Day 307; Abby on the Pond

I am pleased to announce that I will be spending the summer working as a camp counselor. We started our training period this week, and it's been so fun and I'm so excited for campers to get here. My camp nickname is Grapes, and my roommate's nickname is Jelly. Jelly made awesome flower crowns for myself and Abby, who is the subject of today's photo. I won't have a lot of time for photos and editing while I'm here, but when I do take photos they turn out really well because the camp is beautiful. Here, Abby is pictured looking out over our pond. I liked the angle of her head because it draws your eye across the frame. I also loved the reflection of the trees onto the water and the textures of the leaves, water, and her hair.

Day 306; The Wall

One of the most enjoyable and most uniquely "camp" experiences at the Iowa 4-H Camp is the climbing wall. I've attempted it a couple times, but I enjoy climbing the wall much less than I enjoy watching others do so. This weekend, armed with a camera, I sat with other chaperones under a tree and watched several campers reach varying heights on the wall. I wanted to get a more interesting action shot, but this particular group was very cautious, and I can't really blame them. Even though it wasn't exactly the composition I wanted, I really liked the lighting and colors of this image. The colors in the camper's outfit pull out the blue of the sky and the hand holds, in addition to making her pop from the brown of the wall.

Day 297; February Ferns

I wish someone had told me how busy senior year would be. The days are flying by - my future is rapidly approaching. I find myself missing last summer when I was working at summer camp and showing at the fair. This winter has been bleak. We've only gotten one or two goods snows, so I haven't been out photographing much. This photo was taken last June at the Iowa State 4-H Conference. While looking through old Conference photos recently, I found this image and decided to edit it. I liked how the sun highlighted the stems and edges and the many lines present. While the original vibrant green colors were a welcome break from the brown world outside my window, I preferred a black and white filter because it drew attention to the intricate structure of the plants and the contrasting light and shadow.

Day 267; Californian at Convention

This was a great weekend spent at the Iowa State Rabbit Breeders Assoc. State Convention. I didn't have many chances to take photos for my blog, but I did get some photos of my sister's Californian rabbit. This rabbit won Best In Show for youth three times over the course of the weekend and will be going to Texas for the national convention. This cool little photo backdrop was set up by some friends of ours, and was used a lot over the weekend. I liked the fall colors of the setup and complimented those with a dusk effect. While this isn't the type of photo I usually post, it is nice to take photos which are important for the subjects and not as much the artistic merit.

Day 243; The Not-So-Ugly Duckling

Ugly is one of the last adjectives I would use to describe our new ducklings which just hatched out this morning. We brought this one inside right after it hatched for a photo shoot in Noah's hands, and it has since gotten fluffier and even more adorable.  The duckling is black, so in order to fully appreciate the details of its feathers I opted for a black and white effect.

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 226; Stars and Stripes

We're in Kansas for the National Dutch Rabbit Show. The hotel we're staying at has an amazing pool area with an unusual astronaut theme. There is an astronaut cutout statue which you put your face in for pictures. Here, I took a photo from the shoulder of the cutout at an angle to highlight the American flag, colors, and textures present in the statue.

Day 224; Spotted Dress

At Easter this year there were so many adorable little kids in nice clothes, so portraits were inevitable. This little girl was particularly adorable in my opinion, and I managed to snap this photo in the midst of the chaos of the egg hunt. I liked the texture the bushes in the background and the bright, springtime colors.

Day 217; G On Canvas

The background for this photo is a painting of a rose my sister did on canvas. For the main subject I used a charm in the shape of a letter G which I bought years ago to wear hanging from my back brace. I haven't worn it in quite some time, but I saw it sitting on the shelf today and thought it would be a fun subject to shoot. I didn't like the yellows in the photo due to the lighting, so I used a black and white Holga effect from picmonkey.com which also enhanced some of the details in the canvas.

Day 211; Wood Lines

Leaves, ragweed stalks, and a random piece of dried tree trunk were all thrown together by the intense winds we've been having recently to form the subjects for today's photo. I love lines and textures found in nature, primarily veins in leaves and textured tree bark, so this scene naturally caught my eye. In hindsight, it seems a bit busy, but I like it anyway. I also loved how the dampness we've been experiencing and the time of year left all the items with some of the same hues and colors to lend a unified feel.

Day 203; Doll With the Floral Dress

This doll was for the longest time tied for my favorite porcelain doll. I think it was mostly because she was plain enough that I could play with her comfortably without ruining her (although her hair has seen better days). For the past few years she's been sitting in a box with all the other dolls I outgrew. It's sad that I can't even remember her name anymore. For this photo I put her in a box of packing peanuts which you can see in the corner. I did a focal soften so it would fade into softer focus the farther out from her head you got. I also did a faded black and white to give a gentler light to her dress.

Day 195

Today I'm going to keep it short and sweet - it's cold outside, I'm still pretty sick, and there's snow everywhere. This is a landscape of a field and the woods behind it. I liked the one tree that stood out and was taller than all the rest. I added the Holga effect because the blue snow and sky didn't look very nice with the brown weeds and trees.

Day 192

Here in Iowa we get a lot of snow, ice, and cold nasty weather in general. On Friday we got 7 inches of snow, and are supposed to get 6 to 8 more tomorrow. Yay! The only upside to this dreary winter weather is how pretty everything looks covered in snow. The icicles on the buildings here in town are getting really big, and are the subject of today's post. To offset the vertical lines of the many icicles I angled the shot so a portion of this brick wall was also included, with the horizontal lines of the bricks providing a nice contrast. I added a slight dark edge to bring out some of the details in the icicles.

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 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 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 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 168

Even though it's not technically winter yet (the winter solstice is December 21) it sure is starting to look and feel like winter. Today's photo is a footprint in the new snow that we got this week. I took this in the late afternoon when it was already getting dark, so the snow was a dark blue color. While I liked the light blue hue in yesterday's post, I didn't like how it worked for this particular image. So I applied a black and white effect with dark edges to add some drama to an otherwise simple photo.