Day 122

This is probably one of the most dangerous photos I've ever taken. I was outside the other day when I noticed 15+ bumblebees on the ironweed plant in my yard. I grabbed my camera and attempted to get a good macro shot. Several times a bee would buzz in my ear while I was taking the shot, sending me running in the other direction and leaving many blurry photos. This was the most in focus shot I got, though I think the flowers in the lower left hand corner are actually more in focus than the bee. To edit this photo I applied a few layers of faded black and white effects in order to get different levels of fading on the bee and flowers and the background. I also added slight dark edges to enhance the dark colors of the ironweed flowers that had not yet blossomed and the bee's black body and legs.

Day 121

Today's photo is posted in the effort to post more raw shots. That is to say, photos that I have not edited. This is a shot of some architectural decoration on the side of a brick building. I liked the texture the bricks provided, and the many colors and shades.

Day 120

This morning I present a portrait of a hen my brothers hatched out earlier this summer. Actually, there's two sisters in this photo, the second being in the background. I love how it looks almost like the front hen is reflected in the background and out of focus but is in sharp focus in the foreground.  I thought the bright pinks of the combs and oranges of the beaks were pretty distracting, so I applied the black and white effect then added dark edges to make it look more like a portrait.

Day 119

I would first like to give a shout out to my sister Joy who made today's photo possible. I saw this beautiful, huge spiderweb and thought to myself, "I have to take a picture of that." Unfortunately, this spiderweb was in a window on the second story of our chicken barn. Joy had to lift me onto the roof and then come get me down after I had taken several shots. At first, none of the photos appeared to have turned out, and Joy was not happy because she had pushed me onto the roof for nothing. But today I had some spare time and was looking through the photos and edited this one. I applied the black and white effect so the strands of the web would stand out more. I wish I would have had the forethought to mist the web, because that would have made a much better photo.

Day 118

When I was taking this photo I wanted to capture the incredible detail in this one tiny little leaf on a Cottonwood tree in my yard. When editing, I applied very faint dark edges to accent the shadows in the leaf.

Day 117

Today's photo is a macro of rabbit feed that my sister was about to give to a litter of Dutch. I applied the Orton effect from picmonkey.com but turned the Bloom down to 0% and tuned the brightness down as well. I applied this effect to give the photo a kind of surreal, edgy look. I also added very slight dark edges to bring out the many shadows in the photo. I loved the details of the dust and ragged ends of the pellets.

Day 116

This photo of an Ironweed plant was taken in my yard early yesterday morning. I was using a low depth of field, so the background was out of focus when I took the shot. To further set off the flowers in the foreground I applied a black and white effect fading it to achieve the gentle painterly look in the background.

Day 115

Since school is starting up again I thought that today I would post a photo of a familiar back-to-school item: spiral notebooks. For this photo I stacked several notebooks on top of one another then maneuvered them so that each ring was catching the overhead light. I used this angle so that the eye was drawn back into the photo, and also for the interesting depth of field with the subject becoming out of focus the farther into the photo you go. Since the notebooks were all different colors I opted to make the photo black and white so the focus was more on the lines and details of the photo than on the colors.

Day 114

Today's photo I took while lying on the ground looking down our lane. I wanted to get the texture and shapes of the rocks, and the lines drawing your eye back into the photo down the lane. I applied a slight Dusk effect to give it more warmth of color.

Day 113

I'm back! After a week at the Iowa State Fair I am ready to get back to the blog. I do want to mention that I gave an Educational Presentation in the 4-H building about Beginning Photography, and want to thank anybody who is looking at my blog because they saw my talk.
Anyway, today's photo was taken yesterday afternoon, and is of the Sky Ride. In the distant background near the base of the Sky Ride is the grandstand, and to the left of the picture is the agriculture building. I painted on a black and white effect leaving the sky it's original color because I wanted to draw the attention away from the crowd on the ground towards the ride and the sky.

Day 112

Today's photo is of a weeping willow tree and a bench by the pond at the house of one of my mom's friends. I applied the Holga effect but faded it so the original colors were just subdued. I loved the ripples and reflection from the pond and the elegant, draping quality of the branches.