This month’s theme is not that difficult and yet it is. I feel like I almost always shoot with shallow depth of field, so that’s easy. However, I feel that I have exhausted my creativity. I’m not going to lie, this time of year is difficult. I love taking photos of nature, however nature is shedding it’s color and beauty and is entering into a monotone and drabby season. For me there is a lack of inspiration when everything is turning brown and lifeless.
However, once again, I am so thankful for this photography group. It has made me get out and find beauty even in this dreary transitional period of the seasons. I was pleasantly surprised at what interesting things I found and how beautifully they photographed.
Here are my images:
A few of these images are some of my favorites I’ve ever taken of this nature. I’m glad this group gave me the push to get out and capture some beauty and create art. I hope you enjoyed my images.
Next up in the blog circle is Arthurko. Head on over to his blog by clicking HERE. You won’t want to miss his amazing images!!
April’s theme is macro. This is one genre of photography that I really enjoy and don’t tend to feel is much of a challenge. So this time I decided to use some flashes to create some different lighting and give myself an extra challenge.
I played around with light placement and different methods of diffusing the lights. I tried some backlighting as well as some side lighting and two lights for some images. I also did some shots on a white backdrop and some on a black backdrop. As you can see, the lighting and different backdrop can really change the mood of an image.
Thanks so much for stopping by! I hope you enjoyed my take on this theme. I know you’ll love our other contributors’ interpretations on this theme, so head on over to Sharlene’s blog by clicking HERE to continue through the blog circle!!
September’s theme is Intentional. I think it’s a great theme and very fitting for where I’m at in life right now. I’ve always tried to be very intentional in everything I do, however I’ve noticed that sometimes I get depressed and then get lazy, or I just lose my focus. Over the last few years I have been sinking into depression. Certain life circumstances have been beating me down. I’ve noticed that I’ve lost motivation in almost every area of my life. Nothing really brings me joy and so I’ve lost the motivation to be intentional. However I have finally decided that I need to pull myself up by the bootstraps and make myself do things, make myself live life. It may not pull me out of the depression, but it will have to help me in some way.
A few years ago when my son had Lyme disease, we overhauled our diet and our lifestyle. I felt so much better. So that is one thing I have decided to be intentional about again. I’ve started to neglect my health and I want to be intentional about getting back on track.
A few years ago, I started a Facebook group all about living a healthy lifestyle. I wanted to create a community where we could share recipes and share healthy tips. I have recently been heading up some health challenges through my group. For the events, I’ve wanted to have some nice header photos. So those images are my Intentional images.
As is the story of my life, I haven’t been feeling well for the last two weeks and my son just came down with Covid, so I was only able to take two images this month. I’m going to try to get at least one more image tomorrow and then I’ll add it to this post.
This first image is the image I took for my 100 mile walking challenge.
This second image is the image I created for my intermittent fasting challenge.
Thanks so much for stopping by my blog! Make your way through the blog circle and see everyone else’s awesome pictures. Next up is Elizabeth. Click HERE to see her amazing images.
For quite a while now I haven’t taken time to work on personal photography projects. Even with Share Six, many months I have been too busy, so I have pulled from my archive of pictures. Quite frankly, I am tired of doing that. I really do love photography too much to let my explorative and creative side take a backseat to my busy life. So with only two days before we were scheduled to go live, and with a migraine that had kept me down all day. I dragged myself out of the recliner, slapped on my sunglasses and grabbed my camera.
This month’s theme is transform, so the painfully obvious choice for this midwesterner was to document the transformation of the leaves. It worked in my favor that this year the changing of the leaves is about a month behind when it normally happens.
Because of my migraine, my husband drove me. I knew of one particular tree that I pass everyday on my morning walk, so we headed straight there. As I walked from the vehicle to the tree, I glanced down and noticed a few dandelions that had gone to seed. Being something that you don’t normally see in the beginning of November, I knew I wanted to photograph it. It’s amazing to me how a dandelion looks and then how completely different it looks once it has gone to seed. The transformation is quite incredible.
It was late afternoon and I really love the way the light transformed the leaves. It illuminated then really highlighting their veins.
When standing under a tree, especially one whose colors are in full bloom with autumn color, you can’t help but look up. The breeze swaying the leaves, with the sunlight sporadically peeking through, is almost like a visual version of a windchime…all these layers and tones of visual stimulation awakening your senses. It feels almost magical.
