No. 3

My kids amaze me.  They have yet to tire of me begging them to be my practice subjects.  On my way home this week I drove by this field of wheat, oats, not quite sure - just really tall, beautifully wheat-colored grass.  In my head I'm already formulating my speech to coerce my little nutter butter, child no. 3, into coming back with me to snap a few shots.  I quickly picked the kids up from school, pleaded my case with my youngest, had her don some denim and away we went.  Twenty minutes later, I was back home making pancakes for supper, also a children's book title by the way - a variation of the classic Little Black Sambo.

So, I started this blog for three reasons - 1. I love words; 2. I wanted something to do just for me; and 3. I wanted to hold myself accountable for improving my photography.  This post is all about reason number three.  The above photo was taken with my 50mm lens which gives me a great sharp shot.  I love the original which is posted below, but thought I would play around with some color action and texture.  Honestly, I'm quite the purist when it comes to photos, but decided to give the textures a try after some gentle nudging by a sweet friend and fellow photography enthusiast.

That being said, this is a blog post seeking constructive criticism.  I can critique my own photos all day long, but really, it's not the same as feedback from others. I have posted both the original shot and the edited shot.  I am interested in hearing if viewers are purists and prefer the original or if the edited shot is the favored one.  Again, it's all about reason no. 3 today.



Original



Edit



Barn Envy

I love, love, love that I live in an area that affords me the opportunity to drive in all directions and have a reminder of what many think to be a simpler time.  But really, was it? 

I must drive by this barn at least five times a week.  Thinking of living in that idyllic setting seems, well, like a whole lot of doggone hard work!  Farming is 24/7 x 365.  I do love their serene settings, but I most certainly don't envy the hard life of farmers. 

While I don't have the guts, stamina or drive to live the farmer's life, I have no doubt that I could live in a barn and call it home.  Not, of course, in its bucolic state, but in a more looks-like-a-barn-on-the-outside but completely-modernized-on-the-inside kind of way. 

I have applied a number of filter techniques to make the barn photo above look more like a painting, some photoshop fun.  The orginal photo is below. 

I have wanted to photograph this next barn for quite some time.  It is on our route to my older daughter's horseback riding lessons.  I was so stunned the very first time I saw it because it really does have pink faded trim around the barn windows!  As far as I can tell, the barn is vacated, but I have to imagine that someone once cared for it because they took the time to paint pink trim.

This last barn photo holds special memories and is quite honestly, probably at the root of my fasination with barns. My grandfather was one of those men perceived by so many as a simple farmer.  He had a small plot of land on which he raised animals and grew food to feed his family.  He grew tobacco each year, sold it, I'm sure, to buy necessities, not luxuries, for his five girls.  Not a simple life by any means. Or was it?

My grandfather's barn doesn't compare in size or granduer to so many barns that I see as am driving each day.  But its tiny, simple frame sure holds an enormous amount of such wonderful childhood memories.  Climbing in the loft to see if the hen had laid her eggs, watching my papaw hang tobacco to dry, seeing his old green truck with big rounded fenders parked in one side, naming the new little piglets clamoring just around the corner, running in and out and all around the barn with my cousins... 

 

Right Angles



In no way shape or geometric form is the title of this blog indicating that I am writing about anything along the parallel lines of arithmetic.  Numbers and I do not get along - my mind just doesn't work that way.  The only numbers that I have learned to co-exist with are those of the Dewey decimal variety.  I have always told my students and my children that I could write them an amazing word problem but solving it is entirely a different matter altogether!

Recently, I have been playing with angles in my photos.  The right angle can make all the difference in how interesting a photo looks.  While some like that perfectly straight horizon, I particularly enjoy the tilted angle as seen in the photos above. 

This shot of my oldest was taken from above.  I think this overhead angle definitely opens up the subject's eyes. And although she doesn't need it, it can also prevent those unwanted extra chins. 

    

 

In these two shots, I've tried looking at objects in a different way by parking myself in a very low spot and angle the camera upward.  I love the bark on the tree and the upward angle emphasizes its interesting texture.

Looking at something or even someone in a different way really isn't as simple to do as it seems.  Using this technique in photography reminds me that I also need to do the same in other areas of my life.  It's so easy to view situations from my familiar angle but not so much when the angle is outside of my comfort zone. 

