Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Weekly Header Challenge - Diptych

It's time for the Weekly Header Challenge!

"Headbanger" Participants
Imac 
Lew 


I'm joining in the group above for this weekly challenge.
Click on the other participants' blogs to see
what they've come up with!


Theme ~ Diptych


Kathy picked the theme for this week:  Diptych.  Basically, this is a composition of two images which are related to each other in some way, and which can tell a story.  Here are my diptychs, starting with my header image:

Moser Tower and Millenium Carillon, Naperville, Illinois.

Personally, I think the tower is a monstrosity--our family calls it the Tower of Sauron (for you Lord of the Rings aficionados)--but it houses a carillon that plays at scheduled times throughout the day, and you can also climb to the top.  The views are phenomenal, which is the main reason I do like the tower.  Read about it here.

I chose this set of images because I love the lines that are created within the images--first vertical then horizontal and curved.  I also love that the colors blend so well between the images, and that there's a balance between the vertical first image, and the horizontal orientation of the second.  And there you have my reasons.  :)

On to the rest, with simple captions because hopefully the images tell their own stories!

From my garden.

Peachtree City, Georgia.

Climbing wall.

Shooting range.

January wedding.

State math competition.

Moving the computer desk.

Yardwork.

Wisconsin farm.

Josh's honors convocation.

Dancin' music.

I was going to use two of the below images in a diptych, but since I couldn't decide which two to use, I created a triptych instead!

Rural Illinois farm.

I think the three images go perfectly together to create a "big picture" of the farm.  Thanks for letting me cheat a little on this week's theme!


Treasuring life's moments,
Christine

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Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Weekly Header Challenge - Spring is Coming

It's time for the Weekly Header Challenge!

"Headbanger" Participants
Imac 
Lew 


I'm joining in the group above for this weekly challenge.
Click on the other participants' blogs to see
what they've come up with!


Theme ~ Spring Is Coming


I needed some color in my life!!  I was happy, to say the least, with this week's theme.  We've had our third worst winter in recorded history here in Chicagoland, and many of us are longing for something other than white, and now, brown.  I was perfectly happy to choose the brightest, most colorful sign of spring that I could find.  Here is my full image, below.

Spring crocuses.

Birds returning to our area are also a welcome sign of spring.

Robin -- the iconic sign of spring.


Swans at a local bird rookery.

Geese at a pond at the end of my street.

For the past several years, the first birds we see as a sign of spring are Mr. and Mrs. Mallard.  They apparently live in our back yard, and our pool is their pond.  I hope they return this year, since our pool was a casualty of the many days of subzero weather.


Other animals emerge in spring, too.


Back to my header--flowers!  Anything green and growing is most welcome by this time of year!

Emerging day lilies.

Buds on a flowering tree.

Daffodils!

Crocus.


Scilla, a spring bulb with little blue/purple flowers.

Strawberry plants.

After the strawberry plants emerge, here is the yummy late spring blessing!

Planted in the autumn, garlic sprouts up in early spring.

Other signs of spring are rain.  The below, from last year, was too much of it.  This street, one of three main north/south arteries through our town, was closed for two or three days.


We found these duck eggs at a local park last spring!


The first day of grilling is an awesome spring day!  The below was our Resurrection Sunday meal; grilling has become a (very short so far) tradition.  If we continue the tradition this year, it's on April 20, so I really hope it won't be our first grilling day of the spring.  :)


Thanks, Lew, for choosing a theme that helps us all remember what we're looking forward to!


Treasuring life's moments,
Christine

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Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Weekly Header Challenge ~ Almost Perfect

It's time for the Weekly Header Challenge!

"Headbanger" Participants
Imac 
Lew 


I'm joining in the group above for this weekly challenge.
Click on the other participants' blogs to see
what they've come up with!


Theme ~ Almost Perfect


It was my turn to pick the theme, and I took a chance this time.  Almost Perfect means an image that is beautiful, that I love, that captures a special moment--but there's something about it that's not quite right.  This isn't the easiest theme to find images for, either, since most of my "Fail!" images get deleted.  But since I do have quite a few (doesn't everyone?), I managed to find some samples for you.  ;)

I was able to edit some of the images, which you'll see below.  Others I ended up keeping just because of the moment--that one you'll never get back again, and it's the only image you have.

We'll start with my header image, which I preface with this one so you get the context.  Walking through the Jardin des Tuileries (The Tulip Garden) in Paris, we stopped at a fountain for a break and to enjoy the view.  All these pigeons--and a few gulls--were flocking, so I snapped a few images.  In the below, I caught a jogger breaking up the flock.  I took these shots in burst mode, so you can see the birds just beginning to fly, then flying right at me.  I ended up loving the shots, and kept them.


