Fav 3 of 2014 ~ BeStill week 30

The end of the year and week 30 is wrapping up with a prompt to choose a set of your favorite

pictures from 2014.  It was hard to choose, I wanted some of my images to blend with 

similar softness and colors and the blue hydrangea never fails to make great 

images.  These were taken throughout the year and the center image was taken in

December with some of my dried hydrangea flowers, and it made Flickers

Explorer!  Now that is the way to end the year with a bang...

I hope to learn how to play on instragram this January.  I finally managed

to get the app working on my phone and digital life is whirring at warp speed

around me.   Will I be able to step aboard or loose my footing as I try and jump in.

~ snap~

Setting for 2015's First Shoot

 Happy New Year 2015

That is going to take some getting use to.  Not that long ago 2015 was a far off date in si fi flicks.  Now its marking the start of my new year behind my lens. 

I am inspired by light this Jan 1st.

 Its really ugly outside, freezing drizzle, cold and the only warmth to be found is under my quilt with a book.  It just nagged on me so much I decided to see if I could create something new and fresh inside in my work area. 

I decided to drag out some of my quilt fabric and use as a backdrop, and what the heck, I even pulled out some black!

I went for gold tones and things that projected
that warm feel of the sun and garden flowers.  Now that I have discovered that fabric is not for quilting, I might have to buy some more with a different minds eye!  

This leaf image is Red Bud dried and its hanging from a clamp over my table with fabric way in the background.  Used Aperture Priority and got in close with my mighty macro lens.

 This blue flower is in front of some black fabric, but I could not resist using a little fractal brush with it.  It felt sorta flat and now it has more whispy breezy freshness to it.

This blue flower is fake!   Yikes, I had to resort to what was at hand.  All my flowers are fake. 

 Its not such a great photo stand, but it works.  My rolling drawers stacked with plastic containers for height, my foam core board and with all this in place I can move it around on the wheels.  Its pretty ugly but it works.

 I used a curtain rod to hold a lace cloth which I have pinned some fabric to as a backdrop.  Its really busy batik fabric but one of my favorite fabrics I have saved and I used it in the first triptych image.  You can see how the fabric just blurs away into softness.

I took a class ages ago from Brenda Tharp on Macro Photography.  It was so great and I remember quite a bit from that workshop.  One thing I got back then was this very cool arm clamp.  The arm is jointed and moves every which way and here its holding my redbud leaves with seed pods.   How I WISH I had gotten more of these when they were to be had.   

This is also how far I shot this from the background for the leaf photo.   With the large aperture priority, my subject as far from background as I could get in my small area and shooting close as I could get I managed to create some feel of outside. 

When I processed my images in LR and PS Elements I added some tweeks to those images but the real work was trying to create light.   One thing you can't see is the pole light I have.  Its just plain ole lightbulbs and the pole light has 3 lights I can point in different directions, honestly I think I paid $12 for it at Walmart.  

Now that I have documented something exciting for the first day of the year its time to hop on over to Flicker and post my work.   Happy shooting and Happy New Year.

Playing of Faffing

 I was so happy to learn over the Xmas week about a little word called "faffing", an english expression for just wasting time.   It seems I do quite a bit of that, just playing with stuff to create lovely images or art.  Moving this and that around, looking for some light, a prop or two.  Is it wasting time or not...I say NOT.  Art is never a waste of time. 

 I love these little Shasta Daisy's from the summers flower garden combined with sea shells and a cheesecloth frothy surface.  Again lots of play with whats at hand.  I used a little ocean texture as the frothy crest of the wave.

 My prompts from Be Still were spool, string and three.  I think this was so much fun because I just learned how to use the Auto Sync function in my LightRoom program.  I edit all my work further in Elements but love the time saving auto sync.  I have learned so much to date in my e-class and there are still weeks left to enjoy and learn more.

These are little Zinnias that were seeds I special bought because of the fun little stripes and most were huge, but these were the end of the summer, stunted and small but while they were short of statue they made a fantastic prop with a great mason jar.

I love exploring ideas with still life and style prop photography.  NEVER enough props it seems, but there is a wish list and my eye is ever open to possibilities. 

My year ended with getting a couple of my photos on Flickers Explorer and that sure was something worth shouting about.  None of my physical friends are into photography so they just didn't get the high I got from it, but I shouted anyway!   I can't wait to see where my lens takes me in 2015.  Hope to see you soon!

Friday Blues made Explorer

I am so tickled to find my Friday Finds which I named Friday Blues made it to Explorer on Flicker.  My 2nd image for December.  What a great way to end the year.  Never dreamed I would have one let alone two images in a month land there.

Thanks!

Friday Finds is a group hosted by Kim Klassen.  She also has Texture Tuesday and its a great way to get you to continue shooting throughout the week.  Sometimes we just need a little push to keep the inspiration going.   This little vintage bottle was my prop of inspiration for this image with the hydrangea.  Cropped to 4x5 size, and some processing of the light and a little pale grunge texture.   I hope you keep your camera close by, you never know when the spark will ignite!

Two's Company and Three's a Crowd

I had to really do an improve for our recent prompt for an exercise using 3 things.

Backlight, window and a chair!   I have no cool chair that is weathered, stained and shabby but I did have this little tiny bench that was given to me as  a prop this summer.  I used my kitchen window sill and sat it there but really didn't have anything
interesting to use with it.  I was looking for a light bright fresh look and it was drizzling outside and dark - I hit a blank ..

I got to cooking up a pot of Manhattan clam chowder and for fun just tossed a couple onions on the bench, then added the towel and the little onion skin,  Took lots of shots and angles and decided on this one.  Love the square crop, and I used a little preset in lightroom called onair by KimKlassen and then a texture to give the grunge look.  The rain on the window gave a cool bokeh I thought so now I have an idea to paint this up white for a brighter look. 

I made Explorer on Flicker!

WOW this is such a big deal for me, my first ever image to make Flickers Explorer.  Its like the most fun thing ever and to think I didn't even know it until someone gave me a nice congrats on it!

This was an exercise from Week 27 of Be Still 52 group,
Our prompts were to create a vignette, use something tall and sweeping, a preset, a texture and a printable.  It was hard because this was very large and tall.  I dragged my kitchen island up to the fridge and propped up my black core board there for a backdrop.  Then began trying different arrangements to shoot.  I probably shot 30+ and finally ran out of angles and props,

This printable was our first xmas card of the year, so adorable with the white and hint of red from the snowmans scarf, it really fit in with the red bow around the bugle, the red books and wraping paper.

The pussywillows are fake and have been loved by me for several years.  I wish fake silk flowers were not so expensive, they make the most amazing props.

I hope I can post something exciting as this in the months to come so till then, its Sally behind my lens...

Two Sides

I so loved this exercise in negative space.   In my photography group Be Still 52 our prompt was using two sides of negative space, shoot from above, shoot square  and use the two sides as part of your main focus.

I was really just killing time when I shot this.  We were waiting to visit our friend for Thanksgiving dinner and just needed to kill an hour.

This plate is a hand thrown plate that one of our dogs won a few ages ago and the color is really like it looks,.  The linen napkins were gifted to me and the branch is from my friends yard, which is a redbud branch with pods still attached.  I can still see her face when I asked if I could have a cutting.   My surface is an old cookie sheet I layed on the floor and then placed the items on top.  It was just a lucky experiment that it turned out so great and now it has become a prop for the future!   Cookie sheets will never look the same to me ever again.