My husband asks me on a weekly basis if I have thought of a unique business idea for us to start.  So far, my answer is no.  The right angle on a business makes all the difference as well.  That's why I have to share the photos below of one of our area's local businesses.  The idea behind this business is fantastic.  It is a drive through convenient store business.  Not a convenient store with a drive through window, I'm saying that I can literally drive my car through the store.  An employee walks up to my driver window, asks me what I need, I tell him, he retrieves it, and I pay - all from the comfort of my car!  I never have to get out.  Rain, snow, sleet, hail, tornado -regardless,  I am perfectly safe and dry.  Now that is convenience!  It's a business genius - the right angle. 

Stubborn, in a good way -



"On August 19, 1949 I became sick.  On August 21 I was taken to a hospital in Knoxville by one of Fred Weaver's ambulances.  It was in this hospital my case was diagnosed as polio.

...On January 3, 1951 I stood up for the first time since August 19, 1949."

Since I spend so much time in my car, I particularly love this time of year for the mere fact that wisteria is everywhere!  I drove past the scene above on my way to one of my daughter's soccer games.  Since my camera was in the car, I absolutely had to go back and snap a shot.  I love the delicate blue-purple flowers that hang from its creeping vine.  I have been warned though not to plant this beautiful plant in my yard because it is quite persistant and difficult to control - stubborn, I guess I would call it.  Maybe I like it so much because we are similar.

Eleven year old Ann Fay Honeycutt is just the same, persistant and difficult to control.  She is the main character in a wonderful children's novel I read last summer called Blue.  The book is set in the 1940s around Hickory, North Carolina and involves the little known Miracle of Hickory.  Ann is faced with incredible challenges.  Her favorite hideaway spot to sometimes escape those challenges is her wisteria mansion in the woods behind her small house.  Unfortunately, she faces one challenge that prevents her from running to her wisteria hideaway - polio.

The quote at the beginning of this blog wasn't taken from Ann Fay though.  It was taken from my uncle Jimmy's autobiography that I only recently knew he had written.  My uncle Jimmy, like Ann Fay, was one of the thousands of children effected by the virus called poliomyelitus and infantile paralysis, or polio as it became known.  As I have read more and more about this virus and the circumstances surrounding the epidemic in the United States during the 1940s, I am utterly amazed at the courage these children displayed.  This was even more evident when I read my uncle's autobiography.

I was excited to read it - I just knew so many of my questions about his illness would be answered.  How difficult it was, how painful, how hard it was to overcome!  Boy, was I wrong.  His 1953 biography, written so shortly after his experience, only contained a brief account of his polio experience.  Most of the autobiography was about his family and about how he planned to live in the future - plans that were important to him.

I learned so much from my uncle Jimmy - courage, determination, contentment...  I could go on and on.  Never once did I hear him speak negatively about what outsiders perceived as his limitations.  I guess that's because to him, there were no limits to what he could do.  He too, like wisteria, was persistant and did not give up - stubborn, in a good way.  Maybe I loved him so much because we are so similar.



Uncle Jimmy




Head Shots

At one of my daughter's U14 soccer games this past weekend, I counted a minimum of 21 headers!  I say minimum because I kept getting caught up in the game and forgetting to count.  Even so, I am really quite surprised that the girls are so willing to use their heads to move that soccer ball down the field or to gain the advantage.  They will even try headshots into the goal.  I thought about trying it just to see how it feels; but then, I thought again.

While I'm not too interested in participating in headshots in soccer, I am all about using my camera for those up-close-and-personal photos of my subjects.  For these shots, I usually gravitate to my 55-250mm zoom.  That way, I don't have to be super close to my subject and they seem to relax a little more when I'm a little further away.

That closeness which enables the viewer to almost peer straight into the subject's thoughts is what makes the headshot appealing to me - leaving me wondering what could they possibly be thinking?  The headshot above is of the most incredibly sweet canine I have ever in my life met.  Lucy was our family's constant companion for a little over 12 years - faithful, loyal, and true.  She had a calmness about her quiet manner that said she was perfectly content to do nothing but be our side.  This is my favorite shot of her; she was slower and grayer from age when I took this headshot but those eyes never changed in all 12 of her years.  It's those eyes that won over the dog skeptics, even the cat lovers. 

It's the eyes that speak volumes; the eyes in a headshot that draw us in - take a look...