Pine Cones

I haven't gotten to do much photographing yet this break. The holiday season is keeping me on my toes. I received some amazing reference books for Christmas along with some lens filters from my husband. I need one extra part before I can give the new filters a shot, so I'm anxiously awaiting its arrival.

I love how the snow sticks to the needles in this pictures. If you look close enough each individual snowflake can be seen. This picture was taken in my front yard.

I'll be back to work in less than a week, and my parents should be on their way for my daughter's birthday.

Forgotten Beauty

I make the 2.5 hour trip to my parents across the plains of Wyoming a few times a year. I've lived here so long that the plains are, well quite plain to me. I often forget how beautiful they are to others that don't have to see them endlessly all the time.

I took this photo about a year ago because there was a rainbow covering the sky. By the time I decided to actually pull over and add a few minutes to the already long trip for the kids, the rainbow had faded a little bit.

As I was searching my archived pictures a few days ago, I came across this one. I remembered reading in so many other blogs about how wonderful the clouds are out on the plains and it hit me that other people find great beauty in the plains of Wyoming. So here it is, one of my hundreds of trips across the plains.

Winter on My Mind

With the cold weather and Christmas a few days away (I've been reminded that it's 4 days no less than 100 times today), the only pictures that I can bring myself to write about contain winter landscape.

I have to admit, I cheated a little on this winter scene. It's actually a spring storm, which is why the bright red road is warm enough to have the snow melted off of it.

I took so many pictures on this trip. There was just so much many scenes that looked amazing. The fog removing so much of the color and the snow doing the same thing. The whole area just looked amazing.

Test Pictures

We bought my daughter a pretty nice camera for Christmas. I was testing it tonight on the animals to see how it works. It is 10 mega pixels which is pretty amazing. Just few snap shots of the cat and dog and then I wrapped it up and put it under the tree.

I'm excited for her to get it. She mentioned she wanted her own camera earlier this year, but didn't ask for one for Christmas. She should be pretty surprised.

I made sure that it had some basic functionality (ability to set her own shutter speed along with aperture setting.) I doubt she'll use them at first, but I wanted to find a camera she could grow in to a little bit. I'm hoping to get someone to go out on photo shoots with me . It's be really nice to get her into my hobby as well. I know she'd be good at it and might even inspire me a little bit. Now I'm getting excited for Christmas too.

Blue

My sister-in-law had her wedding outside in the mountains. There was a gorgeous little pond that she said her vows by. While the reception was going I went over with my camera to get some pictures.

I decide to set the white balance to see what kind of colors I could get from the outdoor pictures. Setting the white balance to an indoor setting changed the pond to a deep blue. The raindrops on it just completely finished the effect.

Spring Surprises

When moved in to our current house in the fall. That spring was amazing. It was so awesome to see what flowers would come up in the yard. These yellow tulips were my favorite.

They were located under a bush; long forgotten my the previous owners I'm sure. The weren't like the tulips I'm used to seeing. I love their pointed edges.

The first spring we were in the house, I went out with my camera in the rain to get a picture of all the beautiful flowers I had inherited. Since it was hard to grow much of any thing at my old house, I loved photographing all the beautiful spring colors. The bright green that is spring along with the yellows and the pinks made for interesting compositions.

Awesome Concert

I have music on my mind right now. Between all the holiday music and last night's viola concert. My daughter did awesome; as did all the other kids. It's been tough keeping her interested in practicing all the time, but she keeps improving and the concert was great last night.

I thought it'd would be fun to photograph her viola and over expose the the picture and work with changing the lighting. I really like this picture and how it turned out. I used my purple curtains as a backdrop for the picture. The viola is sitting on two kitchen chairs.

I hope you're enjoying all the concerts of the season.

I'd Rather Be Shopping in Paris

My son had a birthday party to go to today, so we needed to go toy shopping. It's so exhausting to be out this time of year. So I'll think about walking the streets of Paris in the summer instead.

Paris has such great architecture. The beautiful pink flowers, or the flowers all over the city, make it so beautiful.

With such gorgeous surroundings there's nothing really hard about taking this picture. It was so amazing taking photos in Europe. I want to go back and take more photos (and avoid holiday shopping.)

Purple Flowers

Enough talk and pictures about snow. We've got at least 6 inches of snow. Instead of posted pictures of Christmas and snow, I'll post pictures of camping this summer. We went camping in Colorado this summer. I wanted to get pictures of moose. There weren't any moose to be found, but I didn't get some really awesome nature shots.

I enjoy changing the aperture setting to change blur the non-focal point. It's amazing what the background will become create when it's out of focus.

