Day 240; Inside the Iris

Irises are a very popular type of flower where I'm from. My mom has some bearded irises which are blooming right now. I take pictures of them every year, but wanted to try something a little different today. I turned the camera to get a different angle and zoomed in on the inner portion of the blossom. I altered the saturation and exposure slightly to truly represent the brilliance of color I saw in real life which didn't necessarily transfer to the lens.

Day 239; Techno Petals

We've been having beautiful weather lately so there're all sorts of flowers blooming outside. My mom has a comple peony bushes in the yard which are full of blossoms, one of which is featured in today's photo. And no, they're not blue flowers. I tried out some new techniques today. Below you can see the original image. I first applied an infrared black and white filter, then added a blue tint. I loved the blue, which I felt gave a modern, techno feel to the image.

Day 238; Zebras

Zebras are one of my favorite animals. I love the great contrast between their black and white stripes, and highlighted it with a Holga effect just as I did last year after our trip to the zoo. To make sure the focus was on the zebra on the left I added a focal soften.

Day 237; The Elephants' Wrinkles

On our trip to the zoo I got several cool shots, so I'll be posting a few more. Today the subject is an elephant. Elephants are interesting photography subjects both because of their enormous size and multitude of wrinkles. The elephants' color was affected by the dust they were covered in, and I complemented this color with a Dusk effect from picmonkey.com.

Day 236; The Butterfly House

When we were at the zoo yesterday we visited the butterfly house, something we didn't get to see last year. They were all lovely, but most wouldn't hold still. This little guy was the least active and thus the most photogenic. I was hoping he would spread his wings so more of the brilliant blue color would be visible, but unfortunately that didn't happen. I still liked the textures in both the tree and the wings, as well as the bright colors.

Day 235; Forest Park

My whole family is on a bit of a vacation in Saint Louis for my brother's birthday. Tomorrow we'll be going to the zoo, but today we had a picnic lunch and visited the art museum. Today's photo was taken in Forest Park when we stopped to eat before going to the museum. I thought it was neat that you could see the skyline behind the trees. I took other photos from angles I liked better, but unfortunately they didn't turn out. I did like the colors and lines in this shot.

Day 234; Charred Wood

We had a bonfire outside the other day, so tonight I took a picture of the left over charred firewood. Since it had been burned there wasn't much color left, so a black and white effect simply enhanced the contrast present.

Day 233; Lines Interwoven

Today was my last day of school - yay! Hopefully I'll be a little less busy now and be able to take photos every day again. But for now, I'm using a photo I took at the hotel the night before my AP test. This image is a close up of the decorations on the blanket. The interwoven lines of gold accents were very pretty, and interesting from a textural standpoint. The main fabric was a kind of greenish color that looked really good in person, but didn't turn out in the original photo. Because of this, I liked the black and white effect the best.

Day 232; Noah and his Bunny

My brother Noah likes to come out to the barn with me each day to play with the baby rabbits. This little black Dutch in particular has been a favorite recently. A couple mornings ago I had Noah sit on this pile of boards so I could take a picture of him with his bunny. He still squints his eyes when I ask him to smile, but I still love this photo. I especially liked the texture the boards provided in conjunction with the stripes on his shirt. To highlight the the details of the image I used a black and white effect.

Day 231; A String of Crosses

I'm out of town tonight so I can take the AP US History test early tomorrow morning. Studying for that and regular finals has made this a rather crazy couple of weeks. Today's photo is the bracelet I wore today placed on my favorite scarf. I really liked the texture and color of the scarf, but really liked the extra interest of the bracelet.

Day 230; Pig on the Move

This time of year means feeder pigs are on the farm once again, and they are just as cute and sweet as ever. This one started trotting up to me as soon as I went out to their pen. To edit, I used a faded Dusk effect, which I felt played off the brown and pink hues already present in the image.

Day 229; Sherman (Again)

It's been a while since you guys saw any pictures of our puppies. Actually, since the last photo (here) we've sold Sherman's brother and sister. But Sherman has stuck around. Today while I was out trying to take photos of flowers, Sherman kept vying for attention. He especially likes belly rubs, which is what I was doing when I snapped this shot. The sky has been really overcast all the time lately, so the original out of camera shot was rather dull. To fix this while editing, I increased the saturation in the grass and lightened the exposure so details in Sherman's dark coat could be seen.

Day 228; Honeycomb Pattern

My brothers are really into Star Wars, and have a bunch of Star Wars toys. This hexagon honeycomb-like pattern was on the floor of one of their ships. I liked the ridges on each of the hexagons, and the missing ones which provided interest and shadows.