Weekly Photo Challenge: From Lines to Patterns (part II)

Here is part 2: Photos grouped for their hard lines and coldness. See part 1 for the curvy & patterned photos. 😉

Weekly Photo Challenge: From Lines to Patterns (part I)

I found many gathered over the last year or 2 that spoke of line and pattern. I thought I would do a couple of challenges, each with a different feel. These are photos that utilize more curvilinear lines and patterns.

Weekly Photo Challenge: An Unusual POV

I enjoy an unusual Point of View, probably everyday, or at least I like to think so. But here are some photos that have an unusual point of view. Most are taken while being on or in something I am usually not: Helicopter, Airplane, Raft, Giant Bridge, SkyGlider RIde, Giant Ferris Wheel. Some are rather blah artistically, but the subject is interesting. It isn’t often these sights are seen, nonetheless from this point of view. If you look closely, the super-unicycle riding jugglers were throwing giant swords to each other, and then a grandma from the audience was to throw one at one of the guys. We were passing overhead on the sky ride when this feat of talent was going on.

Plane Skies (I)

Today is the first of a series I will post about photos I took a few years ago while flying to (or from) San Francisco. I was perusing older photos, which are in a different area since I have so many, to create a post for the Weekly Photo Challenge: Sea. I forgot about these photos for the most part, but I fell in love with them. When I first looked at them in ’09 I wasn’t impressed, wishing they were technically better, wishing I had taken my big girl camera, but now seeing them again I feel differently. I decided to create a series in posts with these, because one post of a combination of them wouldn’t show their importance. Here is my thinking: 1. I like them. 2.They hold personal significance (My first time to San Fransisco, except when I was born, and I met my birth mother for the first time on this trip). 3. Travelling is a luxury. Doubtless, many people travel by plane, but more cannot, and never get to experience the myriad of feelings and sights one has while flying. 4. Travelling for me is a luxury, and a pain in the ass. (2 words: PETS & KIDS). 5. Luck. If you are lucky enough to fly, you must be even more lucky to be able to see beautiful skies, clouds, and land and take photos of them out your window. Not to mention having a camera, and not crashing. 6. Our World. I wish for a world of peace and beauty and love. 7. I like them. I like that they were taken with a point and shoot, kind of grainy (noisy) and have stupid window reflections in them. They remind me of being a kid taking photos on trips with my instamatic, being a kid, being free, and being free in my life, for which I am very grateful.

I hope you enjoy them as much as I do. It makes me want to fly again. I better start saving my pennies.

 

Weekly Photo Challenge: Sea

I love the sea. Plain and simple, and all of the things that go with it. Well, that is, all the natural things that go with it. I wish we, as people, would be kinder to it, and use our intelligence and not ignorance and stop throwing unimaginable amounts of crap into it. I wish we had a global self-love for our planet, to the point of crazy uni-global narcissism, never doing anything but for ourselves, our sea, our land, our planet, and all that it is, AS A WHOLE. TEAM WORLD. Why can’t we stop buying into the shallow caress that money and power fleetingly give us? It does not help, does not solve, and definitely does not love. I hurt for the planet that we are creating. I long for peace, and depth, and strength, all those qualities that are the sea. Is it possible to use ego for good?

 

Weekly Photo Challenge: Focus

When I explain what a SLR/DSLR camera does regarding aperture and shutter speed, I try to liken it to a see-saw. If one is up the other is down; There always has to be a point of balance. For myself I always decide what is the most important thing concerning the subject at hand. There are lots of variables, but speed, light, and depth of field are the biggies for me. I tend to shoot in shutter priority, because I am lazy and don’t enjoy lugging my tripod around. Shooting in shutter priority I know will give me a fast enough shutter speed to keep the image from being blurry. I also am lucky enough to have an auto ISO (“Film” speed) so my camera can adjust the ISO according to the available light. I don’t have a flash, don’t like the tripod (which would give me better photos but a neck and shoulder ache), so in low light my photos are a bit grainier (noisier in digital land). But for now, that is ok by me, because I am trying to have FUN! Sometimes it is fun to play with the aperture. Notice how one image is more in all over focus? That is the small little opening (22 or so). The depth of field is a long range compared to the very short range of depth when using a wide-open aperture. When shooting little flowers and things (or a portrait), I like a short depth of field, otherwise it just looks like a reference photo. “Here is my plant”. “Here are my rocks”. When a large aperture (small number) is used, those photos become artistic and interesting. The eye sees details in a different way and focuses on the inherent beauty of the subject, the flow of the image as a whole. All that and they are just some things on my deck using a large aperture, creating an interesting focal point.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Carefree

These 2 photos are from my recent trip to Beaver Island, MI. I wish I lived there. Here is our fire in our back yard of the house we rented, and a shot of the sun coming up taken from the deck. Damn, I can’t wait to go back. Beaver Island is the epitome of carefree.

Weekly Photo Challenge: One Shot, Two Ways

This is a cactus, well, probably a succulent, at the Franklin Park Conservatory. I think this is a good example of how the  field of view can change the same shot. While the top is attractive, merely because the plant is, the second shot is much more dramatic and pleasing to the eye. The shot goes from, “And here we see the plant in its habitat” to “I would love that in my home”. Especially if it was in a cool purple frame!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Foreshadow

This is all that kept popping into my mind. I think it is funny. And it was fun to play with my old Photoshop on my old computer again. I have missed my blog. I went on a trip up to beautiful Michigan with my kids. It was so wonderful and beautiful and nice. Wish I lived there. Now I am back home in Ohio, school has started, back to the old grindstone as they say. 😉 Now to play catch-up…

 

Weekly Photo Challenge: The Golden Hour

I have no words. 😉