February Overview Peace and Love

Another month has passed. Once again, I struggled to capture just what I was hoping for. Too much time is being spent on things other than photography. The best part of the assignment was going out and taking photographs. When I had time to to spend on my photography, I feel so at peace and I love looking around and seeing the world; big and small, near and far.

On the first Saturday of this month our photo walk group went out to Iowa to see and photograph the Eagles and spend a little time at Antique Archaeology. The antique store is filled with all kinds of things that were loved by someone and are now, at a minimum, intriguing to the owners and visitors of the store. 

Someone had this little guy as a toy and kept it until it was a faded memory. It now sits on display in the store, a collectors items for everyone who visits to see.

The Nash was loved by someone as well. It is the sign for the store and is photographed by many, many visitors. I personally loved the way the snow had collected and created interesting shapes and designs around the car.

 To see these Bald Eagles back in such high numbers is a wonderful thing. They are gaining in numbers and can bee seen more and more easily in Illinois especially in winter. When we got out of the car, this tree full of eagles pulled me in.

This one was chattering away at the top of the tree. It's a wonderful sound.

  I have struggled to capture moving wildlife. Bird and whales are so beautiful, but I usually come home and find that I have my shutter speed to slow or I was moving as I was taking the photograph. This trip, I was steady and finally captured some nice images even as the birds soared right over head.

 

 The was not peace or love. Well, I guess it's about love of a fish. But this was an argument over who got to eat the fish. As you can see, the fish went back into the water. Fighting really doesn't get you anywhere.

On Valentine's Day, I finally stopped to take a photograph of this house. It was repainted this summer and for the first time, I noticed the heart shape in the intricate design.

 In search of a little winter beauty at the end of the day. I went out for a drive waiting for sunset. The clouds won, but I found this to be a peaceful scene.

Just as I was about to go to bed, my husband said that Gilbert was out photographing the Aurora Borealis. This is on my bucket list of things to see and photograph. I walked into my boots, grabbed my coat, hat, mittens and camera gear and was off. To make it even better, John didn't let me go alone. Out on Rich Road, we met up with Gilbert and this was the only shot that I got before the Aurora faded completely from view. The view and the image did not show this much color. I had to up the saturation to bring out the colors in the sky. This is my reminder of what is out there and that some day, I will be awed by the colors and dancing of those fantastic nights. It's always good to have the camera ready to go, just on case you hear the call.

A month of Peace and Love. March is Water, Water, Everywhere. I wonder what I shall find.

February Peace and Love

We are past the halfway mark of the month closing in on the end of our photographic search for  peace and love. For me, it has been a tough month. Time for photography has slipped past and more importantly,  I seem to be too focused on the negative and miss the beauty, peace and love that surround me.

Up until Valentine's day, I had only taken photos one time.  Admittedly,  I took a lot of the Eagles at lock and dam 14, but it is rate that I don't get in more days of photography than that. This day out did not feel like I was working on this photo challenge. It was more of a learning and practicing how to capture moving creatures challenge. I can say that I love learning, being out in nature, and making photographs and soaring eagles are very majestic.

There is a house in Sycamore that I drive past every day to go to work.  It was a house that was on the underground railroad.  This past year, it has been fixed up and painted. It is colorful and bright. The decoration stands out now and at the peak of the roof, there is a design that now one can so obviously see is the shape of a heart. I thought many times that I should stop and take a photo. I Valentine's day, I finally stopped to photograph that heart.  Since the I have been allowing myself the time to stop and take a photograph when I see something that makes me feel at peace.

One of these days, I will have some time to download and process them.

The month is quickly passing,  but there is still time to stop and photograph the more symbols and signs of peace and love.

January Photo Challenge

January: Fibonacci and other shapes (Phi, the Fibonacci number is 1.618. The golden mean.) The are so many shapes in nature. Focus on shapes as you look at the world to see what you see.

I did do a little photography, but I am not over the moon with the images that I captured in January. It felt more like practice than getting a great final piece of art. Not a bad thing, just feeling unfinished. Wishing for more time to play and capture.

December's challenge is to go back and take the same image and see if you would do anything differently to improve upon what you did. There is not requirement to wait for December to try again.

What I like about this image is the background which creates a Fibonacci spiral composition. The main focus is also a great example of the Fibonacci spiral.

