Day 301; Rust and Snow

I took this photo a few days ago after we'd received a light dusting of snow. Today, temperatures rose to 65℉ and it felt like spring for the first time. To get this photo, I put my camera down into a large, rusty basin sitting out in our yard. The bottom had rusted out so that I could see the ground on the other side, and the combination of snow and rusted edges lent a nice contrast of texture and color to the image. For editing, I cropped the original down to the area I wanted to focus on, and adjusted the exposure to best represent the white of the snow and the shadows on the sides of the basin.

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 292; Through the Pine

The past few weeks have been really busy around here. In fact, this time next week I'll be in Washington, D.C. on a 4-H trip. Today's photo was taken a couple of days ago when I was out checking on our pigs. It was relatively early in the morning, so the lighting behind this little pine tree was very pretty and soft. I cropped the photo so the branches would form more of a window, but that's the only editing I did. I really liked the colors in the tree and grass, and how clearly outlined the branches were with the backlighting.

Day 289; Lines and Vines

These honeysuckle vines are growing up along the side of my house. Even though it's starting to feel like spring, these vines are still bare except for a few dead leaves left over from last fall. The sunset provided good lighting and when paired with the curving, unpredictable lines of the vines made for a very interesting photo. I used black and white to highlight these traits.

Day 288; Brown Bales

I actually took this photo a couple weeks ago on my grandfather's farm. Now, these hay bales are covered in snow. I love the golden and brown colors present in the bales, and edited to enhance and complement them. I also liked how there were so many different textures (the hay, the grass, and the trees) but the image didn't seem too busy. In retrospect, I would have framed the image so a little more of the face of the first bale was visible.

Day 287; Ordinary Orchid

My great grandfather passed away last week. I went to the funeral on Monday. My mom and I brought home these beautiful orchids which were red and yellow, which are the colors of Iowa State University, which happened to be where he went to college. I loved the colors, but after being in the car on the way home the flowers kind of wilted and turned brown. So, I decided to make the photo black and white. This also had the added benefit of drawing attention to the texture and structure of the flower.

Day 286; A Classic Crown

My last post and today's post show two different sides of my personality. I love reading, and I feel smarter and more studious when wearing my glasses. But I'm also a super girly girl, who loves dresses and high heels. So, instead of a book and glasses today's shot is of one of the tiaras I've won. I set the tiara on a piece of fabric I had laying around because I liked the contrast of the round diamonds with the straight stripes. I used an overhead light source and took the shot pretty much head on. The one thing I don't like is that the top center portion of the tiara is kind of out of focus. I used a black and white effect because I wanted to draw attention to the details, lines, and textures.

Day 285; Poe & Poetry

I've always wanted to do a photo like this, and now that I have my own glasses I can. I set the glasses on a book opened to the poem "Annabel Lee" by Edgar Allan Poe (which is a really good poem, in case you were wondering).  I knew I wanted the final product to be black and white, and I ended up using a reverse focal soften effect, so the text in the glasses would be clear while the rest of the image was out of focus. If I had a do over I would probably experiment more with lighting and the composition - the focal point is a little too centered.

Day 260; The Brace

If you're reading this you may or may not already know about my brace. I have degenerative disc disease in my lower back which has completely changed my life since I developed it in 2011. I got a back brace pretty soon and had to wear it 24/7 for a very long time. This year I've been working on regaining my strength and am no longer dependent on the brace. I brought it out again today to take some macros of the many details which it is made up of. This photo is of one of the many velcro portions. The brace itself is black, so I used a black and white effect to minimise the yellow colors from my light source.

Day 259; Charm of the Camera

Today's photo is of a tiny camera shaped charm which my sister got me for Christmas last year. I usually wear it on a silver necklace, but today I set it on a plaid hat to use as a backdrop. I liked the shiny silver threads in the hat which caught the light from my flash. A simple black and white highlighted the textures in the charm and hat.

Day 257; Palm Flowers

Today's photo is pretty simple. I put some little white flowers in my hand and snapped some macros. I liked the lines and detail of the hand as the background and the interest and pop of color from the flowers. I didn't really edit it much, only adding a thin black border to set off the softer sides.

Day 248; The Silver Butterflies

I like butterflies in real life, but don't like to wear them on jewelry or clothes or anything. Usually. But I do love this hair pin, even though I haven't been able to wear it for a long time since I cut my hair short. I put it on a light yellow pillowcase for today's shot. I really like the detail in the pin, and wanted to bring attention to that with a black and white filter. The Holga effect was a good fit for this shot, since it added some drama to the lighting which was otherwise somewhat flat.

"Well, I must endure the presence of a few caterpillars if I wish to become acquainted with the butterflies."
~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

Day 247; Black and Lace

I really love lace, though I don't wear it often. There are white lace curtains over the windows in my room which I see everyday but don't really look at. If you really look at lace there are some very interesting patterns and textures. For this photo, I laid the curtain over a blanket and took a close up of the threads which make up the lace. I love black and white, and especially with the high contrast in this shot.

Day 245; If the Shoe Fits

This year I'm old enough to run for our County Fair Queen. I ran for (and won) Junior Miss a couple years ago, which is simply the younger age division of the Fair Queen. I'm very excited for this opportunity, and have been working to find my interview outfit and formal wear for the evening. I did finally find the dress a couple weeks ago, and it's a very pretty black mermaid-style dress with very little embellishment. I love glitter, sparkles, and the like, so I knew I wanted very bold shoes. I fell in love with these black peep-toe heels covered in glitter as soon as I tried them on. Since both the dress and the shoes are black, a black and white effect made since to eliminate the yellow hues caused by the lighting available.

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 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 219; Owl Face

It's been kind of nice taking a break from my blog recently. But I'm ready to get back to it. This necklace featuring an owl was a gift from an old family friend. For today's shoot I put a netted veil over a plaid shirt to give texture to the background. The owl's golden color didn't turn out very pretty in the end product, so I went with a black and white.