Gees can you believe this is the 78th Photo Quest? Seems like I started this just a few months ago. I thank all the loyal members for all their great photos and for teaching me more about photography.
For this weeks quest lets look at diagonal lines and how they contribute to a photo. You can use diagonal lines to draw to eye to your subject or the lines can be your subject. The human eye natural views an image by going from left to right. By placing a diagonal line from left to right you are using that natural view to your advantage by now drawing the eye to your subject. Make it easy for the viewed to know what your subject is.
Can you look at your photos and know what the subject is? Do you look for the subject of your photo in your view finder or LCD before you click the shutter? Do you remember the rule of thirds?
Now that I've filled you with questions....here is this week's quest. Take some photos using diagonal lines. Photos can be any that you have taken in the last year. If you can't find a photo with diagonal lines or can't find a subject with diagonal lines around use a photo software to make some lines. No excuses this time.
Here is a great article on diagonal lines http://digital-photography-school.com/using-diagonal-lines-in-photography. Any questions...please ask! Take care and have a wonderful week.
Read more: http://digital-photography-school.com/using-diagonal-lines-in-photography#ixzz0W97s6TSu
Yikes there were some very scary photos this week! Thanks to all the folks that send in photos, it was so much fun to see what you were doing for Halloween. I miss Halloween so much. The department I worked the for last 9 years didn't do much of anything for Halloween. Now that I'm retired well, it was even less. We are too far out in the country to get trick-a-treaters so it was like any other day here. Darn it...I did get to see some cute photos of my grandsons dressed up.
Back to the quest I didn't see a bad photo in the group and we had tons of photos this time. Darcy made my job easy by posting only one photo, thanks so much girl. Her photo of her daughter as Wednesday Adams showed tons of creativity. Darcy's daughter played with the photo in photoshop to make it spookier! Great work there.
Then along came Cap'n wow frozen pumpkin fields and a great jack-o-latern...amazing work on that. My favorite was the jack-o-latern photo. Taking the photo at night gave it a real Halloween glow.
Next was Yan with his great photos of Halloween in Japan. My favorite was the friend dressed as an alien...great capture in a dark bar.
Now it was Amy Sue...boy she made my job very hard with all her great photos! Thanks for the great photos of the kids trick-or-treating downtown. What a great place she lives that the merchants give out candy..keeping it safe for the kids...very nice! It was so hard to pick a favorite...so I picked two. I loved the pumpkin and hunted house photo. The low light gives the photo a very nice Halloween spooky feeling. Then I really like the Halloween old photo of the two kids under the movie poster. Nice work there with making the whole photo feel very old.
Wow then there was Metz....so many, many photos my friend. I felt like I was there with you enjoying seeing how your children had so much fun. Of couse it helps that her kids are so cute! So my favorite of all the photos was Halloween 048 with the red tree behind your daughter! That was an amazing photo, loved the red leaves that matched your daughters outfit. Nice work there!
Today I will:
walk around town
take pictures
get dishes cleaned
wash some laundry
make a grocery list
breathe
I bought some studio type lights today. I should get them next week. They are not the best out there, but they were the best I could afford. I have some portraits coming up:
1. engagement portraits for sisters sister in law
2. maternity shoot
3. Mr. L's cousins Family (actually 5 families in one)
4. my own family
5. wedding in april
I need the practice. I am excited to possibly start making a few bucks with this hobby. It will take a while before a profit is made since I am still investing in equipment and still not real good at the portraits yet.
My cousin is opening her own salon and wants some of my photos as display (and to sell). I am slowly putting myself out there. That is tough for me. I hate promoting myself, I feel like it makes me sound cocky. Need to get over that.
Today's grateful things:
1. I did something silly today and it made Mr. L laugh and smile all the way to the car when he left for work. That made me feel giddy.
2. the sunshine, it is supposed to be 64 today! Nice!
3. It does not feel like such a strain to smile today, the last few weeks my cheeks felt like they were weights and it makes it so hard to smile.
4. the colors of autumn
5. miss Luna who woke me with her little dance on my shoulder and sweet little mews
I looked down one side of the sidewalk, then down the other, and went where there were leaves to be crunched under my feet. This was how I made all my direction choices all through town. My head was swirling with what I should have said, if it would have even be heard, thinking of hurtful things said and done. I was not in an awesome place, but I was working it out in my head like I try to do. Talking about it out loud seems to inflame it more, to write about it and ponder it feels safer. I feel like it does not give it the power it needs, it stays quiet and manageable.