It was really cold when we went camping this year. I'm looking forward to going camping this next summer when it's warmer and I can go out and take pictures. I'm usually the first one up when we're camping and I can spend some time by myself doing some photography.

This photo can be found on a great ornament on my Cafepress site.

Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

It's definitely Christmas at my house. I've just stuffed my Christmas cards. (I'm usually not this good at cards, but I moved two years ago and a coworker is still having to bring my mail in to me. It's about time I let people know I moved.) We also have the tree put up, lights outside, and kids that know to the minute when Santa is coming. I'm tired already.

The first year we were in this house (two years ago now...) we put these lights up outside.. It snowed on them and the effect was just amazing. Once again having the camera at the right time paid off. I think the hardest part of taking the picture was holding the camera still while I got the correct exposure. My husband got me a tripod for Christmas that year that would have come in handy. Besides the lights shining through the snow, I love how the icicles are hanging down as well. Enjoy the holidays and take wonderful pictures.

Waiting for Santa

As many Christmas trees as I've helped put up, ginger bread houses I've made, and boxes of seasonal decorations around the house tells me that it's definitely Christmas time.

I was working on over exposing the scene to get the Christmas lights to reflect and to get the outdoor lights as well. As luck would have it our devoted dog was waiting for my husband to get home. Since she wasn't moving at all, it was really easy to get the shot overexposed with her in it.

This is the picture I picked for our Christmas card this year. The cards I should probably be doing instead of writing this entry.

Game of Tic-Tac-Toe

Although he's not that in to winter at all, this is one of my husband favorite pictures. His fondness of the photo is from the composition of the piece. Typically this game would be photographed n the summer, but choosing to do it with the snow on the ground made it much more interesting to him.

I've had this picture for a few years now, and I never really though much of about it. It's definitely grown on me and made me explore composition a little bit more. It's the one of the great aspects of owning a digital camera is that there's not limit of how much film is used. Taking 20 shots to see if any of them work out is a reasonable possibility.

Fall in the Black Hills

One of my husband favorite parts of the Black Hills is going through them in the fall. The dark evergreens along with the bright yellow leaves changing colors is just amazing.

We went through the Black Hills on a hike recently. It was absolutely amazing. For awhile we were walking around a huge rock formation. There were so many trees that were just beginning to change colors. I got some really great shots of the family and some really neat fall colors.

Winter Scene

It's interesting what turning around can do for a scene as well. One of my favorite winter pictures is one of the first ones I posted. This is the other side of the parking lot.

Although obviously still snow covered, it's amazing how different these two scenes are to me. The interesting part of this landscape to me is that the snow is only sticking to one side of the trees. I really like the trees in this picture.

Now that everyone is "better" in the house I'm crossing my fingers that I'll be able to get out and take more pictures soon.

Motion

Another technique that I learned from the book Understanding Shutter Speed by Bryan Peterson was keeping one thing in focus while there is motion all around it. I placed the camera on my arm and took the picture while moving my arm and the camera at the same time.

I love the yellow leaves against the bright green grass in this picture. With all the sickness in our family these days, I haven't had a lot of time to actually take any pictures. I do have a gorilla tripod that I can put on my camera and have something other than my hand in focus while the other things are out of focus. In the book, Bryan used a broom for a really neat effect.

Flower Fairies

These lovely flowers were in my front yard this summer. Although it's not snowing here or anything, it seems like a day that needs a little more sunshine. When we were picking flowers out this summer, my son picked these completely based on the book The Spiderwick Chronicles.

There's nothing really to talk about the actually photography of this picture; except that I like taking pictures of flowers. Sometimes even just point and shoot photography is fun and the pictures turn out nice. Here's to just a few more months of winter.

Popo Agie Falls

I've come to the conclusion that I really should get my kids hiking boots. I love hiking, but I really didn't realize how many miles we put in every summer until I started this blog.

This summer when we went to my nephew's graduation, we went for a 3 mile (round trip) hike to the Popo Agie falls. My sister has lived by them since she was 5 and had never been.

The falls are magnificent, and I loved taking pictures of them. I love the motion of the water and capturing it with a high shutter speed that stops ever drop in the rushing water so that it's frozen in time. I like the slow shutter speed (although harder with my current camera) and how it makes the water misty and the motion is still showing in the picture.

Morning Hike

When we went camping on time this summer, I got the pleasure of waking up before everyone else. It was pretty obvious that I had some free time on my hands, so I grabbed my camera and went for a hike around the lake.

It was such a beautiful morning and with the sun just rising, I got some really amazing shots of the lake and the surroundings. Bonus points for using the tree to frame the mountains!

