Bluebird, Wineberries and Rattlesnake

So we went out for a morning drive and I took along the new 70-300mm lens and the tripod. I'm a little disappointed in the purple/green fringing, but thats what I get for buying the cheaper version of the lens. Anyway, I couldn't decide on just one of the 192 shots I took, so here are three... Bluebird, Wineberries and Rattlesnake.

Happy Kitty

Yes, another cat picture. I'll try not to do 3 in a row. So, anyway... after about 5 hours in the cat carrier (which included some puking near the end) and her very empty stomach (which she let me know about until I got her food bowl out), we finally arrived in Pennsylvania at my parents house, and she's now all settled in on her favorite chair. Not only that.. but she posed very nicely as I played around with my new 70-300mm lens! B&H Photo is great... it was waiting on the front porch when I got here! :) Yay!

No, Really... Help Yourself!

I sat the cup down and turned around to do something, when I heard slurp, slurp, slurp. She drinks from the sink, the tub, and apparently my cup now too. But of course, not her water bowl! Hope she liked the ice cubes. Silly cat! At least she kept drinking until I got a picture of it!

Prickly

Just resized.

Crayons

I was thinking of trying out VistaPrint to get some of their free stuff, and thought I could do something school-ish for the free postcards. I've been playing around with crayons, and realized I needed a PaD, so this is one of the configurations I had.

Wildflowers

Ahh, the wonders of Photoshop... I was aiming for one of those pretty wildflower scenes, but the before shot is completely flat and uninspired. A few tweaks of contrast, sharpening and a paint daub filter and voila! Here is the before shot...

Duckie II

Based on alfresco's "One Shot Wonder" series from a while back... I decided to put the camera in manual *cringe* and give myself one shot to get it right, instead of just shooting 400 pictures of a duck. Even with photoshop, I couldn't get the pretty white background I was aiming for... so I made it blue instead. Not too shabby though. I might need to try a few more of these.

Tacos

Dinner. Tacos. Finally...
I decided on the way home from work that I wanted tacos for dinner... so I stop at the grocery store. I grab a basket, and start collecting all the items that I need... ground turkey, taco shell kit, lettuce, cheese (and a few extra things I needed). I get to the check out lanes and there are a ton of people just standing around. All of the screens at the self-checkout stations are black. Apparently the registers have been down for over an hour. Some woman puts her fish in the ice machine thing to keep it cold. People leave. There are carts and baskets of food sitting all over the place and employees working to get everything reshelved (especially if it's cold/frozen). I had a lovely chat with some elderly gentlemen, and waited for about 15 minutes, but finally decided that I could just stop at another store on the way.

So off I went to Walmart, figuring that they've just added the food section to the store, they'd have what I needed. So I found cheese... no taco kits, no ground turkey. But I did manage to walk out of the store with 25 boxes of crayons. Who knew they'd have them on sale for cheaper than they do at back to school sale time.

So, I finally stopped at the other small grocery store that was on the way home, and got all the stuff I needed (for more than it would have been at the first store) and came home and made tacos.

And yes, they were yummy!

Fireworks - Take 2

Take 2 from the fireworks... just because I haven't shot anything new.

As for yesterday's buds, I have no idea what they're from. Maybe I should remember to take wider shots of the plants I shoot.

Buds

Auto white balance didn't quite do so well when I took this one.. I fixed it, I think?

Mounted Patrol

Sitting here working on report cards and I hear in the distance...
Clip, clop.. clip, clop.. clip, clop.. clip, clop.

I thought it must just be a strange coincidence, someone must be hammering with a very steady rhythm, but nope... it was actually a police officer riding around town on a horse. So what else was I supposed to do except grab the camera?

Daisies

The good thing about shooting with a group of people is that I don't end up with 100 shots of the same thing, since the group just kind of meanders on down the path. The bad thing about shooting with a group of people is I don't quite get the shot exactly the way I wanted it to look. Oh well, I still think it's pretty :)

Happy Father's Day!

On the way home from the polo game, I stopped for ice cream and then saw fireworks... so I drove to where I thought they were being set off and pretty much sat in my car right underneath them. But, I still only had the point & shoot camera with like 12 shots of space left. So, into fireworks setting it went and I clicked off a few shots.

