Continual State of Becoming

28mm, ISO 1250, f/6.3, 1/125ss Week 9: White flower no. 1 I think I've decided to try for a personal project of photographing different white flowers this year. Here's my first. I'm hoping to learn about lighting, composition, foreground and background, all that good stuff.

50mm, ISO 100, f/16, 10 sec ss. Week 8: Candy Cane I took this a few days before Christmas.  My brother had just given me a nice piece of black velvet to use for a backdrop and I wanted to test it out.  It is so much easier than the not-quite- black and too textured towel I had been using, which then needed a lot of help in photoshop to make actually black.  The candy cane was a tough subject because I kept getting blown highlights where ever the light hit it so I tried to make a tent with the velvet and let in as little and as diffused day light as possible (hence the long exposure).  And then I used photoshop to convert this to b&w with an infrared filter to get the reds nice and dark.  Overall it was a fun experiment, but for now I'm going to stay away from shiny, reflective objects.

28m, ISO 400, f.4.5, 1/160 Week 7:  Hot chocolate break at Shoes, Cup and Cork in downtown Leesburg. For some reason I still feel really really self conscious when I take my camera out on the street or in public in general. Even though it wasn't very crowded and I was only taking a picture of my son, I tried to be as quick as possible before anyone noticed me. One of my 2015 goals: Be a bold artist.

The beginning of a new photography project.  I know I never finished my 365 last year, but I still learned a lot from it, and I think I came out of it with some images I love, that would have never happened if I hadn't been forced to take those pictures.  So I want to try again.  However, I realize that I just dont have the time it takes to do a 365, so instead I'm going to attempt a 52 project... one photo a week for a year.  I'm hoping to come up with one really great photo a week, though I'm sure some of them will be less that wonderful.  But I think having something to force me to take pictures on a regular basis is good for me in many ways.  Plus I will start using my blog again!  yay! And the truth is that I started my Project 52 several weeks ago.  I wanted to get a little ways in before I really made any kind of official declaration, and now that I'm ready, here we go. 66mm, ISO 800, f/2.8, 1/80. Week 1: Playing in the Autumn...

We were fortunate enough to take a second major family vacation this year.  This time in the opposite direction of our New Hampshire beach trip... down to Orlando.  We've done a lot of driving this year, but fortunately the kids do well on road trips. Late night road trip milkshakes. We made it to Disney!  And had to do Fantasia mini-golf. The first amusement park we went to, by request of a leg-fanatic 6 year old. Spanish moss.  It doesnt grow around here, which made it seem all the more magical to me. Dylan builds a super brick to contribute to the park-wide flag building. Crazy rainbows on the drive back to the hotel. Disney!  Though the Magic Kingdom wasn't quite as magical as we'd hoped due to all the people, but we made it to the castle. Aaron photo bomb. A father and his sons. Hollywood Studios.  Much less crowded, lots more fun! Aaron just got into cars about a wee...

We don't really do a lot of beach vacations... mostly because we are mountain-snow-stay at home people.  But we decided to visit a beach that Matt went to as a kid and we had a great time.  Oh, the beach was in New Hampshire (remember that state?) and it was so cold we wore sweatshirts most of the time.  We LOVED it! First glimpse. Our hotel.  We all crammed into one small room.  Not the best idea, but we made it work. Cool texture in the sand at low tide. My beach walking partner. We maybe ate our weight in sea food.  It was so good. The water was basically too cold to swim in, but we still had lots of fun on the sand and rocks. View from our room, on a day without fog. Fog starting to come in. The fog rolled in and kept us from making it to Maine (we couldn't even see the end of our car from the front seats).  So we stopped and got lobster rolls here in NH instead, the were good! St...