The full image of my header.

The most recent images I have were taken just a few weeks ago at a wedding in Texas (one weekend of 70-degree weather, woohoo!!).  I shot the rehearsal, and captured a candid of the bride.  Of course, after I downloaded the images, I noticed the lovely plastic bag right there.  Stephanie loved the image, though, and wanted me to keep it.  I do love her candid expression, smiling with her friends as she prepares for her wedding day.


At the actual wedding, Stephanie and David had unity sand instead of a unity candle.  I had never heard of this, but they actually bought the kit at Bed, Bath & Beyond.  Wow.  It was pretty neat--each took turns pouring his/her colored sand into the glass bottle until it was full.  The blue and white was beautiful!  I was sitting in the second row to capture everything at the altar; but the bride had her sister's friend snapping candids.  And this friend was positioned behind the altar.  She ended up being in almost every shot I took.  I do have several shots of the unity sand, and managed to crop her out of most (I couldn't zoom since I had my 50mm fixed lens on).


Lightroom is not the best at editing out things you don't want in your image, but little by little I managed to do it.  Fifteen painstaking minutes later, I had a beautiful image of a beautiful moment.  Whew!


One of my first epic fails as a photographer was during a shoot for a fife and drum group.  Lightroom could handle turning these images into somewhat faded, dreamy prints, but I didn't know if it could handle the fisherman walking through my shot:


I couldn't believe I had done the above!  I was about to set up the shot, when this guy came up to the trail so we let him pass by.  I spent the next several seconds setting up the shot and positioning myself, and I was so excited about it I didn't notice that the guy was still in the shot.  Duh.

I loved the image so much I ended up working on it until the fisherman had disappeared.  The client ended up loving the image and ordering prints!  It was only after the prints were delivered that I told them about my "duh" moment.  :)


On to my son's and his friend's graduation!  No bleacher seats meant we had to try to look through the sea of mortarboards to find Jacob and Bryan.  Here's one I managed to get of Bryan; the fuzzy stuff on the left and right are people's heads.


Bryan knew where we were sitting, and I caught him looking back once.  That's better!


Oh, and then I caught my son.  Snap!  Right.  Just love his expression, and the non-focus of the camera.  I kept it anyway, since it was a moment that would never happen again.


I set up this selfie of Fernando and me in a local park (Lions Park on Briarcliff), because on a scouting trip for a family photo session I had found this park and loved the almost heart-shaped tree with the brook behind it.  The photo was set up with a tripod and timer.  There are homes back there, and I hoped to not get much in the image.  You can see the fence, though.  Grr.


Trees and brush are pretty easy to edit out, and I managed to do a decent job.  Here's the "fixed" image:


One last series, back in Paris!  In the Tuilerie Garden, we spotted the Eiffel Tower.  The below is the setting, nicely framed with some trees:


I knew I'd have to get closer to eliminate random tourists, but see that statue in the above image?  Yeah, naked woman statue.  I really didn't want that in my image either.  So, I had Fernando stand strategically in front of the statue, and positioned the camera on a concrete ledge so that I could see the Eiffel Tower just beyond us in the distance.  Timer set, I ran into the image, et voilĂ !  No statue.  But waaaaait a minute.  There's my camera backpack!  I recall trying to edit it out, and I think I finally gave up and determined to enjoy the image.  It was Paris, after all!


Hope you enjoyed looking at my "Almost Perfect's" in photography!


Treasuring life's moments,
Christine

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Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Weekly Header Challenge - The Shape of Art

It's time for the Weekly Header Challenge!

"Headbanger" Participants
Imac 
Lew 


I'm joining in the group above for this weekly challenge.
Click on the other participants' blogs to see
what they've come up with!


Theme ~ The Shape of Art


This week's theme could have gone several ways for me.  But, after fighting with my once-beloved editing software for two hours to upload images, I was happy to have anything at all this morning.  :/

I took the simplest route, opting for shapes--rectangles, squares, circles, triangles.  They can be found everywhere, in both nature and in man-made things.  Below is the full image from my header, with all its different shapes of buildings:

Downtown Chicago, at sunset on a September evening.

More squares and rectangles:



A triangle:


Circles:





Throw in some hearts:



And a star!  (Hey, it has five points.)


Almost forgot!  Here's one more rectangle, with some different shapes beyond:


Outside that door's window are our winter icicles, preventing a back-door escape!


On a spring photo session recon (scouting out a location), I started to notice all the shadows cast by some leafless trees.  This image below was my favorite.


I see the "V," but I also see, on the right, a pregnant ballerina dancing.  What do you see?

(Thanks for visiting today!!)


Treasuring life's moments,
Christine

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