Day 191

This morning I was up before sunrise (not an often occurrence) and I noticed the sun was rising in a beautiful burst of color. So I ran outside in my pajamas without an shoes on to catch it before it faded, which was good because 5 minutes later it was already gone. It looked like the clouds or trees were on fire, and was really quite stunning in person. The camera didn't quite catch what I was seeing, but it still looked pretty cool.

Day 190

A few years ago I was given this rabbit shaped ring as a Christmas present. I love it, but I haven't worn it all that often. I was sifting through my jewelry box looking for subjects to shot and thought it would make an interesting image. I laid out the skirt of a dress for the background because I liked the shimmer of the fabric. I added a slight frost to the edges to enhance the highlights.

Day 189

As almost any teenage girl would, I love sparkles. Sequins are one of my favorite decorations, usually on dresses. Recently, however, I got a sequined fedora, which is pretty awesome. The way that they sewed the sequins onto the hat is pretty impressive, and gives some really cool details to this macro shot.

Day 188

Guess what tomorrow is? If you said that tomorrow is the one year anniversary of this blog, that is correct! It seems like an awfully long time ago when I look back now. Today's photo is of the insides of a geode that was cracked in half. Geodes are normal enough looking on the outside, but inside there's beautiful crystal formations of all different colors. Where I'm from, nearly all the geodes found are a white/blue, but this particular geode is half white/blue and half yellow/brown. I added a light Orton effect to bring out all the natural luster of the colors, and a slight dark edge to draw the eye into the center of the image and away from the sides.

Day 187

When I was younger my sister and I collected porcelain dolls. We gathered a lot, through birthday and Christmas gifts or by buying at yard sales and swap meets. The one featured in today's portrait was one of my favorites, and one of the first brides we got. When looking around for a subject today, I noticed her sitting in front of my window and thought she would make an interesting portrait. I love portraits taken with the face at an angle, and with all the details in her outfit I got a really life like shot. I loved the black and white, but I also wanted a softer look, so I added a focal soften which softens the edges while leaving the face in focus.

Day 186

Today was my little brother's birthday. He was ecstatic about the farm animal set our grandma sent him, and he played with it on the floor almost all day. In fact, I could barely get him to look at me to get any pictures of him smiling. Since I couldn't get him to work with me, I took some pictures while he was playing, and got some interesting angles. I applied the Dusk effect from picmonkey.com to give an older look to the portrait.

Day 185

A macro of my camera case. I loved the dramatic high lights and shadows, and the different textures in the case and the zipper. The panorama shape looked best with the angle of the lines.

Day 184

Since we recently got internet at home, I've been staying at home a lot more. There's a whole other world of subjects here as opposed to my father's office, where I normally shoot. Today's photo is a macro of the inside of a cardboard egg carton. While cracking eggs for my mom today I noticed the unique texture and shapes present in each carton. I used an angle when taking this shot so there would be an impression of repeating shapes going all the way out to the edge of the photo. The front bump I actually got in clear focus, but the grainy look of the carton made it difficult to tell between focused and not.

Day 183

This is one of the sides to my headphones which were sitting beside me when I started looking for something to photograph today. The different textures of the black rim and the pink netting inside were pretty interesting I thought, and I really liked how the light played out on the round shape. The brown table I took the photo on looked really out of place in the photo, so I painted black and white over it. I liked the pink color in the center, so I left it as it was. A slight dark edge was the finishing touch.

Day 182

Today's photo is a macro of a hand towel my mom got for Christmas that was sitting in her office today. The towel was a really bright green which I liked a lot at first, but it was just too overwhelming for the photo. With the black and white you can really appreciate the details of all the interwoven threads that make up the towel.

Day 181

 My sister got a beautiful necklace with a camera charm on it for me for Christmas, and the gift box that it came in has been sitting on my desk for the past couple weeks. It was only today that I recognized the intricate patterns on the box. When I was holding the box for the shot I somehow managed to produce this dramatic shadowing and highlighting when I used the on camera flash.

Day 180

My dad recently got a gun case in the mail, but it was damaged so he's going to send it back soon. In the short time that it's been here, the little mountains of styrofoam have captured my attention and been the subject of many photos. the texture in each of the little hills was so different, and the lines so cool, that I couldn't help myself. The styrofoam was already gray, but the brownish hues from the overhead light didn't really work for this picture, so I applied the black and white effect.

Day 179

My mom recently bought a tub of ball point pens and someone opened them on the wrong side so they were upside down. The springs in the tips of the pens could be seen through the clear tips, and I thought they looked really cool. I took a few pictures, but wasn't crazy about all the colors going on, so I made it black and white. I thought there were some nice shadows and highlights once I had edited it, but I do wish the background wasn't so grainy. 

Day 178

Blogger has been giving me problems recently, so I haven't been able to post or write when I am able to upload a photo. But for some reason it's working today, so here is today's photo of some decorative details in a leather belt.  I didn't really care for the brown and blue hues in the original photo, so I used a black and white effect to enhance the overall artistic and dramatic elements. I angled the belt and the camera to draw the eye right into the center of the flower detail and so that I would get some deep blacks and light whites.

Day 177

Another weed in a field at sunrise. I loved the colors the sunlight created and the painted look of the background that a shallow depth of field allowed.