So, here are some fireworks for Father's Day! Have a great day dad! :)

Polo

Even though I was present for the entire game of Polo, I still have no idea what the rules are. I didn't have my D50 with me, only the p&s, and even then I had no memory card, just a little internal memory I could use. So this was the one and only shot I took of the game. I was glad to see that all the photographers walking around were carrying Nikons though! :)

#167

Last one.. I promise! More time tomorrow to get out shooting!

Close Up

One of the shots I took with Dave's Canon with the 70-200 lens attached. The coloring was off, so I just made it a duotone. I promise I'll shoot something new once this week is over... it will be a good break from writing report cards this weekend! :)

Framed (Challenge Entry)

We're in the last week of school so things have been crazy and I haven't had any time to get out and shoot anything new. I haven't gotten desperate enough to post shots of packed up classroom (yet), so here's one more picture from the weekend.

I entered a slightly different version of this shot for the "Framed" challenge at DPC, so turn back now if you don't want the spoiler. I saw these horses over in a field behind the restaurant, so grabbed the camera and clicked a few shots before one walked off. Wish I'd had a zoomier lens, but oh well :)

And now, after all that... here it is...

Cheers!

This may be one of the few pictures that exist of Dan where he is actually smiling. He was probably just laughing at me for talking so many pictures in a row, but it worked :P

Lens Overkill

Adam having fun with the 70-200 lens on the camera that was getting passed around at the party. Some couples put out little disposable cameras for wedding parties, but Dave just gave us his camera to shoot with for the day. Can't wait to see what crazy shots everyone took.

Just Married

Dave and Allison at a post-wedding party a week after getting married. Congrats guys! :) More pics to come from the party this week I'm sure!

Opening

So I'm a few minutes late on Saturday's shot... new one will be up for tomorrow!

Spotted

Just playing with Photoshop to see if I could salvage a bad shot. Accidentally focused on the branch instead of the ladybug and she was in the shadow. Desaturated the background and dodged the ladybug... I think it's better than the original at least. :)

Tips

Saw a shot of a flower that had only the very tips of the closest petals in focus. While the background of this shot is a little boring and distracting, I think I accomplished my goal with the shallow dof.

Thyme

I noticed that the thyme in my flower box has little flowers on it, so I played with some dof and wb settings. I tried to get a warmer feel for the shot by adjusting the wb settings but didn't like any of the results. Need to keep playing with it.

Fountain

An old shot I took with my p&s camera and finally decided to fix up in Photoshop.

Alfredo

Last night's dinner. Unfortunately, it looked better than it ended up tasting. Maybe I should follow a recipe when making alfredo sauce from scratch.

Paper Curls

I changed the screen saver on my laptop again, this time to the one that scrolls through all the neat paper curl pictures. So this was my attempt at a similar shot. I got a little distracted from trying to arrange a neat picture though because I started playing with the WB settings. I know how to use the WB to fix a picture and make it look more real, but I remember being told that it can also be used to bring out colors that aren't really there that you want to enhance. I'm still not sure exactly when I'd use that out in the real world, but it clearly works.

Below is a sampling of 5 different shots taken with the same lighting but on different white balance settings. I use the lightbulbs that are supposed to be more like sunlight so they screw up my white balance to start with. Anyway, an interesting comparison... now if I could just find a way to use it for something othr

Toothbrush

I got a new toothbrush and thought it'd make a nice stock shot with a little heap of swirly toothpaste on the top. Well, lets just say it's not easy to get those pretty swirly designs. Maybe I just have the wrong kind of toothpaste. I even put it in the freezer for a few minutes hoping it wouldn't be so gooey and would hold the shape better, but no luck. So, I took a picture of the toothbrush and added a glowing edges effect to keep it from being completely boring.

Lines

Looking straight down on a wooden deck that was 2 floors below.

Rainy Rooftops

Have we really been doing this Photo A Day thing for five months? Wow. Congrats to all of you who are still going, and thanks to everyone who has been leaving comments! :)

As for today's photo, it was taken the same day as the rainbows, at the same time... just facing the opposite direction. The sky turned an amazing shade of yellow-orange, and the reflecting colors on the porch rooftops looked neat. I'm not sure if I like the antenna there or not... it adds to the sense of the houses, but seems sort of awkward. I was trying to lean out the window in the rain and keep the camera dry to take this one, so I couldn't contort myself to keep it out of the shot.