Day 90 - Spring Renewal

 

The leaves that had died off for the winter are making their bright appearance again. Nothing like the green of spring!

Day 89 - A Splash of Color

With the change of weather brings the change of nail polish. Spring and summer are my favorites because I can branch away from the real dark colors and go with something a little brighter. I was really lacking inspiration tonight so I surfed web pics a little bit and saw one similar to this so I decided to give it a shot. So with an hour and half to spare, I'm finally getting my picture posted.

Day 88 - Nobody's Home

I found this empty snail shell today. Who would want to leave behind such a pretty home I have no idea but it made for a nice contrast with the green leaves.

Day 87 - Fresh Fruit

Whenever I am having a hard time coming up with something to photograph I seem to revert to food for whatever reason. Photographing it, not eating it that is. :)  My baby girl loves fruit so we keep a lot of it in stock.

Day 86 - On the Menu

Ok, so I really don't have a menu. I rarely cook actually and since the hubs has been dieting (which by the way, I have to give him mega kudos. He's lost 30 lbs!) I cook even less. Today though I decided I would cook something that even the hubs could eat - stir fry. So I cheated and grabbed the pre-prepared bag of stir-fry from Costco but I did boil and add my own chicken so I should get some kind of props for that, right? If you want me to cook, it's gotta be simple. :)

Project 365 - Week 12

Click on the title to see the full photo.
1. Vibrant Color
2. Slow as Snails
3. Fungus Amongus
4. S.C.R.A.B.B.L.E
5. Bird of Paradise
6. Facial in Progress
7. Bills Bills Bills

Day 85 - Bills Bills Bills

Does anyone else hate paying bills as much as I do? Oh well. Such is the way of life. I just wish my income went up as my bills went up. Hmmm....

Day 84 - Facial in Progress

Went to see my sweet friend/esthetician today. I actually didn't get a facial but I liked her sign and wanted to arrange some of her stuff for a photo. She's cool like that. Anyway, went in to get my eyebrows cleaned up. I don't enjoy having hair yanked out of my face or anything, but we women do strange things to look pretty. :)

Day 83 - Bird of Paradise

Our complex is a host to many beautiful plants and flowers as you have seen by some of my other posts. Today's choice was the Birds of Paradise. These flowers are amazing!

Day 82 - S.C.R.A.B.B.L.E

Every night after the baby is in bed, the hubs and I put an hour aside and spend time together. No TV. No computer.  Whether chatting or playing a game or learning new songs to sing at church, it's time that we spend alone together. The past couple of nights we have been playing Scrabble and so far I am the reigning champion! woot woot!

Day 81 - Fungus Amongus

The hubs came up with the title of this one. lol I didn't know that mushrooms were actually the "fleshy spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus" (according to wikipedia). Gross! Bet you will never view mushrooms the same way again. Just one of the many growing things in our apartment complex. I'm really having to get creative since the only place I can take my daughter to play right now is right outside till she's all better.

Thanks everyone for the well wishes. She's been having some really rough nights with all the coughing.

Day 80 - Slow as Snails

Our apartment complex becomes Snail Central when it rains and today was no exception. You have to watch where you walk or you are bound to hear a crunch under your feet which gives me the heeby jeebies. Yuck!

Just wanted to thank each of you who follow and who take the time to stop and comment. I know following a lot of blogs, sometimes it is hard to have enough time to comment on everyone's blogs but I truly appreciate the comments. They are encouraging.

Day 79 - Vibrant Color

Nothing grand and glorious today. My baby girl has been sick the past few days so we stayed home from church. We were both starting to get a little stir crazy indoors so we went outside for a little fresh air and I brought my camera along just in case I could find something to take a picture of. I found these vibrant flowers. Definitely provided some cheer to an otherwise gloomy day. Happy 16 months to my baby girl today too!

Project 365 - Week 11

Click on the link in each description to view the full picture.