This tree had been absolutely stunning just days before. Its crown of yellow leaves appeared to have been gilded with the most vibrant orange. However when I got there yesterday, the ground was blanketed in all of the orange leaves. The remaining leaves that clung to the tree were brilliant yellow. As my feet crunched through the leaves, I looked down and noticed this yellow leaf amongst the sea of reddish orange leaves. It looked so beautiful!
Finally, as we were getting ready to leave I saw a few trees that had dropped all of their leaves but had bright red berries. I couldn’t pass up getting a few shots of them.
I absolutely love autumn and how everything transforms. It’s like a symphony for your eyes.
Thanks so much for stopping by!! I hope you enjoyed my interpretation on this month’s theme. Head on over to Janet’s blog by clicking HERE. You won’t want to miss her talented take on this month’s theme!!
Well, what an interesting year 2020 was! While for many people it was a terrible year, I tried to have a positive outlook on it. I hoped that by people having to stay home, it would bring families together and would cause people to slow down and notice their neighbors. While I don’t think that happened as much as I hoped it would, I do believe that it did happen for some people.
This past year I tried to focus more on living in the moment. Those of you who have been following along with my blog posts have noticed that a lot of my blog posts this year have been pictures I’ve taken with my phone. See, while photography is still my passion, it’s also my business. So when I’m not doing sessions or houses, I want to be living in the moment. I don’t want to be focused on dialing in my settings on my camera or getting that “perfect” shot. I want to soak in every detail of my life by simply living it. So I find that I’m whipping out my phone to snap a few pictures, and then I put it away and just revel in the moment. I mean, I want to document the memories, but I also don’t want to be so busy documenting them that I’m not living them. As much as I love photography, I really don’t want to always view my life through a lens. It’s just not the same as being completely present and watching things with your naked eyes.
So, once again, I have decided to share some photos I’ve taken with my phone. They aren’t going to win any awards, but they will most certainly bring more lasting enjoyment to me than any award could ever do. For they are a visual reminder of precious, fleeting moments….moments I will only get to live once.
My son has been doing backflips on our trampoline for quite some time now. I’m in awe of how brave he is. I’ve always been too scared to try to flip. This is one of the many details of his childhood that I want to document.
Late spring we decided to camp in our backyard. I strung lights in the tent to give it an extra cozy and fun atmosphere. This was yet another memory I wanted to etch in my mind and document.
We social distanced for a week during the summer at our favorite remote little cabin. The sun and the water did us all some good.
After getting dumped with the most beautiful snow last week. My son took on a project. He made himself a snow tunnel complete with a window and a door.
In high school, my friends and I loved going sledding in the evenings. The hills were normally empty and there was something cool about sledding in the dark. So my kids got the idea they wanted to sled after dark, so we made it happen. I’m all about making memories. It was a super foggy night as well, so we brought headlamps too.
Since we got the most beautiful snow, ice and fog frost, it has been a most breathtaking winter wonderland here. So my daughter and I decided to go out and try to get some pretty pictures. While primarily looking at landscape style shots I could compose, my eyes kept coming back to this tree and the ice that had encased it…such a lovely winter detail.
As usual, I hope you enjoyed my take on this month’s theme. Head over to Janet’s blog, by clicking HERE, to see her awesome interpretation! And be sure to make your way through the entire circle. You won’t want to miss all of the amazing images!
Another month another theme. Here we are in October already. Share Six’s theme is Books. When brainstorming on what I wanted to do, I thought back to my take on this same theme for I Heart Faces years ago. That blog post is HERE.
This time I did a variety of shots. I know my style of photography is all over the place, but that is because I truly want to master lots of kinds of photography. Art is all about emotion, I truly feel that how an image is composed and how it is lit can truly affect the emotion of the image. I feel that different images call for different “styles”.
For the first two shots, I used some vintage books. I kind of have a thing for old books. It worked out perfectly because a week ago I was gifted two vintage music books. So I coupled them with my grandmother’s piano book as well as a few other musical items.
The second shot is of a vintage horticulture book I picked up for 25 cents at a library sale.
For these last 4 images I decided to go a completely different route. I played with some flash as well. I thought it would be fun to create some abstract images.
I hope you enjoyed my take on this month’s theme! I really enjoyed this one. I actually want to take some more images on the theme.
Continue on through the circle by heading over to Michele’s blog by clicking HERE to see her talented take on this month’s theme!!
Hello there!! Can you believe it’s already December?!?! Where has the year gone? It’s that time again where we announce our new theme over at Share Six. We are doing Bokeh again, and I was pretty excited to get out and try some different shots and techniques that I haven’t tried before. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get 6 images though, so I’m using two old images, and then the other four are ones I specifically went out and shot for this month’s theme.