Crunching tiny yellow japanese maple eaves under my shoes I noticed someone already had thanksgiving decorations up on the house. One large sign read "Count Your Blessings!" with a very goofy turkey staring me in the eye. I thought "okay Turkey, I will try and switch my train of thought, because I DO have plenty of blessings to count". As I walked another festive home had a thanksgiving flag that read "Be Thankful". By this time my thoughts had grown dark again. I was feeling lonely and wanted to only take pictures of solitude and I was finding none. I Began to think of things I was thankful for, instead of the things I was not grateful for. The sky started turning dark, it was going to rain soon. I started back home.
While I walked I thought how I have lost a little bit of my appetite for photography, lost a little bit of my inspiration. Then when I was almost home, my cell rang, it was designer and he was checking on what color scarf and gloves I wanted. I was happy to hear they would be coming soon. Then when I entered my house I sat at the computer with a cup of hot apple cider and read my emails. My cousin is opening a salon and she wants to sell some of my photos there, and also wants them on her walls. ;-) Love when the universe gives me the nudge to keep going. After chatting with cousin on the phone, I decided to just take a gander at a few blogs that make me smile, like ICHC or Cuteoverload and This one, and what should I find but a photo of a tiny book that you are to list your grateful things in. ;-)
I am grateful for:
*sunshine in the fall
*fresh hot apple cider
*soft bath robe
*hot showers
*homemade leftover split pea soup
*Mr. L
*the kittehs and turtle girl
*silence
*reality (when confronted with one who lives in a world that is not true, reality is good)
*laughter
*art
*tuesdays
*colors
*naps
*people who are willing to listen without analyzing
*goats (yes goats)
*apple fritters
*today
Let's have some fun with this quest....show me your Halloween...make it scary, funny, magical, silly or spooky. All photos must be taken during this quest and no limits to photo editing for this one.
For this quest push the limit on your camera and your editing software...have a ball and show us how creative you can be. Keep in mind this is a family friendly group so nothing too gory or sexy. Now go out and take some photos!
I learned a lot from this quest and from seeing the photos that were posted for this quest. As Darcy said having the subject out of focus add some mystery to the picture. Usually we try everything we can do to get a detailed crisp photo and in this quest it was just the opposite.
Now to this week's photos and the ones I liked the best.
For Darcy it is easy...her pumpkin photo is wonderful! I loved that she used a Halloween theme and had some scary books in focus and the wonderful jack-o-latern out of focus. Try as I might my eye still goes to the jack-o-latern and not the books that are in focus.
On the photos that Realworld submitted I liked the third one the best. The whole photo is out of focus but the lamp in the widow draws your eye into the photo and you just want to know more about the house, the room, the lamp.
The photos that Yan submitted were amazing! I liked them all and he gave us a nice assortment of pink and white flowers in and out of focus. The last photo of the multi-colored flower is my favorite. I like that we only see 1/2 the flower and that only the center of the flower is in focus...it leaves me wanted to see more of the flower!
Great work all and thanks so much for posting your wonderful photos to this quest. Hope to see you again next week.
I brought the camera to OshCon but didn't get to take pictures since I was playing in the demos. Oh well.
And I can't really take pictures right now because the minis aren't accessible.
I promise that as soon as I can I'll get them posted. They're way cool.
We saw it last night.
It was good, don't get me wrong, just not what I expected. It was one of those kids movies that is not really great for most kids. Not that it was too scary or anything. Just very complex emotions. It was a lot more emotional and melancholy that I had hoped. Here is my take on it.
I think they wanted us to see what it was like inside the head of a child who has ADHD or a mild form of autism. The internal struggle these children face at all times. They know what they are supposed to do and act, but their body is doing something completely different. They have no control at times. I saw a few of the children I cared for at the daycare in Max, and hoped they see the movie. I hoped the parents saw the movie and saw their child in Max as well.
It was a very sad and moody movie. I was on the brink of tears near the end, then a father had to remove his little girl from the theater because she started sobbing so hard she could hardly catch her breath. I lost it then. I felt so bad for the little girl. It was one of those moments like in Bambi, when it is just so sad. The movie was quite heavy.