The hardest part of finding great shots was working around the bark beetles. So many of the trees were brown and dead and ruined my pictures. It was sad to see what a tiny little bug, well millions of tiny little bugs, can do to a tree.

I talk a lot about landscape photography on my squidoo site.

Hiking in Germany

Antibiotics still aren't kicking in yet. I'm wanting to get better so that I can actually take some photos.

When we went to Germany, we went on a wonderful walk through the country side. This house was just so amazing to me, so I took a picture of it. It's so simple yet I really like it. I like it so much that it's actually hanging in my living room.

I enjoy taking pictures of architecture quite a bit. I wouldn't say it's something I do a lot of, but it's fun when I find a really good scene like this one to enjoy.

Misty River

One summer we took the kids to Estes Park, Colorado. We went on a great hike to some falls in the National Park. I think it was about 5 1/2 miles round trip. The kids were troupers, and we had a really good time.

With all the water around, I spent quite a bit of time over exposing the river to get the motion of the moving water. Since my camera is a little older, I do have trouble not over exposing my pictures. I am learning quite a bit about that though. One thing I've noticed about the pictures I take when I'm out hiking is that I fall in love with them more after a few weeks. At first being right there or having a vivid memory does the picture no justice. After a few weeks I really get to liking them quite a bit.

This one turned out well. The river is very misty from the over exposure, yet the rocks and the nice green trees are so crisp and clear. Over all it was an amazing hike, and I got some really good pictures.

Juxtaposed

I went out early one day for a walk with my camera. I usually go alone, but my daughter begged to go. It had just snowed and the wind was blowing so hard that the snow was drifting in places on the sidewalk.

As we walked along, we came across footprints on the side walk. It was the perfect illusion. Even seeing them for real, for a split second on that cold morning I wondered how the footprints had appeared in the cold. I felt kind of silly the next second when I realized they're even a bit yellow and match the house paint of the home we were standing in front of at the time. My daughter agreed that it looked interesting as I snapped away at them.

My husband went to a library sale a few weekends ago. I told if he found any photography books I wanted them. When he came home he had found a few old photography books. I was reading through one called Creating Special Effects; The Kodak Library of Creative Photography. As I was looking through the book they talk about illusions that you can do with your camera. Basically, two things coming into a frame that creates something completely different. It made me think of my snowy footprints. It's not often that I find these perfect shots that come together to create a magnificent illusions.

Fun Still Life

I did get in some photography this weekend. As unbelievable as it sounds, I'm still really sick. I wasn't feeling very artistic while I was doing it. However my son had fun with it. He was taking pictures behind or using my still life set up while I was thinking through my next set. He had a good time, and my pictures weren't horrible.

When I was flipping through a photography magazine, I read an interesting article about the use of light. Basically, over exposing the photo will allow for the light source to be moved around. My camera is not overly robust, so I have 16 seconds to move the list around.

I few weeks ago, I took two of the champagne glasses sitting on a shelf. I thought filling them with red colored water might look interesting with moving the light source around. They didn't quite turn out how I expected, but I like them. I wasn't going to do just red. It really wasn't my intent to make it look like wine. I was going to do other colors later, but never felt motivated to do all the set up again.

What I really like about the content of this picture is how much orange is coming through with the reflection from the light. I'm going to feel better soon (I'm calling the doctor first thing in the morning), and when I do I may pull these glasses back down and try another color. Green might be neat. Blue might be a good effect too.

Reflecting

I got already to take some pictures earlier today, but there's too much light. I'm going to try again later once the sun isn't so high in the sky. I have some fun ideas that I was trying. Hopefully they'll work out.

Since I can't do any photography yet today, and I'd rather not argue with my daughter about cleaning her room, I thought I'd stop in for a quick post.

My sister-in-law got married last year at an outdoor wedding. While the reception was going on, I started taking photographs of the surroundings. While I was taking this shot, this dog wandered into the shot. At first I was going to wait until he found something better to do, but then I realized how great of picture it would make. I messed with the lighting to try to give it more of a blue hue. I really like how it turned out.

Having Fun

I've been sick most of the week. Day time TV wasn't that appealing so I've been surfing the internet. I found a really great website to post my pictures to that I can get feed back from other users and join groups with people with similar interests in photography. My gallery is here.

As I said before, I've been sick most of the week. I did get to go to work today. (oh right... Yeah!) Anyway, I'm looking forward to this weekend. I'm finally feeling better, and I'm itching to go take some new pictures. I haven't taken very many lately. When the kids first start school and it gets a little cooler here, I tend to slow down on the pictures. I haven't decided if I'll go to landscape, but I'm thinking about trying some of the new lighting techniques I've been reading about or doing more abstract pieces. It feels good to be excited about something again.

