Monday, September 14, 2009

A walk around the block . . .



Uh-oh. My "skinny" jeans don't fit and so as of yesterday have begun eating less and exercising more. (Novel concept.) On this morning's walk, I stopped by the woods where the lighting was rather challenging. In one instance the sun was peeking through the trees and at another location it was very shady.

I experimented with stopping my lens down to a small aperture so I could turn the sun into a little starburst. (1/10 second at f/14, 55mm lens). The photo seemed too stark, so I warmed it up with a slight sepia look and then softened it with a bit of blur.

In the shady part of the woods I experimented with moving my camera up/down during a 0.6-second exposure at f/13, again with a 55mm lens. I did a couple of other things that I'm waiting until next year to show you in my weekly Photomotivation tutorials/assignments. Are you on the list to receive the info when it comes out?

In addition, after my walk I brought a leaf indoors and created this little photograph of it: http://carolleigh.blogspot.com/2009/09/turning-over-old-leaf.html I think it's beautiful.

2010 is going to be a very good year for photography. Especially when I can fit back into those jeans. ©Carol Leigh

4 comments:

DSRTDAVIS said...

I have always liked all of your blurs but I really like this one (the up and down camera blur one). I think one thing is the colors are in thirds (sort of )... blue, green and pink and plus the pink and green just smack me in the face (in a good way..no, in a wonderful way). I just keep staring at it. I am staring at it now... mesmerized.

Carol Leigh said...

I hadn't noticed the "thirds" thing until you mentioned it. Thanks for encouraging me to see a little differently. -- Carol Leigh

Diane Miller said...

Both are just beautiful! The sepia toned one is sublime! One problem I have with motion blurs is that the more wide angle the lens, the more I get a pincushion effect, with vertical lines flaring out at the top and bottom. I often resort to the lens correction filter to fix it. I don't see this in your image.

Carol Leigh said...

Thanks, Diane. And there's where you're the more technical person -- I've never even NOTICED wide-angle flare-age. I'm gonna have to do some comparisons. Maybe tomorrow I can find some aspens to shoot in the upper elevations. It's too early for fall color yet, but the trunks are very stark, so they could be good. THAT IS, IF IT WOULD JUST STOP RAINING! Arrived here in Santa Fe a couple of hours ago and it's been pouring the entire time. Funny, it was DRY in Oregon! -- Carol Leigh