Av: 2.8 ISO: 800
Tv: 1/8 Av: 2.8 ISO: 1600
I hope to get outside later today to get some new doggie snow pics. But work has been a bit crazy this week, so we’ll have to wait and see…
There’s more than one reason I spend a lot of time on the computer. It’s not because I’m doing stupid (boring!) stuff like reading the news or something else that might remotely be considered educational. It’s because there are all these people in my computer that I have to keep in touch with.
Like my oldest daughter, Shannon, who recently moved from my real world life into my computer. And the Pioneer Woman who totally made my day by providing a free download of one of her cow pics. We can’t forget all my doggy friends I connect with primarily through Facebook. (I can’t give you a link to those folks. Sorry.)
I have quite a few Flickr friends, too. A Flickr friend is someone who also uses Flickr as a photo sharing site that takes pictures I really, really enjoy looking at, commenting on, etc. There’s Nikographer Jon (great nature pics), Kuskaluna Steve (Alaska pics), Alaska Dave and Songwoman (AK Dave’s wife) who both take great Alaska pictures, which typically feature lots of wildlife. There are others I am not going to list because I don’t know if those links will even work for my readers. I hope they do, so you can see their stuff, but some people have protected their images (for good reason) by limiting access to recognized contacts like me who they know will not steal their stuff.
I have to mention Brutal Goddess, however. She takes a wide array of pics. I don’t like her just for the pictures she takes, but also for the person that she is. Don’t get me wrong, she takes great pics, too. She just isn’t easily qualified when talking to Hubby like Jon (the bird pic guy) or AK Dave (the Alaska guy). Brutal Goddess, aka Chris, has slowly been revealed to me over the years through the pictures she takes, comments she makes on my pics, comments on Facebook, etc.
BrutalGoddess and ToadMama aka Chris and Kathy
I need to shift to past tense here and say she wasn’t easily qualified, because now I can say, “You know, the one I actually met in person.”
Yep, we actually met face-to-face this past weekend. Her name is Chris. She lives in Colorado now, but she grew up in Delaware. She moved to Colorado after marrying one of the people that used to live in her computer. (Not all Internet connections are bad, folks. One just must be very discriminating and smart about who you connect with.) She comes to Delaware periodically to visit her family. During this trip, we were finally able to arrange a meet-up.
I have to say, it was quite surreal. I mean, I have been looking at this woman’s pictures for a long time. Reading all about her family, too, on Flickr and Facebook. So, before I even met her, I felt like I knew her. And I had never even heard her voice until Sunday morning. When we finally did get together, it was like seeing an old friend. The only surprise was that she’s actually taller than me, which I loved.
Old New Castle, Delaware
Anyway… we met up in Old New Castle, Delaware, which is where she grew up. We were going to go to the Bombay Hook Wildlife Refuge, the place Nikographer Jon introduced to me through pictures, but it was too cold. We would have frozen walking around a wide open marsh. So we walked around Old New Castle. Does it seem as strange reading “Old New Castle” as it feels saying, “Old New Castle”?
Despite the fact that it was pretty darn cold, it was great place to explore. We were able to chat as we walked. We both stopped often to take pictures of odd little things we’d seen, which was sort of cool. I usually hang out with non-photographer types who, after a few unexpected stops are all like, “Why do you keep stopping?” And “what could you possibly be taking a picture of?”
I felt like a complete doofus later when I realized we’d spent most of the day together and I hadn’t taken a picture of her. Luckily, she did take that long-arm shot of us that is shown above.
Even if I didn’t take any pictures of Chris, I did capture quite a few other images that I like, which I’ll share below. It was a very nice little town. It felt a lot like Annapolis, Maryland, but it was a bit more spread out.
The Blue Door
Kathy Spice, I thought of you when I took this one. I even told Chris about your fascination with doors. She also has a friend who is similarly compelled to photograph doors. 🙂
The Brick Thing
There was a lot of interesting-looking brick there.
Funny Sign #1
And some funny signs.
Tree Shadows on Brick Wall
There really was a lot of interesting brick, if you’re the kind of person that finds brick interesting.
Cemetery
Even the cemetery was nice.
Interesting Headstone
Creepy Cemetery Tree (workers actually found arm bones embedded in the tree, which grew up through the grave)
All in all, we had a great day. Even if it was cold. The company was fantastic. It’s a shame she is flying back to Colorado today. We’ll just have to make sure we plan another rendezvous during her next Delaware visit.
As I’ve mentioned before, I am determined to master this camera setting thing (what ISO, shutter speed and aperture to use) so I can have more creative control over my images. The only way to master anything is with practice, practice and more practice.
As I am learning, my primary goal isn’t just to get fabulous images, although I certainly would not delete any grand images that just sort of happened. My goal is to take lots of shots at a wide variety of settings to see which ones turn out the best.
