165 posts tagged “photography”

It sure was nice having CountryByDesign, Cap'n Stephel and Anthrogrrl filling in with new quest for the last three weeks! Yea, you guys are the best.

Now that I've had 4 weeks off I'm ready to challenge or punish you all with a new Photo Quest for this week.  CountryByDesign reminded me of a great photography website, Digital Photography School.  I signed up for their weekly newsletter and this week they have a great article on telephoto photography.  Check it out  It gave me a great idea for this week's quest.  Take some photos using your telephoto zoom or a telephone lens.  If you don't have a tripod this may give you the excuse you needed to buy one.  Check out Walmart they have a nice lightweight tripod that usually is under $40.00 and works great with a point and shoot camera.  If you have a DSLR you will want a heavier tripod make sure the camera with the telephoto lens doesn't tip the tripod over.  If you don't have a tripod and it isn't in the budget you can use a stool, a chair or a table as a tripod.  Just be careful the camera has good support.

1. Please post the different range of photos you get at various distances. 
2. Post some or all of the camera settings and if you used a tripod or if you used anything to hold the camera.
3. All photos must be taken during this week. 
4. Software enhancements are fair game but no cropping this time.
5. If you want to try something new and have a little fun, while you are taking a photo quickly move the zoom up or down and see what happens to your photo. 
6. Since this is a holiday weekend I've added a day to this quest and you have until Thursday at midnight, Arizona time...yes we have our own time zone..same as Pacific Daylight Time.

I tried the zommie thingie with my camera and it was a hoot.  I was so uncordinated that at first I only got a blurred photo.  This is funny as I've spent so much time and energy tring to eliminate all possilbe movement of the camera to get the clearest photo possible...now I'm going for blurry. Here are two photos I got trying this technique.  I'm not perfect at it yet but it was a challenge.

_IGP1441-zoom

_IGP1447-zoom-

Most of all have some fun with your camera and I hope you learn something new.

I had to admit that Trailblazers photo this week was a real hoot with bug spray and all!  I'm going to follow last weeks rules and pick the best photo of each Voxer.

Oh boy I messed up Amy Sue posted some great photos after I had done the winners posting.  So sorry Amy Sue!!!  Check out her great photos this week.  I pick her favorite as mine too the portrait of her adorable dog is wonderful.  She has captured her dog from nose to eyes with nice light in the eyes and wonderful detail in her dog's face.  This is a difficult angle and she did is so well!

So for Trailblazer I pick her photo of the tomatoes with the bottle of bug spray...hmm that is the only photo she posted but it was great!  Nice work with photoshop too.

Now Cap'n it was hard for me to pick between the sunflower and the dandelion as both were wonderful.  After much consideration I had to go with the dandelion as this photo has a magical quality maybe like it would look to a bug up very close and fuzzy.  Wonderful photo!

Last on the list but not last in any other measurement is Country by Design's White Periwinkle.  With F2.6 the background is nicely blurred and the flower is very clear.  I'm impressed that the photo is so crisp and clear with a shutter speed of 1/25 I would expect more blur.  Thanks so much for posting your camera settings.

I need some time off for good behavior!  My granddaughter is coming for a visit and I need to catch up with my life.  Anthrogrrl suggested that during my sabbatical other members of the Photo Quest step in and do a quest.  Thank you Anthrogrrl for this wonderful suggestion...I might even have a minute or two to enter!

Please welcome Anthrogrrl and be as kind to her as you have been to me.  Stay tuned I think something wonderful is about to happen.

Peace!

WPG

Hi all, what entries we had this week!  Awesome to see weather in Georgia, Japan, California, Germany, Missouri, Australia, Texas and Wyoming!  Amazing photos guys, I so enjoyed see what you see makes me feel connected to you.

I hope you got a chance to read about taking photos of landscape and weather.  It was fun to hear what you learned, what you were trying to capture and how.  Thanks I learn so much from your photos!  Weeee, it was hard to pick winners this week as the photos were so good and so very different.  Since we have so many entries this week.  I'm going to change my rules and pick one photo from each entry.

Spike's beautiful silhouette photo of her sister-in-aw fishing was so wonderful.  This photo with the colorful sunset in the background, just spoke the quiet connection of the woman with nature and fishing.  anything I would say about this photo would be dwarfed by this capture.  This could be a great post card!

RealWorld you had me laughing this week with all your posts.  You really got into this quest.  His last photo took my breath away!  Oh my all those lovely shades of green, grass, leaves, bushes and even a green road.  Notice that he didn't put the road in the center of the photo...good work Real.  The folage in his photo gives a circular tunnel effect on the road.  Magical photo Real!

Hi there Katz, fun to have you join us.  Your great sense of humor comes through the camera on your frog photo.  Ha, ha you got me laughing.  Hope to see your photos in the next Quest.  Katz is a great friend an one of the first Voxers I connected with here.

