Two New Photos

Here are two more photos I took last Sunday, for my digital photography workshop. The instructor liked both photos, but the first was the favorite.




These were the action shots for Week 5 of the class. Initially I was unsure that I'd be able to find an action shot. But, when I mentioned the word action, well, Casey went into action for me. He did all sort of tricks, but this is the one I liked best.

Then a little later, Grandpa was digging a couple of holes to plant some new plants. I noticed the action of the dirt falling from the shovel at the very end of his digging. I quickly snapped a few photos of the dirt falling. That worked out well.

Later that day, we took Casey to meet up with his Dad. After transferring his overnight bag and other goodies, Bill and I went into a grocery store to purchase a few necessities. When we walked out of the store, Bill told me to look. There were two hot air balloons just to our left. They'd lifted off about 10 minutes earlier. I looked both ways to cross the thoroughfare, and told Bill to look behind him. There was a hot air balloon that had just left the ground, and was like a giant hovering over us. I immediately thought that I need to hurry to the car to get my camera, when it hit me. When leaving home, I started to grab my camera, just in case there might be something of interest to take a picture of. Then left home without it. That taught me a lesson . . . NEVER leave home without it! You never know when you will see something, such as these three hot air balloons, that could be a snapshot of a lifetime. Now, my camera goes where I go.

Casey's here for the weekend

Yea, we finally have Casey out here for the weekend. We've been needing a Casey fix for a few weeks now. We've been missing him, as we haven't seen him since July. He's such a great kid, and so sweet, although he probably wouldn't like to hear me say that. But he's my Grandson, so I can call him sweet and tell him that I love him all I want, and there's not a thing he can do about it. Case is such a good young man, very helpful to his Grandpa and me. He likes visiting us, especially because his Grandpa allows him to drive the Gator. I have a couple of photos of that for you to see...




As you can see, Case is dressed in his "Army gear" today. I think that gives him a sense of pride. My goodness, his feet are a size 10 1/2-11 now!! Can you believe that? He's growing up so fast.

They just came into the house, and they're hungry! So, gotta go.

It's been a while...

I know, it's been quite a while since I've posted anything. Just haven't had the time and/or haven't felt like it. When I've wanted to post, I didn't have time, yet when I had the time, I didn't want to post. You figure it out!

I've been busy with my photography, but haven't taken any photos in nearly a week. I'm missing it. We're taking a little break, just to catch our breath and try to figure things out. HA!!

Anyway, I have a couple or so photographs that I want to share. Not because they are great, but because I want to. There are a couple of Mister being vacuumed, which he loves. I have one of three of my Fenton Art Glass vases, and one showing three of my Rooster/Chicken collection. These are the "still life" photos for last week/this week lesson. I'm not real happy with them, but they were the best I could do with what I had on hand at the time. I wanted to use some chicken wire with the Roosters, but Bill forgot to get it out for me. I also didn't have a good background. I'm learning from this class, and maybe you'll see a tiny improvement. I'll start with the photos of Mister, my big clown.

More photos

Nothing much new has happened since last post. I got my flu and pneumonia shots on Wednesday. My left arm aches and is red and puffy, but it's pretty much back to normal now.

I wanted to go to the local Alpaca Farm Tour today, but that didn't happen. I've been interested in Alpacas for about ten years, first just looking at them on the web, then doing some research. They are interesting and beautiful animals, and very clean. They are now also out of reach as far as owning a pair.

Jessica sent her critique of my Week 3 photographs. Again one of them was good enough for my "Gallery Folder". Her remarks on that one were... "Magnolia Fruit - F4.8, P, AWB, 1/60, SPOT

Spot metering this turned out very well (GF) because it made the pink nice and bright against the dark background, and because the Pink is sort of a middle value, it didn't lose the background either, This is a beautiful photo.
Jessica" I was quite pleased with that compliment! And here is the photo...

Busy, Tired, and Broke!