Since we were at the WV place in the dead of winter, interesting subject matter is sort of limited. Actually, I should qualify that by saying subject matter that most normal, look-at-a-snapshot types would find interesting is what’s limited. People, flowers, landscapes, etc.
So I had to improvise. One thing that was definitely in abundance was water. Saturday was all about snow melting. Sunday was all about rain and fog. Lucky for me, I decided to experiment on Saturday. I was inspired by one of my Flickr contacts, Michelle in NY, who does amazing stuff with liquids and macro photography. (NOTE: I am not sure if those links will work for just anyone. Some Flickr people restrict image access to people they have identified as contacts. If either link does not work, please let me know.)
My attempts are nowhere near as creative as Michelle’s, but it was a spur-of-the-moment thing I did, without a tripod. I REALLY need to make a habit of carrying one of those things along.
Shattered Silence
“Shattered Silence” was actually cropped from a larger image. I thought a close-up of this particular drip made for a more-powerful image. I have posted the original below. I can’t really call it the SOOC version, because I did make some adjustments to color, amount of light, sharpness, etc.
Shattered Silence... the Bigger Picture
See what I mean? All the action sort of gets lost. The bigger picture isn’t interesting at all to me.
GULP!
This looks like the mouth of a large-mouth bass to me. Or maybe even a large bullfrog. I’m going with the fish, though, because that came to mind first. “Gulp” was also cropped from a larger image.
In and Out in a Heartbeat
“In and Out” was also cropped, but not nearly as much. The more I looked at these drips through the lens, the more I realized closer was better.
In and Out... the Bigger Picture
You may also notice some color variation between the cropped and bigger versions. I tweaked the lighting a bit differently for the cropped version.
Eye-popping Goodness
The title for this one alludes to the fact that I think it looks like an exploding eyeball. I’m not trying to say this is eye-poppingly good photography. Although this is my favorite drip shot.
Here’s something different for your viewing pleasure… a series of shots.
Cannonball!The AftermathIt Gets Worse
I’m sorry if my titles are a bot hokey. I consider them a necessary evil. If I don’t add a caption, then I don’t get that cool, almost-invisible frame around the image I am posting. And I really like the frame.
So, just ignore the hokey titles, okay?
You have just seen seven of my drip shots. Any idea how many shots it took to get those seven images? I am not sure of the exact number, but it was close to 80. Yes, 80. See what I mean about practice?
NOTE: I recently moved the contents of my old blog (ToadMama’s Web Abode) to this new and improved blog. If the images or text look weird, it is because of the import. Posts going forward should look better.
I created this Blog for the sole purpose of sharing my progression from someone that takes decent pictures because their camera has all the right automatic settings to someone that takes good pictures because they understand how to compose shots and capture just the right amount of light. That’s a big distinction. And it is a leap I have yet to make. Because having a camera with all of the right automatic settings can make for a lazy photographer.
So, if you are a person who just likes to look at good pictures, you might find this blog tiresome. I mean, I will be posting lots of pictures, but I’ll be analyzing them, too.
This first post is a good example. As promised, I took some shots this morning with my camera set to manual. That means I have to determine what shutter speed, aperture and ISO settings are right for the amount of light available.
I tried some shots yesterday, but was using a zoom lens with a teleconverter and no tripod, which means it was almost impossible to get a clear image. So I slapped my 50 mm prime lens onto the camera body and stepped outside.
When I say “prime lens,” I mean fixed focus. So, you know how a lot of SLRs have lenses that you turn with your hand to move subjects closer/farther? That’s a standard zoom lens. With a prime lens, to get closer to a subject, you need to move closer. To fit more of a subject in your frame, you need to move back. Folks that are used to having the zoom on think you have some weird, retarded camera when they try to use your camera to take a picture. That’s because zoom lenses have pretty much become the standard lens on consumer-grade SLR cameras.
This is the straight-out-of-camera (SOOC) version of the above image. There’s technically enough light and the shutter speed was sufficient to freeze the action without much blur, but the image is a bit dark. You can’t see the detail in Belle’s face.
That’s where post-processing (i.e., Photoshopping) comes in handy. You can use your post-processing software to make all kinds of adjustments.
Here’s a side-by-side look at the image before and after processing.
Next time, I’ll have to make some adjustments to the camera settings to see if I can get a better SOOC image. Here’s another before and after look at another image where the same settings were used…
This is the SOOC version.
And here’s the image after processing.
Speaking of processing, you can do some very cool stuff with processing software. One of which is combining images. This is a simple example where I took a picture of K and a picture of Belle within about a second of each other when they were standing pretty close together. Both images shown below are SOOC.
And here’s the merged image…
The images did need to be lightened a bit, but I did that after merging to make sure the light was applied evenly to both. Cool, eh?
I’ll get more into processing at some point. I just thought you’d like to see the results of my manual experiment. I should same “some of” the results, because there were a whole bunch of images I deleted, too.
