Orchids and Portraits

I photographed these orchids the same day I photographed the mums in the previous post. I was having a blast with the lighting! I have decided my room has the best light in our house. It has the least reflection off (orange and red!) roofs next door, and provides the whitest light. I also had fun photographing my sister in the same room a few days ago... and got some nice results!

 

It is so fun to discover great places to take photos....I've always had a hard time with indoor lighting, and it was great to find a place with good light! 

Mums at Their Best

A happy May to all! We got these flowers in honor of May Day. :)

The little pink flowers especially were begging to be photographed!

P.S. Post number 100! Hurray!

Chrysanthemums

These lovely chrysanthemums (a valentine gift from my dad to my mom) were just begging to be photographed.

Then the cat got interested in the flowers too, and I framed her eye ;)

Lovely little flowers, aren't they!?

Happy Valentine's Day!

 In my home, Valentine's Day is a special day in which we bless each other with sweet cards, small gifts, and lots of love. We eat a yummy breakfast together, & exchange cards. (and open a thoughtful package from relatives...thank you!)

Handmade by my amazing sister, Amy!

 Some sweet friends brought us a plateful of these delicious cookies.

I hope you have a special day filled with friends and family that you love. :)

How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! 

1 John 3:1a

7 Things I've Been Loving Lately

 The title says it all...here are seven things I've been loving lately:

1. The New Year.

I love the anticipation, the new starts, the goals, all the things to look forward to... :) (and a new planner!)

2. The Word.

Speaking of new starts and goals, I've decided to read through the whole Bible this year.
Something I've never done... about time to do it!

I'm afraid a bout of cold and fever put me behind a week or so, but I'm working hard to catch up!

3. Air-conditioning.

For those days when your sick sibling needs a little cool air, or when you are really tired of having sweat dripping down your back. :P

4. Burt's Bees Soap.

I got a little sample tube from a friend, and loved it so much I asked for more for my birthday. 

This soap is amazing. 'Nuff said.

5. Portable Tripods.

Who knew they came so small!? I got it for Christmas, and it fits in my camera case! :D

6. Lava Lamps.

Call me weird, but there's nothing like a lava lamp for a happy glow in a dark room. Makes me smile :)

7. Cat Yawns.

One of the funniest things I've seen.
She obligingly yawned for the camera yesterday, and my whole family got a kick out of the photos I got.

Is there anything that you've been loving lately?

Elements of Composition #6

 The sixth element of composition is....

Frame Your Subject!

It was a bit hard for me to find a photo for this...I didn't have one that was obviously framed, but I came up with these two that will work.

Here I am framing the sky at sunset with the roofs near me...

....and here I am framing a clump of flowers through the a hole in the railing of our deck. 

 It's fun when you find a subject that would work well with a frame... the problem is finding a frame!
Tomorrow's element of composition is Lines.... mysterious....;)
Happy November, by the way!

Elements of Composition #5

Depth of Field

use focus to draw the eye to your subject

I wrote a bit more about the technicalities of aperture & depth of field here if you would like to learn more about how to use it ;)

Next up: Frame Your Subject!

Sundown Clouds

The clouds at sunset were beautiful last night :)
A few of the photos I took...

Spikey Flower

Yes, friends, it is more flower photos today :)

I found these while I was wandering around with my camera, just looking for something to take photos of... They were very interesting!

Bright pink/red, spiky... they had a tropical look to them.

And the buds were beautiful too! :D 

Have a lovely week :)

Illusions

Here are three photos I have taken recently.

I like them but they didn't really fit in any other post...

Trees reflected in a river.

Illusion: It's not really trees :) Just water that is reflecting them! Easy.

This needs a little more explaining. I took a photo looking up through a clump of leaves, but I purposely "unfocused" the photo, so the light looks like little round circles, and the rest is a blur.

 (This trick can be especially beautiful on Christmas lights....I can't wait 'til Christmastime!)

Illusion: Hah! I'll bet you didn't even know what the photo was! *wink*

Whenever we have flowers around the house, I take photos of them. Once, I was taking photos on the railing of our deck, and the flower fell into the stone gutter about a yard down. Now I drop flowers down there just to photograph them because I love the surface. ;D

Illusion: Now, this one isn't completely fair, because I didn't do it with the camera. I did it on the computer. :S The rose was originally yellow, but I was editing the photo a bit, and to my great surprise, the rose turned PINK! Hm. I liked it better than the yellow one.

I know this was kind of a strange post. My apologies.

Hope you have a good day anyway. ;)

And More Flowers

 I spent a good part of yesterday at a volleyball tournament at the school (where I take a few classes)...

I had a lot of fun walking around the campus and taking photos of flowers with a friend :) 

These were beautiful... some kind of orchid, I think.

We couldn't decide what these were; I think they are leaves. But look at how colorful they are! 

This is a random bush.

I know the word random is over used, but it describes this bush well. Please forgive me. :)

 Ah, daisies. I love daisies!

 Enough flowers though. I post way too many photos of flowers on this blog. But they are much easier to photograph than people. They don't (usually) have weird expressions on their faces when I am trying to take their photo ;)

Next time, I'll post some volleyball photos. I'm still learning how to take action photos. And later in the week, I should have some birthday photos to post! *grin*

Farewell for now, friends :D