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 303; A Series of Fog

This morning I woke up to an incredibly thick, very eerie looking fog. I didn't have my camera on hand, so I snapped a few photos with my phone. I couldn't really pick a favorite, and I didn't end up having time to edit them today, so I'm sharing this series of raw images. I noticed, especially in this third picture, that these shots were pretty grainy, and didn't look nearly as cool as what I had seen with my own eyes, but I'm still pretty happy with them.

Day 300; Sunrise on the River

Today, I present this gem from last October. On this particular morning, a club I'm a member of was putting on a rabbit show, which meant getting up well before the sun did. The show location had a great view of the river, so when the sun did start coming up I slipped away to get this shot. There are many things I like about this image. I love the colors present, with the purples and blues of the water and the pinks and yellows in the sky. The water has a gorgeous texture and I love how it's juxtaposed with the pattern of the fence. The fence forms a leading line which effectively leads the eye from the highlight on the water to the child's silhouette on the right side. The presense of the silhouette adds an interesting secondary focal point and a significant amount of interest to the image. The negative space of the trees on the horizon, the fence, and the silhouette provide a nice balance with the busyness of the water.

Day 293; Cherry Blossoms in D.C.

Late on Thursday I got back from a week in Washington, D.C. for the 2015 National 4-H Conference. It was a truly incredible experience, and I met many amazing people from all over the country. I took loads of pictures, especially since we were there during peak cherry blossom bloom. This was one of my favorites. It was taken at the Tidal Basin, with cherry blossoms in the foreground and the Washington Monument in the background. We were there in the middle of the afternoon, so the light was a little harsh. I adjusted the saturation and exposure, which left the flowers looking a little more pink than they were in real life, but I liked the final look much more.

Day 290; Rule of Thirds

I've taken lots of photos of this old shed over the years, but each one turns out a little different. This one I cropped to a wider, shorter size to empathize the lines of the ground and the fence. I also made this particular shot unique through editing. I wanted a different look, so I used a faded black and white filter to give an older, more artsy feel. If you're not a photographer, you probably don't know what the title of this post means. The rule of thirds is a basic rule of thumb for composition. I won't explain it here, but there are lots of articles online if you want to know more.

Day 284; Barren Lane

I haven't posted any color photos recently. This one is of my grandpa's lane. I used the Dusk effect from picmonkey.com to enhance the present brown colors.

Day 282; Lane Loveliness

I realize you're probably getting tired of black and white winterscapes, but with all of the snow we've been getting I don't foresee an end to the trend anytime soon. This view is one of my favorites though. It's looking from our garage down the lane toward the highway, but with all the snow it looks like it's from Narnia or some other fairy tale setting. The editing was simple, just a black and white filter with dark edges to bring out the tree trunks and branches.

Day 272; Creek Crop

Today I took my little brothers on an expedition to a creek near our house. I needed a couple buckets full of sand for a project and it was a good excuse to go play in the sand and get some photos. This one had some great colors and textures present though it didn't turn out as well defined as I would have liked. I cropped it to a more unique aspect ratio which was less busy than the original 8x10. Also, this photo looks a lot better if you click on it to see it in a larger size.

Day 270; Color on Campus

Yesterday I was in Chicago visiting the University of Chicago campus. I can't beleive I'll be heading off to college in just a couple years! UChicago is beautiful, and I could definitely see myself going there. This path was through one of the many little parks on campus and was quite charming. I didn't do much editing since I loved the warm fall colors already present.

Day 251; Fences and Foals

I just got back this afternoon from the 4-H vet science camp. It was so much fun, even though it rained practically every day. Thankfully it was nice when we toured the dairy farm, vet med school, and horse barns at Iowa State University. These foals were one of my favorite parts of the tour. They would come right up to the fence for the kids to pet.

"A horse is the projection of peoples' dreams about themselves - strong, powerful, beautiful - and it has the capability of giving us escape from our mundane existence." ~Pam Brown

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 196

This old barn isn't really used for anything anymore and is really falling apart, but it still looks pretty neat in photos with the unique topline. I don't like the mass of weeds cluttering up the right side of the frame, but there wasn't much I could do about that. I used the Holga effect to add an older feel.

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 173

This is a shot I took of the path that leads from our rabbit barn to Joy's bee yard. I kneeled in the snow to get this angle so the grass and weeds would look taller and fill more of the frame. In contrast to some of the previous posts, I wanted a little color in this photo, so instead of black and white I opted for the Dusk effect.

Day 172

The snow makes everything look different and more beautiful outside. Here's another black and white winter wonderland, this one of a fence post with a barn in the background.

Day 139

For school I am currently reading "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn." For those of you who don't know, it is about a boy who lives on a raft on the Mississippi River with a run away slave named Jim. To show my understanding of the novel I will be making a creative project featuring photos I take. Today I took my little brother to portray Huck and got some shots in the river. I also got this shot for today's post. I cropped it down to give a more dramatic view, and added a faded Holga effect to add age and artistic quality to the image.

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 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.

Day 101

Today I'm going to post another photo that I took while I was walking around the lake yesterday. This one reminded me of a path from a fairytale book. To enhance this idea, I softened the photo, then added light edges that I faded quite a bit.

Day 100

I can't believe I've posted 100 photos already!
Yesterday my family and I went for a walk around the lake. I decided to bring along my camera. I liked this photo for the symmetry with the reflection, and the interesting shapes from the clouds and treeline. I made it black and white, then added dark edges.