The photo with the best representation of weather, I picked Maju 2st photo of the sea and the cloudy sky.  I can almost smell the sea in her photo.  Maju didn't make the mistake of dividing the photo in half with 1/2 sky and 1/2 water.  In this photo you can fell the balance of the blue sky with the gray green water, the movement of the sky and the roll of the sea.  When you look at this photo at a large size you can see the sky is so clear no nose, the blue in the sky is perfect.  This photo realy spoke to me and it looks like a painting! 

For the photo that made me smile I have to pick Yan.  His photo of his friends throwing the beautiful young lady in the ocean was a hoot.  Seems like boys all over the world like to through beautiful young ladies in the water!  Wonder if Yan used a polarizer as the blue in the sky is so blue!

My favorite photo of Summer weather has to be the Ferris Wheel photo from Amy Sue.  Ah what wonderful memories that photo brought back to me.  Have you ever ridden on a Ferris Wheel?  Oh they are so much fun.  Thanks Amy Sue!

From Anthrogrrl, the photo of the summer porch from the view of a bug....wow that was such a great shot.  Hmm I have to get lower from now on!  I love the play of the sun light blowing out the right side of the photo and the dark shadows on the left.  The lovely chairs just envite you to site and cool off on the porch.  Oh then there is the great angle of the shot!  Love it!

I pick the last photo that Susan Elsagir posted, the one of the great swirl of water with the white water on the lower left.  She nailed the Rule of Thirds with this photo.  The water looks like great swirls of liquid silk.

For Country by Design I pick your photo of the corn in the forground with the wonderful blue sky in the background.  Hmm are you and Anthrogrrl working together.  Seems like you can get great photo if you go low enough.  I feel the pain in my knees now...lol 

Sure hope I got everyone's photos I'm tried and need to take a nap now!  lol

I was feeling a little sorry for myself this morning so I did a photo shoot in my yard.  The original plan was to go on a Photo Shoot in Tucson with a group of people celebrating a World Wide Photo Walk.  I was so excited to be with other photographers and meet some new people.  The Photo walk was 2 hours from 8:00 am to 10:00 am and it was all mapped out...oh and there would be models dressed in period clothing.

Then my hives started back up yesterday!  Darn it all!  I couldn''t be out in the summer heat with these awful hives.  This time they are around my neck.  One gets about 3" long and is raised up about 1/2" inch or more and I can't keep from scratching them. Other gang up together and form one large lumpy mass.  I don't know what triggered them this time.  I  usually can pinpoint something that I ate, but this time I couldn't. 

This morning I decided to do the photo walk right here in my yard.  I took a lot of photos of my horses.  They were full of it this morning.  In the summer put them out in the turnout at night and bring them in to their stalls during the day.  This way they can hang out under their shades during the heat of the day.  Last night, it was raining so I didn't put them out and they were really at each other this morning when I turned them out.

It is so hard to take photo of them as they want to be right next to me.  Once I sat on an old tree stump to take some photos and Winn was breathing on my lens!  I got a couple of good shoots of them.  I love how they bite each other in play and how the bite each other's withers. 

If you stratch my back....

2 comments

This is a photo of Jr. Looking over Winn's back.  I liked the strong diagonal lines of Jr.s head and Winn's neck.  The sun was behind Jr. so I didn't get a lot of light in his eye.

Hanging with my bud

This one I took with the sun behind them and then I made it black and white.  I was kneeling on the ground trying to take their photos and stay out of their way!  This photo also has a strong diagonal line running through the middle.  Jr. was pushing into Winn and he was getting annoed with him.  Can you see Winn's tail flipped up over his back?  When horses are mad they warn by flipping their tail or laying back their ears.   

Horse Play

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 I was outside taking photos from 6:30 am to a little after 8:00 am.  The time flew away, I forgot about my hives and the missed photo walk and enjoyed seeing my yard through the viewfinder.

I don't know about where you live but here in Arizona we have a lot of hot weather peppered with monsoon storms that make for great clouds, lightning and beautiful sunsets.  What does your weather look like?  Take some photos that represent your summer or winter weather.  Are your plants wilting in the heat?  Are the kids swimming, playing cards, teasing their siblings?  How about winter or summer storms or a great sunset? 

Rules for this quest:

1. Photos must be taken during the time frame of the quest 7/18 - 7/22/09.
2. You may use any imaging software to edit your photos.
3. Post a maximum of 5 photos.
4. Tell us the what lens you used.
5. If you know it include shutter speed, ISO, F stop and white balance.
6. Tell us one thing you learned with this exercise.

Here is a link to a great article about taking photos of lightning.  There is an article about taking photos in bad weather.  And here are some tips about taking photos of weather.  Don't do anything crazy and have some fun with your camera.

