Pushing Up Daisies!

The last blog post of this school year is simply shots of daisies by the large loam pile in our field. I made the connection, as I was setting up these photos to post, to conversations with Dan Granholm this week and his pride in his daughter "Daisy" and her exploits as a soccer player. I totally get that he wants to spend more time with his family, and in hindsight I... well, it's always 20-20 isn't it?

So I guess this is a sort of dedication to the "Music Guy", and how much I will miss working with him. Sorry about the "pushing up daisies" title thing!

Another Floral Group

Here are blossoms from a bouquet at my house... I used some adjustments in iPhoto, any guesses as to what and how? Let's see what you can come up with just from looking at the finished piece. Please comment below and check out the other flowers shots at  http://chartliej.blogspot.com/  Thanks!

Floral Shots - Blossoms...

This spring got all the blossom "stuff" out early as we had a March heat wave, but lately the blooms have been in full flow everywhere. I'm going to post some shots I got the other day of general "groups" or wider scale blossoms, looking at POV, composition and soft light. These were all taken with a medium (40 - 50 mm) lens and tend to work with pattern of blossoms and/or leaves. As I get photos of plant life, I've discovered more and more an appreciation of the various leaf structures and how they work as backgrounds in certain compositions, but a "thickness" of blossoms can create their own backgrounds, echoing the focal points as well!

Landscape in Trenton

This was taken early morning, with a low sun at the Trenton Golf Course. I had a couple of "straight up" shots and then noticed the tree so I used it to frame the shot. The grass at the bottom was another afterthought, and this particular shot ended up being the fourth or fifth generation of what I was seeing. Looking and working for a good image almost always pays off, and I think it did for me in this one as well. I like the clouds, the bark on the tree as a rough contrast to other textures in the scene, and the way the grass creates another very close aspect.

3_D Imagery

You will need some glasses for this one... red on the left cyan on the right, but the effect of the 3D blending for this is really cool, and very easy to do in PhotoShop. See me and I'll show you or give you a link!

Dandilions at Seed

So here are a couple of things as reminders to all of you young photographers. First, be selective with your focus, and decide what exactly your subject is going to be and pinpoint your focus. It never helps to be "in between" and especially careless when it comes to finding your focal point. Below are two examples, the same shot with two different focal points. Which one do you like the best and why? Does it have to do with composition?

Second, don't forget to use a vertical format from time to time. Often the subject itself dictates whether a vertical or horizontal format will work the best for a particular shot, but ultimately the photographer and their vision makes that final compositional decision. It doesn't hurt to shoot in both formats so that you can compare and make a sound judgement based on artistic principle.

Lighting - Make it Work for You!

Let's try to do something special with lighting this week... it doesn't matter whether it is artificial or natural, but I do find that natural almost always works the best. Now that the sun is out, maybe those early morning or evening lighting situations can work for you. Although I am asking you to concentrate on lighting, don't forget at all the importance of subject, and make sure you shoot some photos that "live" and have some sort of content or emotion. Let's not try to go for the "gimmick", but instead look and think seriously about how you might use lighting in a way you never have or at least in a way you have not used for a while. Here's a link for you all... http://digital-photography-school.com/naturallight

Here's a couple I took tonight just before dark with a 200 mm lens and the low sun as my light source. Neither of these has been adjusted from the original shot, but I wish I had gotten the bottom one a bit more focused... I ran out of battery (dumb move) and it was my last photo of the day.