Trees and pine cones are always a great example if Fibonacci in action.

Colored bubbles on glass over iridescent paper. Lit from the side.

I think that these water drops are my favorite for the month. There are 55 water drops in a spiral formation (Fibonacci would be proud). Below and magnified in the water are little origami paper stars. I like the colors, the shape, and the final piece. This was one of the assignments from the "failed" 30 day challenge. I am pleased that I was able to try it and succeed with something that doesn't just feel like a copy of the assignment.

We were graced with a Parhelion (Sun Dog) one morning. Thanks to Tracy posting about it on Facebook and my husband mentioning it as I was leaving for work, I stopped and captured this image. It was on one of our coldest days. This farm is one of my favorite views on my way to work. Usually traffic is too heavy to stop and take a photo, but there wasn't much traffic on this bright and cold morning.

This little tree is more than just a Fibonacci Spiral. It was made by my mother and her close friend many years ago. They saw one at Marshall Field's and decided to make their own. I still remember all the cut pieces of wood being cut and laid out for spray painting. Then one by one biggest to smallest stacked in a dowel rod. We plaid with the tree shaping it and reshaping it again and again over the holidays.

This is the tree from the side.

Ribbon candy has great curves and colors.

Shells are a wonderful example of Fibonacci in action.

I guess all-in-all it was a good month with fun experiments and wonderful things to photograph. February is here. It is time to search for Peace and Love.

Photo Challenge 2014

A while ago, I started a 30 day photo challenge. It didn't go very well. Between being very busy adding to it the difficulty of the daily assignments, I stopped taking photos at about day 21. There were some good assignments, but they were not one day challenges for me. Several of them required looking up how to do it and then a lot of experimentation.

From this, I realized that rather than put myself under such pressure and feeling frustrated because I was not succeeding, that I should make some changes to the way I complete a photo challenge.

I have decided that this year, I will work on 12 photo challenges; one challenge per month. My themes are just that, themes, This will allow me to try different techniques and compositional styles every month. I can working on panning, HDR, slow sync flash, panorama, dynamic tension, and on, and on, and on.

My goal it to really focus on each monthly assignment and see how many ways that I can photograph the topic.

I am putting this here as a promise to myself to complete these monthly challenges.

My themes will be:

January: Fibonacci and other shapes (Phi, the Fibonacci number is 1.618. The golden mean.) The are so many shapes in nature. Focus on shapes as you look at the world to see what you see.

February:  Peace and Love: a little more esoteric, but how do you see it in the world? What better month to look for peace and love than in February?

March: Water, water everywhere: this one is pretty obvious,  it's about water, close up, far away, colored or black and white. Water drops or bodies of water, frozen or liquid, h2o or a mixture.

Landscape and graffiti: there is so much to see in the world where ever you are. Take time to stop and see the big picture. Capture the writing on the wall.

Forced Perspective: make something look big or make something big look small. Maybe it looks like a person is holding a cloud or Bokeh lights are filling a glass. Maybe a shell looks huge or Lego people are now giants. Maybe the full moon looks really big in the sky.

Light and Shadows: Ansel Adams was a master at seeing light and shadow. Monet was fascinated with light and would paint the same seen over and over again throughout the day to see the way light and shadow and color changed.  Shadows can be intriguing on their own making cool designs on the ground. Look at the way day and night light play with the world.

Time and Space: how do you see these things? The skies the limit. Maybe you times photograph the sunset. Night shots of the sky. clocks? The growth of a new plant. As with time and space, the possibilities are endless.

Up Close and Personal: get your macro on. Look at the details.

Portraits and People: This one scares me half to death. I include animals in my idea of portraits. This is also an opportunity to get to know other people. Maybe start a stranger portrait series. Really stepping outside of my comfort zone.

Windows and Doorways: not sure I need to say much on this. It could be used as a compositional style. Frame within a frame. Or it can be literal or metaphoric.

Pencils, Paper, and Everyday Things: How can you make a unique photograph from everyday objects. The goal is to see it and experiment with it until you have a photograph of the object that is unlike any other.

December: Look How Far You Have Come (Take an old photograph that you like, retake it. How have you change? What did you do differently?)

I have picked my assignments for January, February, March and December. The rest, I think, I will choose as I go along.

You are welcome to join me on this journey. Happy Photography in 2014.