Wow I can't believe that I've done 63 quests now.  When I started I never knew I would keep it up this long.  There have been weeks when I've taken off and when I was ill in the Spring I missed a few weeks here and there.  I so enjoy seeing everyones photos and you all impress me each week with how you interpret the quest.  We are all so different and some from different experiences that makes our photos unique.  This was was no exception!

Again thanks goes to the brave souls that posted entries for this crazy quest.  I do apologizer to Yan as I didn't even consider that everyone wouldn't know what a scavenger hunt was!  Boy we Americans can forget that everyone in the world doesn't have the same culture as we do...so sorry.  I'll try to be explain American words and events.

We had a super pictures this week and I thank Amy Sue, RealWorld, Cap'n Stephel, Yancuyon and anthrogrrl!  Amy Sue I've missed your entries and anthrogrrl thanks for joining us and jumping right in!!

OK here goes for the photos that I thought best represented the scavenger hunt, instead of an over all rating I'm going to rate the best photos for each of the items in the scavenger hunt. 

Best photo of something old, oh my this was so hard I really so give all of you 1st place for this as I loved the photos and the great stories.  I hope this can help you develop your ability to tell a story with your photos.  Well for the best photo in this quest of something old goes to Amy Sue.  Take a look at her photo of her fathers books.  She did a very nice composition with the two books.  I espically liked the angles of the books, she did just photograph she placed them a nice angles.

Best photo of something no one knows you have.  This has to go to Anthrogrrl, great sense of humor there.  Very nice photo this one tells a story too, you can see that her hand has something in it and it makes you courious to know what it is. 

Something tasty, oh my you guys all made me hungry with your photos of food.  My favorite here is Cap'n's photo of the cookies.  Wow great shot I can just smell the chocolate chips cooking and how them melt, oh, oh...I better stop here.  Again this photo tells you that these cookies tast and smell wonderful.  I really like that Cap'n broke one cookie open so you so see the chocolate chip all melty. YUM!

Something Hot, hmm realworld got me there.  A hot grasshopper, now that is a new one!  His has some great bokeh going on in this photo, nice work real!

Something wet this one is one of my favorites, Yan's photo of his son's wet hair.  Classic portrait with great balance between the wonderful wet hair and his son's eyes.  Both captured in the ROT spot and in diagonal lines.  Lovely shot Yan!!

Great work as usual.  Now I have to put my thinking cap on for next this week's quest!

OK are you ready to use your imagination!  Get out your camera and take some photos!!

For this Quest there are 5 assignments.  Take some photos of:

1. Something that is old and means something to you.  Post the photo unedited and tell us what it means to you.
2. Something that no one knows you have.
3. Something you like to eat.
4. Something hot.
5. Something wet.

All photos to be taken this week.  No photo shopping photos this week just post what you get.   Have fun! 

OK here we go....tonight I finally took 3 photos of the round tail ground squirrel babies.  Just had a few minutes before I feed them to take some photo.  They are very cute and tiny.  As you can see from the photos they are very small but also note hubby's hands are very big...he wears a size 13 ring.

If you don't know about these little guys read my post from yesterday.  Photo taken in my garage with a 50mm lens, ISO of 400, White balance for fluorescent light, on AV, F stop 2.2 and hand held.

Tom Thumb

Now we got brave and hubby picked up two babies.  They were very wiggly and you have to be careful holding them that they don't take a dive to the ground!

Double the fun

More photos this weekend when we have more time.

Yes, I'm bragging a little today!  An article about my photos is in today's Arizona Daily Star Sunday paper.  The Arizona Daily Star is the local Tucson paper.  From time to time, I upload some of my photos to the Arizona Startnet Photo Gallery.  Last week, I was contacted by John Ames a reporter for the Star about my nomination as an Arizona Starnet All-Star.  I was very surprised as I thought I hadn't downloaded that many photos to their site! 

John sent me a few questions by email and then called me for a phone interview.  I was happy to answer his questions and to use this article as an opportunity to speak about my latest project with Dixon's to have the Wilbur-Cruce Spanish Barbs named as the state horse of Arizona.  The article as it appears is very much what I sent him and what we spoke about.  That was a relief!

My heart is beating a little faster today, my step is a little quicker and this is just one more sign that I'm taking the right path

Later tdoay we are getting in the truck and driving to the all the local grocery stores to buy out the Arizona Star Sunday papers...do you think I can get a discount?  Just kidding, the artilce is available on-line at http://www.tucson.com/travel2/, note I'm the headline article in the travel section!  I tried scanning the article with my scanner but the pictures came out all dark.

Now I have to get back to work and clean up this very messy house as we are having dinner guests.  Also have to download some photos I took this morning of a very cute lizzard and some beautiful saguaro blooms.  Have a great week!