Snowflakes

One morning I awoke to a beautiful winter morning outside. I love being able to get great photographs in my front yard. Sometimes the hardest part of photography is finding something amazing to photograph. The snow covered world outside was so amazing. The snowflakes were so big that you could even see them individually on the tree.

I had to work fast to get the pictures. There wasn't a cloud in the sky so the snow was going to melt fast. As I was out taking my pictures, a lady stopped her car and took a picture of our weeping birch in the front yard.

I'm not much for the cold weather, but I love winter landscape. The pictures from this day turned out amazing.

edited to add: It was snowing just a few minutes ago. I guess writing about snow makes it happen here. Now I see blue skies, but I'm wondering how much we're going to get tonight.

Hiking the Trails

In August, my husband and I convinced the kids to go on a five mile hike up in the mountains outside of town. Admittedly, we didn't mention it was going to be five miles. There was a little bit of complaining early on, but as the trail wound through the hills the settled in for the walk.

I of course brought my camera along with me. My favorite picture is this one. As far as photography trees, I like aspen trees with their contrast of green leaves and white trunks. When I'm in a forest like this I'll often take bracketed pictures so that I end up with three with different light settings. That way the trees would not get washed out with too much color. I've got my eyes on a polarizer for Christmas as well. From what I've read, they really help with the natural light not over taking the picture.

It was an amazing hike. Not only was it a lot of fun, but I took some really good pictures too.

Speaking of Rainbows

One day when I went home for lunch there this rainbow was just lingering over the tree in the neighbors yard. Sometimes photography is just about opportunity; having your camera ready at the right time.

I've tried to photograph rainbows a few times. They seem so vibrant in the sky and then when I get the results back they seem a little dull. When I went to Hawaii years ago I remember taking a picture of a rainbow. When I got the pictures back, I could barely see the rainbow. I was even kind of wondering why I would have taken the shot at all. It's the great thing about being digital. The first being able to see it right away and then of course taking as many shot with as many different settings as time allows.

One of my favorite subject matters to photograph is flowers. Since it's Halloween, I've found an orange marigold to post. It's been nice since I've moved to the new house. The flowers do so well here. I guess it was the soil at the old place, but it's absolutely fun to garden at this house. This past summer, the marigolds reseeded and I had so many I actually had to thin them out. My daughter is already taking the seeds and spreading them around the yard this fall. I can't even imagine what next year will bring.

When I photograph flowers, I like to zoom in a close as possible. I like to get the texture of the flower in the shot. I also find it so interesting how many of my photography session take place in my front yard. It's fun to go on location and find landscape scenes, but it's also great to be able to through in a load of laundry and go out the front door and enjoy my garden.

A Day in the Park

After a short day at the Louvre in Paris, we ended up at Les Tuileries. We would have stayed longer at the museum, but my son was not interested in any of it. We saw a few things and traumatized him as little as possible before moving on to the next thing. He was only four at the time, so I guess it shouldn’t have surprised us too much. Anyway, after all the art gazing, we were off to Les Tuileries which is a park in Paris that has a well known place to sail boats. Before we got to the boats, there was this walkway that was just amazing. I was taking pictures as we went. We just happened across this since we thought we'd be at the museum most of the day. My daughter just happened to be wearing blue that day when I was talking these pictures. I have this picture hanging in my office. Often my coworkers don’t realize that it’s my daughter in the picture at first because it seems more staged since she’s matching her surrounding so well. I love the colors in the walk way. The contrast makes for a dramatic effect in the picture. After the enjoying the scenery for awhile, we went off to sail boats which the kids really enjoyed.

Scenic Wyoming

This is one of my favorite pictures. We were out for a drive and I made my husband pull over to see what I could get. I've given this picture away as a gift and quite often they'll tell me that it's neat that I left the fence in color and made the rest black and white. This picture is in full color. The fog of the day and the soft covering of snow creates the effect all on it's own.

Abtract Photography

When ever the family goes to the bookstore, which seems to be quite often these days, I'll always end up in the photography section thumbing through the books looking for new techniques to try or just looking at amazing pictures from other photographers. A few months ago I found a book on shutter speed called Understanding Shutter speed by Bryan Peterson. Like many people love photography, I'm always interested in figuring out night shots or interesting ways to catch action in a still shot. After reading some of the book I went out and took some great photos of flowers. It took me awhile to get the right shutter speed and aperture setting so I wasn't letting too much light come through. If was a really fun photo shoot. One of my favorites is this one I call spinning daisies.