1. My daughter dreaming of warmer days when we can get back in the pool.
2. Nature's artwork - a magnificent spider web.
3. Even Costco contains beauty.
4. Out of the Ordinary - a parrot sitting outside of Subway.
5. Happy Green Day
6. When Life Hands You Lemons
7. Rusted History - A Hay Rake

Day 78 - Rusted History

I would love to know where this piece of equipment was once used, whose ground it once tilled, the story behind it, its history. Now it's all rusted and worn and out of commission used as decoration in front of a construction business. I posted another piece of the equipment in an earlier post here.

Correction: I was informed that this is actually a hay rake. Thanks, Andy, for the info. I searched for it on the web but no one seemed to no what it was called.

Lemon Water Post Tutorial

I have been asked by several people again to do a tutorial on my latest posting. I appreciate all the positive feedback on the last tutorial. It gave me more confidence going into this one. I'm so happy it was a help.

I have seen this done with a piece of foam board and colored paper as the background but I got rid of all the colored paper that I had so that wasn't an option for me. I decided I wanted purple as my background since I knew it would be a nice contrast and luckily I had just changed my daughter's clothes and put her to bed and her purple shirt was on the table. So I laid it on the kitchen floor against the childproof gate.

I originally had borrowed a clear colorless glass from my mom since I only own blue glasses but hers has ridges in it so I had to scour my kitchen for something else clear and found this, a food processor I used when my baby girl was still eating mushy foods.

I was concerned about the middle tube part of it but it actually came in handy for the lemon to rest against. So I popped off the container and set it on the purple shirt...

Next I cut a slice out of the lemon.

Then I got some Walmart Flavored Water. Obviously any flavor will work since it's clear...

Then I poured the water into the container and stuck the lemon inside. I filled the water almost to the top since it's a short container. I had to wiggle the lemon around a little bit to get the bubbles moving again. (There is no water in this picture because I already dumped it out before I took pictures for the tutorial.) If you look closely you can see ridges on the container so I had to center it just right to avoid capturing the ridges.

I let go of the lemon real fast and thankfully that middle tube kept it standing upright so I could use both hands to hold the camera. In another tutorial I saw (that I searched high and low for and can't find), the photog used a skewer stick and put it through the top of the lemon and rested the stick on the top of the glass to keep the lemon from moving or sinking. Considering the container I used is very short I had to let the lemon rest on the bottom of the container to maximize the amount of lemon I could capture without getting the top of the container in the picture.

I used my macro filter to capture this. You might be able to capture it without the filter but I decided just to go ahead and use it.

I made sure to adjust the white balance in my camera and then I got down on my belly and started snapping away. Through the process of trying to use the ridged glass and different angles with this container it took me about 40 shots before I finally got one I could use. It definitely requires a lot of time and patience.

ISO 800  f/5.6   1/30 sec

Next I started the editing process...

Before and After

So there you have it. I hope to see some of you give it a try in the near future. I hope these tutorials will help make it easier for you.

Day 77 - When Life Hands You Lemons...

...put them in sparkly water and take a picture! :) I saw some other people do this and wanted to give it a try myself. Let's just say it was more challenging than I thought it would be and now I have a bunch a lemon tasting sparkly water to drink. :)

Thank you to all my recent followers, please be sure to leave a link to your blog so I can return the favor. Also, there are many of you that say things that elicit a response but you have no e-mail address linked to your blog so I am not able to reply. To fix that go to Dashboard, Edit Profile and under Identity enter your e-mail address. Would love to reply to you! :)

Day 76 - Happy Green Day

I remember as a kid getting pinched by my classmates if I didn't wear green and every year without fail I would forget. Needless to say after the first few pinches I was begging someone for a dollar to pin on my clothes to avoid being covered in bruises by the end of the day. I don't celebrate St. Patrick's Day but I actually did wear green today and figured I would keep with the theme and include green in my picture of the day.

Day 75 - Out of the Ordinary

So I stopped at Subway today to get lunch and sitting there in the parking lot on the side mirror of a car was this beauty. I have never been so up close to a parrot before! I snapped picture after picture and he didn't budge. It was the coolest thing ever! By the way, according to the hubs, the bird nerd, it is properly called a Green-winged Macaw.

Day 74 - Orchids

I took my camera with me today on our monthly Costco trip hoping to find something to take a picture of. Thankfully they now have tons of potted flowers out for sale. I took a bunch of pictures and settled on these.

