Just when you either loved or hated the yellow poles in yesterday’s photo, here’s another option. I didn’t do anything to this photo; what do you think?
Category Archives: Photography
Flower Stories: Bleeding Heart
Dicentra (bleeding-heart; Greek dís “twice”, kéntron “spur”) has attractive mounded foliage with arching stems of delicate, heart-shaped flowers in spring. It’s a woodland perennial that is happiest in moist soil along with ferns and other shade-lovers.
When I took this photo at the nursery, I was so overwhelmed by the beauty of this branch of bleeding heart that I didn’t see the ugly yellow poles in the background. I started by using the vignette effect to draw attention away from the poles.
Then I tried to draw more attention to the pink flowers by using the sharpen effect along with the vignette effect.
Finally, I decided to try it in black and white with some sharpening. It gets rid of the pesky yellow poles. It also gets rid of my favorite hot pink… insert sad face here.
So what do you think? What advice do you have for a novice photographer? I welcome your critique, but please be nice. 🙂
Flower Stories: Columbine
The genus name for columbine (Aquilegia) is derived from the Latin word aquila, because of the columbine flower’s resemblance to an eagle’s claw. The common name, columbine, comes from the flower’s resemblance to a cluster of five doves; columba means dove in Latin. It is a woodland plant that prefers moist roots and some shade, but is hardy even in poor soil and sun. The columbine thrives in northern climates in the United States.
I don’t see either a dove or an eagle’s claw, but I love to see the columbine in the spring. This photo was taken at a local nursery and enhanced with the Lomo-ish effect on Picasa.
Playing with Instagram
I loved how the focus feature in Instagram allowed me to accentuate the fiery colors and interesting textures of this scarf while de-emphasizing the subject’s shoulders.
That being said about Instagram, I’m off with a borrowed Canon 75-300 to play with my new Rebel DSLR. The neighbors across the street are having a garage sale. I’ll bet there will be someone or something interesting to catch with a telephoto!
Friday Photo
Thunderstorms, Wild Turkeys and Broken Glass: A History of Glass Preservation at the Philip Johnson Glass House
This a fascinating history of a fascinating structure. I wish I could take my own photos of it…
Mom’s New Toy Means I Can’t Resist Posting
Life is strange. First I felt violated. Then I felt relieved. Now I’m just over it and ready to move on. Welcome back to Got My Reservations: The Retirement Sequel.
I have spent a lot of time in the last couple of months with friends who have much more knowledge than I do about cameras. I bought the Canon EOS Rebel T3i, and I’m thrilled with the results so far. Ten minutes out of the box and I had 24 photos that were better than anything I’ve taken recently — although I’ve done some pretty good work with my iPhone in Instagram. 🙂
Here’s today’s teaser.
The next step is to figure out which totally cute camera bag I’m going to buy from Judy at Snugglens.
InstaFriday
Last week I stumbled on a blogger with a fun way to link up photos on Fridays that fits right in with one of my RENEW goals for 2012 — using my cameras more thoughtfully and intentionally. The challenge is to photograph the week using only the camera on my phone. And yes, I know it’s Saturday.
Normally I’m not a late starter, but with spring break and all, it took me a while to get into the groove, so I didn’t actually take my first photo until Monday. The re-entry back into my real life as a teacher and the inevitable early morning wake up was hard, very hard.
On my arrival at school, I discovered that my promised laptop had not been delivered over spring break. I have mixed feelings about it anyway, so I wasn’t heartbroken.
On Tuesday, one of my students was playing with this mirrored Rubik’s Cube. He said he needed a greater challenge… and then showed us that he marked up one side with dots to help him solve it. 🙂
Since it was grades week and I was feverishly trying to get everything done before the Friday holiday from school, I didn’t do much photography. On Friday, we met out-of-town family members for museum-ing. I took this photo from the window of the Chicago Cultural Center because I have never seen the Bean (Cloud Gate) from this vantage point. The yellow tint comes from the protective film in the windows.
I also took this photo of the stained glass dome in the Chicago Cultural Center. I know it’s not perfect — I took it with my iPhone, for goodness sake — but it gives an idea of the beauty of this often overlooked building among Chicago’s museums. The web site says it’s the tenth most popular museum, but in a city of museums, how many people actually get to the tenth one?
I didn’t take this photo, but I thought you might want to see a well-photographed picture of the Tiffany glass dome that is also in the Cultural Center.
Lest you think I’m trying to cheat on the InstaFriday challenge, here’s my photo of the Tiffany Dome.
I couldn’t resist taking a photo of this quote in the new modern wing of the Art Institute of Chicago. When I looked up the attribution, I found that it was actually supposed to be a work of art. Silly me, I thought it was just an interesting quote on the wall.
It turned out to be one of those beautiful Chicago spring days — crisp and sunny. On such a day, it’s impossible to take a bad picture of the skyline, even on a smart phone.
If it’s Friday, it’s pizza day. We also had the double whammy of entertaining out-of-town guests, so it had to be a Chicago pizza day. We found a pizza place by the Art Institute that we’ve never been to and were happily surprised by both the food and the service.
A week that started pretty slowly ended up with a warm gush of family togetherness and yummy wine and pizza. It was another hot time in Chi-town after all!
Please stop by Life Rearranged and meet some new blogging friends. Everyone appreciates a little comment love.
Hydrangea Battlefield
I had to share this hilarious yet stunningly photographed post. Enjoy your day!