Through A Photographer's Eyes: July 2011

Day 212 - Parachuting

First off, some exciting news! I was voted as Best Photography Blog over at For the Love of Blogs! Thank you, everyone for voting!

Now on to my picture of the day...

I know this picture has quite a few flaws but I am only posting it because I hadn't taken a picture of anything else today. My brother had an idea to give all the kids at church a parachute man and then take a picture of a bunch of all the parachute guys floating down from the sky as part of a promotion he was doing at church. Well, they weren't able to get all the parachute guys like they wanted and gave the kids other toys instead. So, I had someone stand upstairs and repeatedly throw down the same parachute guy while I snapped pictures. I then combined them all into one picture. Time consuming edits, let me tell ya! So, this is the best I could get for 10:00 at night.

Here is the original SOOC photo I started with:

Project 365 - Week 30

Click on title below to see full picture.
1. Beach Scene
2. Great Blue Heron
3. Flying Into the Sunset
4. Old Equipment
5. Well Traveled
6. Baby Flamingo
7. Seeing Purple

Day 211 - Seeing Purple

These flowers are everywhere but always make for a nice picture. Tiring day today but got to go on a date with my baby girl so it was totally worth it. Hope you all are having a great weekend!

Day 210 - Baby Flamingo

The baby flamingos at the zoo are already getting pretty big but lack their pinkish/orange color yet. This guy is so fuzzy and cute!

Favorite Photo of the Week Contest - Week 10

Contest Date Parameters: Sunday, July 24 - Saturday, July30

Welcome to week 10 of the Favorite Photo of the Week Contest. If you are not yet a follower please become one so you will know when the contests and winners are posted. If this is your first time posting, please be sure to read the details below so your picture will count for the contest.

Details:
1. Linky opens Friday at 12:01am and closes Monday at 11:59pm.

2. Winners will be announced the following Wednesday.
3. Photo must be taken this week.(Sun - Sat)
4. Only one entry per person.
5. "Favorite Photo of the Week" button must be on your post in order for it to qualify.
6. Link only to your blog post not your main blog url.
7. If you have more than one photo on a posting please specify which photo you are submitting.

8. If you submit a photo you are granting me permission to copy and paste it onto my blog if you win.
9. It's not mandatory but do try to visit other participant's blogs and give them some comment love.

10. I will choose the top 5 photos and the overall winner from your entries.

Here is my own favorite photo of the week:

Day 209 - Well Traveled

I love wagon wheels. They are artistic all by themselves. I'm slowly getting through blogs and leaving comments. Most of my time has been consumed with re-vamping my photography business so please forgive the lack of comments. I seem to be juggling a lot right now while being a mom and a wife too. I WILL get around to your blogs though.....slowly but surely.

Day 208 - Old Equipment

A few months ago I took a picture of one of these water wagons outside a construction company. Well, today I found a totally different construction company with this water wagon sitting outside of it. I love old equipment like this. It holds so much history.

Favorite Photo of the Week Winners - Week 9

Great job again this week, everyone! Your participation is encouraging to me. Check out our winners below. If you click on their picture you can go leave them some comment love.

Don't forget to grab your button.

The Daily Wyatt

I am so impressed how Audrey edited this photo to fully capture the twirling of her son. Click on the picture to go read how she did it.

Ramblings and Photos

It looks like a beam of light is shining down from Heaven on this one flower. Gorgeous lighting and nice crisp colors.

My Photo Adventures

Water droplets are some of my favorite subjects to photograph. Scott got it spot on with this droplet. The clarity, reflection and crisp colors are gorgeous!

Life-n-Reflection

Love big red barns! Great textures!

My #1 favorite photo of the week goes to....

Life.Real.Simple

So eerie yet so beautiful! The details are incredible!

Congratulations on being this week's Favorite Photo of the Week! Grab your button below.

Look for the next contest on Friday...

Day 207 - Flying Into the Sunset

I did something new and completely out of my "Element" (pun intended - you'll get that in a sec) today.

There is a small airport near my home and I wanted to get some planes flying in around sunset. A few nights ago we were driving home from church and the sunset was so gorgeous and seeing the planes fly over gave me the idea to get my camera one of these days and go take some shots of it. Well, tonight the sky was not that impressive. Kinda dull actually. I was taking some practice shots while I was waiting on the planes to come and took a picture of the sun just as it was beginning to set. It set pretty fast and by the time the planes came the sky was lit up but just a dull orange color. So....I decided to experiment a bit and take the two pictures I liked and combine them in PE. This is only my 2nd time ever using PE and I had to watch a tutorial on how to do it, but I must say, I am pretty pleased with the results. Sure was time consuming though. Hopefully one of these days I will be able to capture these planes with a gorgeous sky backdrop.

Here are the two pictures I combined.

On a side note, Branson over at My Reflection of Something wrote up a great post today with some VERY useful information for bloggers. I know, I know...you are going to skip right past my link and click the "Next" button at the top of your browser to read the next blog but WAIT! FIRST you HAVE to go read Branson's post today. She wrote about some important issues a lot of bloggers need to be aware of, so before you click "Next" to read the next blog, read hers first. (Well actually, leave a nice comment for me and THEN go read her post:) Thanks, guys! Have a great day.

Day 206 - Great Blue Heron

This guy was feasting on tiny little fish being pumped into a lake adjacent to several others. I couldn't get a real clear shot of the fish in his mouth but he looked so stoic standing there waiting for his next little snack to arrive.

This Week's Featured Linkup - Photography Basics: The Art of Composition

It's time for my 6th Linkup Feature...