Day 73 - Itsy Bitsy Spider

As we were admiring the adorable koalas at the zoo, this spider web caught the hub's eye and he pointed it out to me. Hate to see the guy who lives here.

For those wondering what the name of the purple flower was that I posted the other day, it is called Lupine. I took it from a different angle so that may be why it was hard to identify.

Day 72 - Summer Dreamin'

From the looks of this picture my baby girl is dreaming of days when temperatures are warm and it's time to get back in the pool. Actually we have been having very warm temps and people have been getting in the pool but the water is still a bit too cold for us to go enjoy it yet.

Project 365 - Week 10

1. A great little farm open to the public filled with flowers, greenery and waterfalls.
2. A picture of a soda can bound to make you thirsty.
3. Giraffe at the zoo
4. Bird Watching Trivia Game I bought for my husband
5. Flavored water decorated with a strawberry in a blue glass
6. My beautiful baby girl enjoying a warm sunny day at the park
7. Purple flower at sunset

Day 71 - Purple

 Last minute as the sun was setting I ran over to a small field across from the flight school and started snapping away. This was my final choice.

Flavored Water Post Tutorial - RAW

I always try to avoid giving step by step detail of how I take/edit pictures because it requires me to be open and raw with my knowledge or lack of 'technically correct wording' of my knowledge and I've always been nervous of the criticism I could get from the real professionals. But then I realized I wouldn't have learned the things I have learned if photographers hadn't been open and raw with me. I have been asked several times to explain in detail how I came up with my finished image so at last here it goes....

I don't have any fancy backdrops or anything when I have white backgrounds in my pictures. I have taken pictures of exactly what I do to help you better understand the exact steps I took to accomplish my blue glass/strawberry picture.

First of all, it takes me quite a few tries and adjustments till I get it right. I wish I could say I know what settings to use right off but many times it's trial and error and I just keep making adjustments till I get it right. Please forgive the ugly colors in the kitchen. I live in an apartment so we are stuck with what they provide.

I took the picture in my kitchen at night under the fluorescent lighting that is provided. That's how most of my pictures with the white backgrounds are taken. Many times I am running around late at night trying to get my picture taken and posted before 10:00. I adjusted my in-camera white balance to 'day white fluorescent' so the lighting wouldn't appear too blue or too yellow.  I have several options for my white balance so I try each one and snap pictures until I find the one that looks best. The picture below is where it all went down. :)

I used several sheets of regular computer paper. Enough sheets piled together so you can't see through them. I laid them up against the stove with some on the floor and some up against the stove to provide a white base and white background. Crazy, huh? I know!

To get the top papers to stay up without falling I had to put a little bit of scotch tape on it and stuck it to the bottom part of the stove. You like my fancy shmancy photography equipment?

Then I set the blue glass to one side of the paper and filled it with ice, clear flavored water and then cut a slit in the strawberry to get it to stay on the side of the cup.

Then I got down low and snapped from all different angles till I found an angle I liked which resulted in the final picture. I took at least 10 shots.

I shoot in manual/RAW. These were my settings for the picture I took: ISO800  62mm    f/5.3   1/40 sec

Then the editing begins. I use LR only. It's the only editing program I have and the only program I have learned to use so far. I know there is a lot I haven't even learned to use yet but I work with what I know. The edits may seem to be all over the place but I just move and adjust till I get the result I want. Starting from the bottom moving up shows all the edits I made.

or

I cringe to show you my SOOC shot but here it goes....

If it wasn't for Lightroom I wouldn't really have many great pictures to post. Thank God for editing programs. I'm sure you will never view my pictures the same way again. lol Here is the after again for a comparison:

 
I think that pretty much sums it up. It seems like more work than it actually is. I just drag around my settings back and forth, back and forth till I get what I like. Hope this was an understandable tutorial. I've never done one before but I tried to make it as simple as possible. If you have questions, I will do my best to answer them in another post.

Thanks for your patience and interest. My stomach is now officially in knots. It's humbling to be paid such high compliments. I appreciate all your comments.