Featherfest

There is a “festival” in Galveston to celebrate the spring bird migration.  A friend of Debbie’s from Wisconsin is into birds, and she and her husband came to Galveston for the weekend to attend the festival. On Saturday, we drove all over the island looking for birds.  We went to one spot, and didn’t really find much, but I saw this rather cool cats that was in the process of setting buds of a blossom.

Cactus Buds

We did find birds in the place where I go to look for Sandhill Cranes.  One of the things I have always wanted was a good picture of a bird flying.  I finally got one.  This is a white Ibis that had just taken off.

White Ibis

A Rose By Any Other Name

2015-08-07 at 08-45-07The August Guild Image Competition included a “Challenge” Competition.  The Challenge was a Black and White natural light photograph.  One day last week when I went to get the mail, I noticed cobwebs forming on the remnants of the roses by the mailbox.  So, I used those as my subject. I took a series of images, that were pretty good, but when I sent one to Pounds to have it printed, it came back and the focus was not sharp enough. I still had time. So, I took some more images and found one with really sharp focus.  I quickly sent it to Pounds.  That was last Friday.  They did not process it until Monday and shipped it for Tuesday.  The competition was Tuesday evening.  So, things were tight.  At about 5:45, it had not come yet.  So, I decided to go without it.  I got down to Franklin and New Road, and Debbie called that it had just been delivered.  So, I raced back home to get it.  The competition was supposed to start at 6:30.  So, I had a little time.  I drove down to Coach’s and got there in plenty of time.  They set up the prints, and all went well. That is, until the prints were revealed.  I was amazed at the extraordinary quality of the prints for this competition.  Let’s face it, the prints are always strong, but these images were beyond that.  Turns out, I didn’t place. But, I am not disappointed  The images that won were really better than mine.

Spider

For October, the Heart of Texas Professional Photographer’s Guild’s image competition subject was a black and white photograph of something in nature.  One morning while getting the newspaper, I saw there was a spider web on the front porch.  I thought maybe I could get a good macro image of it and convert that to black and white.  I tried a couple times during the day, but was never really happy with it. So, I decided to try at night.  When I went out to try, the spider was there. It was a pretty large orb-weaving spider and I started taking pictures of it.  I took several with my 90mm macro lens, but they weren’t what I was hoping for.  So, I used my 180mm macro lens and got some that were much better.  This was one of those.

Spider

I tried converting it to black and white, but I was never really happy with it. I entered another image instead and it didn’t do as well as I had hoped.  So, I wondered if I would have been better off with this one.

Shooting in the yard

It’s been kind of gloomy the last couple days.  I have found a couple things to shoot around the house.  This grasshopper was  on one of the hibiscus.

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This morning when I took the trash out, I saw a couple Wild Petunias next to the trash cans.

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Bird of Paradise

We went to the pool.  Behind the rock waterfall is a Bird of Paradise plant.  I have looked at it for quite a while, and thought it would be interesting to take some shots of it.  This time, the blossoms were perfect.  I used my 90mm Tamron macro.  I like that lens, but it was a little difficult under these circumstances.  The plants were between the rocks by the pool and an iron fence.  So, I had to get the picture by shooting between the bars of the fence.  But, it still came out nicely.

Bird of Paradise

Tamron 180 mm Macro Lens

For a very long time, I have been wanting a longer focal length true macro lens.  I finally ordered a Tamron 180mm 1:1 macro.  I was somewhat concerned because a friend said he had a similar lens and rarely used it because the long focal length meant too much movement to handhold it.  I did some shots holding it by hand, and it worked fine.

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Although not super close, this one is certainly sharp for a hand held photo.  I noticed a ladybug on what was left of my dill plant and took some shots of it.  When looking at them, I could see the reason it was there – aphids.

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Vision

I just came back upon Don Giannatti’s “Project 52” web site.  I had seen the site several months ago, but it slipped from my memory.  I have been a member of the flickr group for a long time, but, I can’t remember the last time I actually visited the group page.  On this site, there is a weekly photography assignment. The assignments for this year start on February 1.  So, I looked at the 2012 assignments.

The first assignment is to create a Vision Statement.  This is basically a statement describing why it is that I take pictures.  As described on the web site, “Tell us with a single paragraph what you want to be able to do with your images. Tell us what you do without telling us you are a photographer. Accompany that message with a single image taken around your home.”

To me, the reason I enjoy photography is it differs from other modes of expression, and there is something that is transcendently stimulating when I see a really great image I have taken. In 2012, my Aperture Library has over 7700 images.  Every once in a while, as the image would come up on the screen, there was a moment of awe.  Kind of, “Oh boy.  That is good!”

It is becoming easier to take technically perfect images – those with proper exposure, composition, lighting, whatever.  I can look at those and think, “That’s a good image.”  But there is the added, intangible element that is included in an image that is really great.  I take photographs because I enjoy that feeling of producing a picture that is really great.

Now, what kind of image around the house can I make that illustrates that?

Dandelion

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A few days ago, there was a dandelion in the front yard.  I wanted to get a picture of it, but I saw it early in the morning, and by the time I got home from work, all the seeds had blown away.  This morning, I was pulling leaves out of the pool, and I saw this dandelion along side the pool.  I don’t use my Konica/Minolta 7D much any more, but I kind of do use it for macro photography.  So, I put the Tamron 90mm macro on it and set up the tripod.

The first shots were pretty good, but I wanted more.  So, I got the small LED light and used it to produce a little more light.

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That produced a nice effect, reflecting off the filaments of the seeds.  I then got my flash, and used it kind of hand held with radio triggers.

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There was more depth of field because I had to stop the lens way down to get the correct exposure, but, again, the effect was pleasing. By holding the flash low, I put much less light on the surroundings, and got a really interesting effect.

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Now, the background was essentially unexposed.  But now you can see something else that I didn’t even notice.  There were small bugs crawling on the stem.  Finally, I wanted to add a little more.  So, using a spray bottle, I created a little “Dew.”

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