Halie over at Shutterscapes hosts the linkup called 'Photography Basics: The Art of Composition' on her blog. She has included the details of her linkup below:

According to the book (The Art of Composition by Bert Kragges which inspired the meme), the exercises in the book were designed to help photographers to develop their skills in composition and perception.

The basic rule is to shoot your photographs in Monochrome (from camera and not shot in color, then converted to black and white). According to what I've read, it will help one enhance his/her skills in perception and recognize elements like edges, spaces and the relationships between objects without introducing the more complicated elements of manipulation of hue, intensity of color and the likes. The exercise is geared towards the use and hopefully the mastery of lights and the play of shadows in a photograph.

'Photography Basics: The Art of Composition' will now be included on my list of linkups under the tab 'Other Linkups' found at the top of my page. Halie, please be sure to include my button below on your blog so others can find their way to this helpful list of linkups.

If you would like your linkup featured on my blog, please click on the tab at the top of the page entitled 'Get Your Link Up Featured' for details. The next linkup will be featured next Monday.

Day 205 - Beach Scene / Scavenger Hunt Sunday

Man, I have really been showing off SoCal the past few posts, huh. Anyone else want to come visit me? :) It's gorgeous here.

Now for Scavenger Hunt Sunday...

This is only my second week and I can't believe I have waited this long to participate because it's a total blast! Thanks, Ashley for hosting such a brilliant idea. I love how it makes me view the ordinary with a different perspective.

Music to my ears

I love my ipod. Considering I workout 5 days a week it definitely gets used a lot.

Hat

Ok, so this picture is very old but it never loses the "aaw" factor! My baby girl at 10 months.

Clear

A clear light bulb. The hubs helped me come up with this one. Genius he is.

Out of this world

Jesus Christ is not of this world therefore he would be "out of this world".

Sprinkles

Sprinkles of salt on a pretzel

I waited till the last day of course to do this Scavenger Hunt but was able to get everything in about half an hour so I was pretty happy about that.

As a side note, I am really excited about the guest post my fitness guru of a husband posted on my fitness blog Gettin' My Workout On today. Would love for you to go check it out and get your workout on with the rest of us. That blog has turned in to quite the encouraging motivator and a place to stay accountable. Hope you will take a sec and read my hub's nuggets of fitness wisdom.

Project 365 - Week 29

Click on the title below to see the full picture.
1. Shanghai
2. Speed of Light
3. Lights of the Night
4. Waiting
5. Surfing
6. If this bike could talk...
7. Patriotic Pinwheel

Day 204 - Patriotic Pinwheel

Another themed family dinner hosted by our lovely mother. This week the theme was "American". Mom outdid herself again with all kinds of cute patriotic decorations and we dined on hamburgers and hotdogs and apple pie. Can't get much more American than that!

For those of you asking what lens I used on the surfer picture, it was the 18-135mm fully extended and then cropped.

*Please be sure to read the announcements at the top of the page*

Day 203 - If this bike could talk...

...wouldn't it have an interesting story to tell of the roads it's traveled of the people it has carried. I never saw the owner of this bike, but it sure left me wondering.

*Please be sure to read my announcements at the top of the page.*

And the second winner is...

...Dana West!

I had to laugh when I realized I forgot that I said I was giving away TWO of my prints. I think I may have too much going on. :) I announced that Sarah from Naptime Momtog was the first winner but forgot to randomly select the other. So, congratulations, Dana! Please send me an e-mail with your address to capturedbymistydawn(at)yahoo(dot)com and let me know if the fruit bowl print is your final decision.

Favorite Photo of the Week Contest - Week 9

Contest Date Parameters: Sunday, July 17 - Saturday, July 23

Welcome to week 9 of the Favorite Photo of the Week Contest. If you are not yet a follower please become one so you will know when the contests and winners are posted. If this is your first time posting, please be sure to read the details below so your picture will count for the contest.

Details:
1. Linky opens Friday at 12:01am and closes Monday at 11:59pm.

10. I will choose the top 5 photos and the overall winner from your entries.

Here is my own favorite photo of the week:

Day 202 - Surfing

This is a way of life here in SoCal. In fact, when most people think of SoCal they think of some bleached blonde surfer, waving his pinky and thumb in their signature surfer way. You can pretty much hit the beach any day of the week and see surfers catching waves. Another reason I love living here so much.

And the winner is... (plus one last chance to win an Etsy print)

Sarah from Naptime MomTog! Congratulations, Sarah on winning my giveaway celebrating 200 followers. Please visit my Etsy shop and decide which 8x10 print you would like to own and then send me an e-mail at capturedbymistydawn(at)yahoo(dot)com with your address so I can get everything in order to get it sent out to you.

Thanks, everyone for entering! If you get a second, could you please go "like" me on FTLOB. My blog is in the running to be featured as the top photography blog. I'm #18. If you "like" me on their page and then go to my Facebook page and leave a comment telling me you "liked" me, you will be entered to win one of my Etsy prints too! The contest closes next Friday, the 29th.

Day 201 - Waiting...

This young lady just intrigued me as she stood on the pier waiting...waiting for whom? The picture leaves a story untold and that's what I love the best about it.

I was actually waiting for my awesome blogging buddy, Kristin! I met Kristin through this 365 journey and she has been one of my biggest encouragers and supporters. A couple weeks ago she e-mailed me telling me she was going to be in my neck of the woods so we decided to meet! I was SO stoked to meet her and her wonderful family. We spent a couple hours together walking the pier and taking pictures and then enjoying a nice snack at the pier's diner. It was like two friends reuniting instead of just meeting for the first time. Her husband so graciously and happily took our picture for us. :)

We do really like each other but the wind was so crazy we both had to face the same direction to keep our hair from blowing in our faces. lol