For those of you who are not photographers and do not know what bokeh is….According to Wikipedia, bokeh is the aesthetic quality of the blur produced in the out-of-focus parts of an image produced by a lens. Bokeh has also been defined as “the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light”. Being that we are so close to Christmas, I chose to go with the latter definition and use Christmas lights in my images.
Here is an image I took of my son two years ago. It’s one of my absolute favorites.
Here is another one I did for our bokeh theme two years ago.
For these next two, I decided to experiment some more with multiple exposures as well as using some off camera flash. These also happen to fit last month’s theme as well. This first one is a combination of 5 images exposed together in camera. You would not believe how long the last image (the silhouette of my husband and I) took. The flash behind us would not fire. I tried just about everything and even turned everything off and then back on. I don’t even remember what finally ended up working to get it to fire. I was so frustrated that I just gave up despite the fact that the image wasn’t exactly how I wanted it.
This next one is of an awesome client of mine who was more than happy to help out with only 45 minutes notice. I was envisioning this shot and really wanted to make it happen. This one is also 5 exposures, 4 of which were done in camera and the 5th I ended up having to join with the other 4 in photoshop. The in camera multiple exposure had one aspect that was bothering me, so by doing it in photoshop, I could remove that distraction.
The last two are of my husband and myself. I have to say a huge thanks to my daughter for standing guard by my camera, as my tripod has recently started to give me some problems as well. Apparently all of my gear is giving out on me…and just in time for Christmas. *sad and frustrated sigh*
Thanks so much for stopping by! Continue on in the blog circle by heading over to Janet’s blog by clicking here. You must see her lovely images!
Over the past few years I’ve really slowed down with the amount of pictures I take of our family. Years ago, I took SO many and I am grateful for those pictures, but I found that I was living life through the lens of a camera instead of seeing it with my own eyes. I wanted to be more present and not always have a camera in front of my face. Besides, my kids started getting sick of me always having my camera. They still have that frustration with my camera, so I really had to force them to go out and get these family pictures. All of our attitudes weren’t the greatest, and the dogs were being a bit ornery, but despite all of that, I’d say we got fairly decent pictures.
For the family picture I used my trusty tripod and the self timer. I loved my remote that I broke, but it’s actually more funny using the self timer because I have to run back and forth. It makes for some laughs and smiles. Although, all of the running made my scarf go awry. Oh well, I took what I could get. The fact that we even got both dogs looking is a miracle in itself, and the kids’ smiles are actually good. I’m going to call it a win.
This month’s theme is Silhouette. I planned on actually orchestrating some silhouette pictures with off camera flash, but while on our vacation back in August, the sunsets on the lake created the perfect opportunity for some great silhouette shots. So I decided to take advantage of that opportunity. I may still execute some plans I had in my head, but for my blog post on the theme, these are the shots I chose.
Thanks so much for stopping by!! I hope you enjoyed my images. Continue on in the circle by heading on over to Kathy’s blog to see her amazing interpretation. These ladies here at Share Six never cease to amaze me!
Well another year has passed and I had the privilege of photographing Miss M’s birthday photos. I can’t believe she is 7!! Her older sister (I’ll refer to as Big Sis M), who she looks just like, was turning 13, so we took some portraits of her as well. My how time flies. These girls have grown up so much!!
We started the session with a few shots of Big Sis M with one of her favorite hobbies…reading. We incorporated her favorite book series. I can’t believe how much she’s grown up! And she’s so mature!!
We continued the ongoing theme of incorporating something rainbow. This year it was a rainbow umbrella and a “paint” splattered dress. What a cutie!!
Look at that beautiful smile!
And that laugh!
I love how big sister incorporated some Disney things!! Our families share a common love of Disney.
We finished up the session with some pictures with the hoop swing I made. I was a bit unsure how it was all going to work out, but it turned out pretty well. These girls are just so darn gorgeous!!
My goodness she’s gorgeous!!
After walking back to our cars, Miss M said she wanted pictures in front of the lilac bushes. We took a few there. For years everyone has said how much Miss M looks like Big Sis M. Seeing the two side by side in the same picture, you’ll see the resemblance. It’s incredible!
Oh and I had to include a goofy one.
Thanks so much for stopping by! I hope you enjoyed the pictures! I know I enjoyed taking them, These girls are so much fun!!
