Hallelujah

I played hooky from my blog Thursday and Friday, but it was for a very good reason. (At least I think so!) I finally have a dishwasher (besides me) in the kitchen. Hooray!

Thursday I had to get ready for the install. Friday was the install. Saturday and today I've been trying to get everything organized again.

So today I thought I'd share a few documentary photos of the installation, and tomorrow I will get back down to business with my photography.

Many thanks to my wonderful husband and brother-in-law for all their hard work!

Dancing Pine Needles

I was sitting by a window reading a book this afternoon, when I suddenly felt something warm and my book got brighter. No way! It's the sun! I decided to go traipsing around the yard again and take advantage of it. The breezes were blowing pretty good, but I was determined to get pictures of pine needles, especially since the sun was out. I ended up trying to balance on a small hill with me swaying and the pine bough swaying. (Tripod wasn't going to work where I was.) I was amazed that this picture was as focused as it is and I'm pleased with the result.

Techie Corner
I used a +4 close-up filter, which has an extremely narrow focusing field. It made focusing on a moving target even more challenging! But I think the +4 and the movement really made the background interesting. I darkened the dark tones and did some major cropping in Lightroom, and did a little sharpening in Photoshop.
Shot at 1/180 Sec @ F5.6, ISO 200

Winter Grapes

I'm still on a close-up theme today. Being that it is nice and warm (32 degrees is warm? hmmm.) I decided to pull on my boots and head out to the backyard. I took a tentative step off the back porch thinking I was going to sink down in the snow, but was pleasantly surprised to find a nice firm walking surface. I tried to shoot some snowy pine needles, but the branch kept moving in the breeze. Then I remembered the grape vine and here is the fruit of my labor. (Oh, that was a very, very bad pun!)

Techie Corner
I used my +2 close-up filter again and focused manually. Spent quite a bit of time adjusting the lighting in Lightroom to get it just the way I wanted. Did a little sharpening to really get the grapes nice and sharp (even though they were already pretty sharp.) Cropped square.
Shot at 1/4 Sec @ F11, ISO 200

Jade Eyeball

I tried shooting several different things today, but my kitty seemed to be the most cooperative, wonder of wonders. This was a full head shot, but I decided in keeping with my close-up theme from Friday, I'd crop in on one of her beautiful eyeballs.

Techie Corner
I got the eyeball focused perfectly on this shot. No sharpening needed! I did bump up the blacks to get that pupil nice and dark. I also used umbrella and camera flash (as you can see in the reflection of the eye) which washed out the green some. So I took out some of the green luminance in Lightroom to bring back a nice dark green.
Shot at 1/60 Sec @ F2.8, ISO 200

Close-up

I haven't done any close-up photography in a long time, so today is close-up Friday.

My kittygoyle is the subject today. She doesn't complain no matter how many pictures I take, so I really had time to get the exposure just right.

Lighting was tricky since I was using sunlight for the highlights and the sun kept ducking under clouds all the time. I had to keep adjusting the mini blinds to get just the right highlights. Kittygoyle was content to perch on my slide light box and wait patiently until I was done.

I decided to just stick with the basic image today. I could tweak it in many different ways by adding a different background or whatnot, but I think I will save that idea for another day.

Have a great weekend and see you next Monday!

Techie Corner

As you can see in the example at the left, it was a pretty simple set-up. The lighted slide box was the main light, with fill light coming in through the kitchen window. The sunlight gave a yellow cast, so I desaturated all the yellow in Lightroom. The only other editing was a little sharpening in Photoshop.

I used a +2 close-up filter on my camera and a very small aperture to get in close, but still have most of kittygoyle in focus. Focusing was still touchy, so I did that manually.
Shot at 1/4 Sec @ F22, ISO 200