Themes for March

March 5: Season and Family, personal
12: Winter Trees
19: Winter Critters
26: FRAMING

Theme for March 26, 2007: FRAMING

March 26: "Framing:" Use of negative space, close framing, using framing as a visual tool to enhance the photo, also could include: macro, micro, midrange and wide angle. The things I want to look for is how to BEST frame a picture to startle, communicate, engage, please the viewer. Look for SPECIAL, DIFFERENT ways to frame something. Cropping is an acceptable tool, but work with in-camera framing if possible.

Framing: HUH?

Sorry Ladies to gross you out! I found this. Really!

On the wastebeds, near the old cars, above the State Fair parking lot, on the slag cliffs.

Really.

It's a rubber mask, very lightweight, and next time I go back if it's still there, I hope to put it in a plastic bag and take to the Heidelberg Project.It's not something I personally have a lot of use for, but I found it interesting.

I have to hurry, before the nettles get too deep and it gets too hot to walk on the wastebeds.

Small murphyism: The phone didn’t ring all day. But when I was filling shampoo bottles for my upcoming trip and a big blurpo came out all over my hand and the bottle, the phone rang. Of course. Murphy.

click to view image (by me) bigger. I tried multiple ways to frame this and settled on this one. It's a hard subject to frame well--or photograph well, for that matter. OK, sorry! LOL!

Framing: Four different shots with Framing

Somehow an extra picture accidentally uploaded when I tried to upload my four framing shots--can you guess which one? Four were intentional shots for framing and one just fell in somehow.

I took lots more of flowers and other things and if I have time I will add them at Yahoo Photique. Sorry about the extra one, it was totally fortuitous.

The flower is a banana flower.

Winter Critters: Squirrel

Got a nut for me? Photo by Mary Stebbins Taitt.

I forgot about resizing them--what size works best?

Winter Critters: Two deer at Metrobeach

I took a ton and a half of these, too! LOL! May post more over at Yahoo Photique if I have time.

Winter Critters: Two Geese on pond at Metrobeach

I took a TON of pictures of these geese, and I may add more here or at Yahoo Photique if I have time. (I thought they were so graceful looking and loved the shadows.)

WINTER CRITTERS - Mrs Duck

Mrs Duck is the bravest even though she has mud on her beak

WINTER CRITTERS - The Gang's Here

And they're not only hungry but frisky too! Sorry I was not quick enough to capture that!

WINTER CRITTERS - Begging for Bread

But I didn't have any with me

WINTER CRITTER - Stanley Jumping

Sammy had a hangover that morning but I think it did her the power of good to run beside Stanley over the jumps.

Size of this is 750 on the short side at 300 pixels/inch. For me this is best so I do not have to scroll.

WINTER CRITTERS - Introducing Stanley

I hope that Stanley qualifies as a winter critter. He does have his winter coat on. This is Holly riding Stanley. He is a horse that they have on loan from a friend and they keep him at the friends and Holly rides with another little girl there. That is Sam who is watching anxiously. Holly fell off the day before but doesn't want to go back on the lead reign. I have just sized this one at 1000 pixels on the short size at 300 pixels/inch.

It fits in my screen width wise but I still have to scroll the depth. I will try another one.

Uncertain FRAMING of Magnolia

I do really like this but am not certain whether I have framed it right. I think I should have had an equal distance from the stamen on the right as I have at the bottom. But still I like it. Maybe I should have entered this in breaking the rules but am not sure what the name is of the rule that I broke.

FRAMING Camelia

Also in my neighbours' garden was a camelia tree in glorious bloom. I was really pleased with the composition and framing of this one. It was actually the first one I took of this bloom and I thought it was spot on - compared to the other shots anyway. I did cheet a wee bit on this as there just a tiny few blown highlights that I either cloned or smudged in.

I sized this one at 500 pixels on the short side and I reckon it came out the best size for viewing without scrolling. Certainly for portrait images anyway.

FRAMING Magnolia

Had fun with my macro this avo. Our neighbour's magnolia tree and also her camelia are in full bloom. so I explored inside a magnolia flower with my macro. Very hard to hold the camera exactly where you want it both for DOF and position. My tripod would not be able to go up so high and look back down into the flower so it had to be hand held. Unless I picked the flower of course.

This is just straight from the RAW file. No cropping.

WINTER TREES - Messing

The Messing Winter Skyline

WINTER TREES - Felbrigg

Walking the Dog at Felbrigg. Buzzed again and plenty of contrast. Looks a bit autumnal on the floor.

WINTER TREES - Felbrigg

Converging paths at the top of the hill at Felbrigg where there is a National Trust Property and vast grounds to walk around all year round. Buzzed.

Winter Trees Series 1: Three on Lakeshore

Here is my first submission to Winter Trees for today's theme. None of these are the orginal. The original had lots of sensor spots. THe top one is the original with levels applied and the sensor spots cleaned up. Then, I added a gradient in a new layer of pink and orange and changed the blending options (under layers) for a whole bunch of variants) I will post four of the variants at the yahoo Photique 3. There were more (and some of the others were nice too), but I will post the 4 I liked best along with the orginal. They are 1, color burn, 2 multiply, 3, pin light and 4, exclusion. Note that you can click on "Large" to see the pictures larger.

Family: Rachel's Magic Wand

I couldn't resist playing with this a little more.

WOW! In the new blog, if you click on the picture, it gets even huger than in the old blog! At least on my computer!

Family Fun

Just trying out this new blog to see what is new about it. So far very minor things.

It was Alec's 10th birthday birthday last Friday. He had 7 friends and they went to a local Go-Cart circuit. Here they are all dressed up before putting on their helmets. I don't know how it would be possible for them to have more fun than they did. Alec is the one at the top with his hands outstretched all dopey.