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 256; Tiny Teeth

In case you haven't figured it out yet, there aren't really teeth in this photo. This is a macro of a plant, though I actually have no idea what kind of plant this was. I only know that it was small and dead. You didn't really notice the tiny burrs when looking at the plant, but when you zoomed in for a macro they looked really fierce. I wanted to draw attention to the detail in the image, so I opted for a black and white edit.

Day 255; Three Seasons of Leaves

Today there are three photos, or rather, three versions of the same photo. The first is the original out of camera shot. I liked the lighting and details, but felt it needed a little something more. Second is a black and white edit which I really liked because it drew attention to the veins in the leaf and the lighting patterns. It also gave a classic look to the image. This second edit is probably my favorite. The third image is mostly just for fun. I took the black and white image and applied a galaxy texture from picmonkey.com to the whole photo except for the one leaf in the foreground. This gave a very unique look to the photo which I really liked.

Day 254; Looking Through the Fence

"There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something." ~J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit 

I've looked at a lot of things in my life, and will continue to look at many more. But me looking at something is always different than someone next to me looking at the same thing because we're going to perceive it differently. Today's photo is of a bridge I have seen thousands of times, but this time taken through a chain link fence. I messed around with some different angles and depths of field, but liked how this turned out with the bridge in focus and the fence blurred. When editing I wanted a very dramatic look, so I applied black and white and softened all the areas except inside of one of the links in the fence.

Day 253; Macro Clover

You are probably wondering where I've been. It's been almost two months since I've posted, but I do have pretty good reasons. In July was my county fair, then I had a couple weeks to get all my projects for the Iowa State Fair, then I had one day off before my first day of school. I've been in school for a week or so now. I wanted to get a feel for how busy I was going to be before I got back to the blog. I'm pretty sure I should have time to post again now. But enough about me and my excuses. Today's photo was not the brilliant comeback photo I had wanted. Since my last photo was of a red clover, I thought it would be nice to come back with a different take on the same kind of flower.

Day 252; Clover Blooms

It feels good to finally be home again. I've been working to teach my brothers about photography and get their photos taken for the county fair. So far they've been doing really well, but since they were using my camera all day I didn't have too much time to take photos myself. I did get a few, one of which was this shot of a red clover. Hope everyone has a great 4th of July weekend!

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 250; Chicken On a Hill

I'm back from State Conference! It was SO much fun. I've had a nice relaxing day home today, before I leave for a 4-H camp tomorrow where I will be a counselor-in-training. While I'm still here I'm posting a photo of one of my brother Josiah's hens. I don't really like chickens in person, but I've always liked the way they look in pictures. For this particular photo I layered "cinerama" and "dusk" filters to get the look I wanted.

Day 249; Noah in the Dark - Funny Face Edition

My brother Noah is a little ham. He likes to make funny faces, and was not in the mood to cooperate, even though I'm leaving tomorrow morning for state conference. I won't be able to post for the next three days, and possibly not on Friday either. For this shot I used a small light to illuminate his face but leave the background in the dark. I wanted a sweet smile, but he was not in the mood tonight. I still think he's adorable though.

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