The Title says it all. That's been me for the month of September. I've been very busy with my online Digital Photography Workshop, with Jessica. Last week was about taking pictures of the sky at different times of the day, and then about the color white. We also had to upload two photos of white on white. I used batting for the bottom piece. I wanted to use my cat Mister for the object, but he's an indoor-only cat, so that was out. He even plopped down on the floor right in front of me as I was walking to the door to take my white objects out for the photos. He wanted to be a part of it, but not this time. Maybe later, Mister. Anyway, one of my photos (that I named "Sun Glow")was judged to be good enough to put in my "Gallery Folder".

More on my Digital Photography class

White Balance

The second lesson in the Digital Photography class was finally posted last evening. This week we need to take 3 photos of cloud formations at different times of the day. We then need to change the White Balance on our camera, and take photos of something white.

I was totally in the fog when I first read the lesson, but after I played with the camera I found that I'd actually learned more than I thought.


I knew that white is the combination of all colors of the spectrum, and that black is the absence of color. But I never really understood what all that meant until I read Lesson 2, where Jessica showed us examples of some of her photos, pointing out differences in each photo.

Learned Something New!

I just learned something new (to me)!!! I can add music to my Blog! WooHoo!!!
I just picked up some Pearl Jam (from "Black"), and am adding it here, for anyone to listen to.

MISHEARD LYRICS - Pearl Jam - Yellow Ledbetter

[via FoxyTunes / Pearl Jam]

And. . . Pearl Jam "Betterman"

Over my "pity party"

There was nothing else to say today . . . except that I did "get over" my pity party regarding the photography review. So I'll get better. I'll learn how to use my camera. Gosh, isn't that the reason I enrolled in this class anyway???!! As you may be able to tell by now, I can at times be too quick to react. Now why did I delete all the photographs from my digital memory chip?

I registered for an online digital photography class, which started on Friday. Our first assignment was to take five photos in Auto mode around our yard, of things that look interesting. I went out on Saturday afternoon to cut the grass, but took my camera with me, in case I came across something of interest.

I found a couple of things that really captured my interest...first a little lizard that was running across an old piece of log on the ground. He stopped at the very end, so I pulled up and took a couple of photos. The first one was just a regular shot, but I zoomed in for the second shot of him. That was my favorite photo. I was lucky to have seen him, and that he stopped when he reached the end of the log. He was nearly the same color as the wood, so the zoom shot was the better. I rode around looking for something more of interest, but found nothing that really screamed for me to take a picture. I took a shot of my little wire-haired Dachshund's grave site, of the marker. He was a dear little boy and he was so faithful to me. When I started having trouble walking back from the creek due to losing my breath (COPD), he'd stand just a few yards ahead and wait for me to catch up. So when he became old and feeble, and arthritis set in, making it difficult for him to stay right with me, I'd pick him up and carry him. We were best buds. I finally took a photo of my Paper Bark Maple tree, focusing in on the bark, and one of my deceased husbands' grave. I also took one of one of my Magnolia trees, trying to focus in on the fruit, but the fruit didn't show up.

The next evening, I went down to my fish pond and took some shots there. I liked a couple of them, so used one. Then I downloaded them all to my computer. Next I started looking at them, to see if there were any adjustments I could make to make them look better. Not so much. So, I uploaded them to the class site and sent the email letting the instructor know they were ready.

I received an email from the instructor today. Not a good report. None of my photos were good enough. That crushed my ego. I'm the type of person that takes everything to heart, and everything is personal. But I'm hoping to improve a great deal in the near future.

Good morning everyone. Today is a brand new day for me, as this is the day that I begin my Digital Photography class. I'm going to learn how to use my digital camera, other than using the AUTO feature. From now on, it's no more "point and click" for me. No sir, I'm going to learn what all those other symbols mean, and how to use them.

I've been a "better than average" picture taker, and have wanted to become much better for quite some time now. The time is here. Perhaps I'll share some of my photographs with everyone, but then again, perhaps not. We shall see just how brave I am.