I think parents should view this before letting a child view it. Some kids may not be able to handle it. Others may feel a connection with Max and be so grateful to have their own struggles up there on the screen, let them know there is nothing wrong with them, they are just not your everyday average kid, and they are not the only ones.
Visually the movie was absolutely stunning, SO beautiful. The sculptures looked like something Andrew Goldsworthy created, the colors are muted and lovely, the monsters look incredible! But it was a very emotionally driven movie. It left me with a different melancholy feeling than I had when I walked in.
I wanted to love the film so much.
I get a wonderful newsletter each week from Darren Rowse of the Digital Photograhy School. Some weeks I don't read them until much later. If you are interested in getting this great newsletter go to his website http://digital-photography-school.com/ and sign up.
In this weeks Tips Newsletter I was reading the article "Photography the Light Not the Land" and got the idea for this week's quest...taking a photo that is out of focus or not "tack sharp." Here is the article with some great examples of out of focus photos http://digital-photography-school.com/out-of-focus-photos ...be sure and read his other article "Taking Unfocused Photos."
Since I'm late in doing this quest, you have a week and two days to get some photos posted. For this quest there are some different catagories and the photos must be taken during the run of this quest.
1. Take one photo in focus and then one out of focus. If you have the ability to put your camera on manual focus this isn't too hard...if you can't change to manual focus, then focus your camera on a nearby subject hold down the shutter button halfway then move your camera over to a scene with the many subject farther way. If your camera allows set your ISO low 100 or 200 and your aperture (F stop) as high as you can in the 2-4 range.
2. If your camera or your lens has a anti-shake function take one photo with it on and one with it off.
3. If you have a tripod, take one photo with the tripod and one handheld.
4. Take a photo of a very near subject that is a distance from the background, use a wide or high aperture, focus only on the subject take a photo. Now change to aperture to 9 or higher...post both photos. If you can't set your aperture, change your auto setting from macro to landscape and see if that changes the focus. This should give you an out of focus background know as bokeh go here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bokeh for a good description of what bokeh means.
5. Now that you can take an out of focus photo on purpose let's get really creative and compose and take a very dreamy photo. If you can take the same photo in focus and post both photos.
In the quest you should learn a little more about your camera..ugh you might have to get the manual out again...and the ability to take an out of focus photo when you want that effect.
Here is a photo I took that I really struggled to get in focus but the light was very low as it was in Mission San Xavier church. I blurred the foreground by using a high aperture. I think it was 4 and took the photo through some stair railing. I think this photo works as the out of focus blur makes it look ghostly or spiritual.
Here is a great photo by Yancunyong of a sweet potato...the focus is very tight on the sweet potato and you can see a soft slightly out-of-focus lovely lady in the background.
Here is a photo from a Flickr friend and she said I could add it to this quest as an example of out-of-focus photo. Here is a link to her Flickr site to view more of her wonderful photos. http://www.flickr.com/photos/ohbydod/
Again the variety of this week's photos was wonderful. Check out the photos from Spike, Anthrogrrl and Yancunyong. For some reason Cap'n's post didn't register on the Photo Quest and Realworld almost forgot to post his photos.
Spikes photos of the local football team were great...do I hear a new career for Spike? I have to go with the last photo of the team in black and white with the purple shirt and pants in color! Fall is football in the USA and thanks to Spike we get a good view of the local sceen.
Anthrogrrl posted some terrific photos of the fall colors! Her second photo titled uber-brillant is my favorite....The colors are so amazing.
Yan's actions shots gave us an idea of all the sports activities in Japan. His last photo of the boys chasing the ball was my favorite...great composition (leaving room in front of the boys, ROTs), super action and the best colors!
Realworld's photo of the fall sky with all variety of colors was wonderful. I pick his last photo with the purple filter or overlay as my favorite!
Now for Cap'n Stephel's post..I think her photo of the fall leaves and the snow are great. My favorite is the first one where she has taken the black and white photo of the leaves and made an increadible frame for the color version of the photo. I think is a wonderful and creative idea! Now I want to try it...take a look and I know you will want to try it too!
Thanks all for posting so truly great photos again this week!
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