Wayne

Our friend Wayne on the porch of his new house.

Pinhole hydrangea

I decided to play around with my pinhole cap again and focused on a hydrangea blossom fading for the season.  I cropped, converted to black and white and added a little extra grain.

Ornate light

I drove up to the mountains this afternoon and for the entire drive the sky was beautiful and dramatic.  The closer I got to the mountains, the wind started picking up and the clouds were moving very quickly.  Based on these wonderful conditions I decided to go to one of my favorite overlooks on the Blue Ridge Parkway, set up the tripod and get some long-exposure pinhole shots of the clouds.  I could just visualize the shots I wanted and was looking forward to some creative work.  Unfortunately, but the time I got here the wind had blown in totally gray, foggy conditions and my idea was a moot point.  So, once again, I started roaming the house looking for anything I hadn't already shot for the blog.  I took several photos....nothing I was really excited about....and this was the best of the lot.  This is an old light fixture in our back hallway.  I do like the shadowing in the image, but overall a pretty ho-hum way to end my 9th month of daily posting.

Maybe tomorrow the weather gods will favor me and I can get outside for some better work.

Rainy day buttons

I've been carrying around a bag of clothes that have needed mending for several months.  I've been taking it back and forth to the mountains thinking I'd always find a time to get around to it.  Since one of my favorite fall blouses was in there, I finally broke down on this rainy morning and got it done.  It didn't take but a few minutes and I love the idea of not carrying around that bag anymore.  While I was doing it I got out my button box to find a button and noticed how nice these old buttons looked all jumbled together, so I decided to make that my photo today.  I started out thinking I wanted to shoot the buttons from the top to make my subject fill the frame, but after I started experimenting with perspective, I liked the side view better, with a shallower depth of field.  This view gives the image more dimension and just shows that it's almost always a good idea to shoot from various different angles.

I posted both images since I think the one shot from above looks like it would make a good jigsaw puzzle.  Another good way to spend time on a rainy day.

Summer's last roses

I enjoy photographing flowers (as you probably know if you've followed my blog for long) and this morning when I was walking through my back yard I realized that soon all my flowers will be a just a memory until next spring.  So here is a photo of a few of our last roses.

Tilt shift effect

I can tell right now that I'm into experimenting and I guess that's a good way to keep from getting too bored at this point in my blog year.  Today I attended an all-day Photoshop workshop and am overwhelmed with info.  I've had this little tilt-shift app on my phone for a while and wanted to try it out.  It works well with an overhead shot of something like a street scene, so I took this one of Brevard St. from the crosswalk between the Convention Center and the Nascar Museum where I parked.  What a tilt-shift lens does is take an image and make it look like a miniaturized scene.  For a dollar app it's fun to play with, but I'm sure I wouldn't invest in an expensive tilt-shift lens.

Wide angle lens fun

Just goofing off with my wide angle lens.