Weekly Header Challenge -- Selfies

It's time for the Weekly Header Challenge!

"Headbanger" Participants

Fishing Guy 

Kathy 

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 ~ Selfies

Chosen by Mac.

I'm hopping on the internet quickly today to post this, so I don't miss a third week!  I was away for a little over a week in the Adirondack Mountains, and I took lots of pictures.  Fortunately, I took a few selfies which I'm sharing here now.

Selfie -- a picture taken of me, by me.

Below is my header image, uncropped.  The fact that I'm in this photo makes it a selfie; no one said anything about other people being in the picture!  Anyway, this was my second selfie with my wireless remote shutter release.  In case you don't know, I'm the girl on the right in the front; you can see my left hand with the remote.

Family and friends piled into the back of my cousin Al's pickup truck

to make the drive up the road to my cousins Tom and Mare's house (under construction).

Below is my first selfie (via the wireless remote) with my family and friends at Lake Bonaparte.  After our traditional Sunday afternoon boat ride (Columbus Day weekend), we gather together for a group picture to show everyone we were there.  Most of us are family, and the friends are practically family, too.

Up at Tom and Mare's new house, we posed outside for another group picture, with the house and some beautiful autumn trees in the background.

Then we went inside to pose under the rafters.  Tom and Mare have great dreams for this house, and I'm sure it's going to be beautiful.  Since there was little light inside, except one bulb and whatever light came through the window, I told everyone as soon as the camera started taking pictures we'd all have to freeze.  Camera settings:  ISO 8000, f9, 1/20 second.

Tom and Mare (on the left) with family and friends in their new home!

Treasuring life's moments,
Christine

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Weekly Header Challenge - The Sun

It's time for the Weekly Header Challenge!

"Headbanger" Participants

Craver VII 

Fishing Guy 

Katney 

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 Sun

Chosen by me.

First, my thoughts behind the theme choice...  Since you really can't take pictures of the sun--with our DSLR cameras, anyway--I really wanted to share images that show the sun's effects.  Meaning--I can tell that the sun was shining, or I can see the sun's rays, or its effects on my subject.  And I found it a tad difficult to find good images.  Here are the ones I chose; first, my full header image:

This is my baby squash plant (it no longer looks this way; they grow quickly!).  The sun was behind it, illuminating the leaf's veins.  You can even see the shadow of the stem at about the 5:00 mark, if it were a clock.  I love how it looks like it's glowing.  Later this autumn, we will be glowing as we eat the yummy squash we'll get!

Another view of the sun on my squash.

These next two images are some of my favorites, as far as the sun is concerned.  They were taken at WIU at Jacob's college graduation; don't you love the lilacs' color and scent?  I do.  In this first image you can see some of the glow of the sun.  I decided I wanted a sun star, so I moved around until I could make that happen.

To get the defined rays--and I shoot on manual--set the f-stop number as high as you can on your camera.  This results in a very small aperture.  (Small aperture = high f-stop number.)  The small aperture, combined with a slower shutter speed, allows more light into the camera lens, and results in a sun star!  My shutter speed is 1/160 second in the below--slow enough to get a proper exposure on the flowers (any faster and they'd be in shadow).  And that's the technical how-to for sunstars!

I love the below, since it shows the sun's light more subtly on the flowers.  You can see the illumination, and how the sun rolls off the yellow petals  and into shadow.

Here's a bright, sunny day atop the tower that houses the Millenium Carillon in Naperville.  I caught a bird flying by, too!

The sun was not our friend for this late afternoon wedding.  It shone directly into our faces for the whole ceremony, and I'm sure the photographers were challenged to take good pictures of the bride and groom.  (It was a beautiful wedding, though!)

At said wedding, I tried to take a selfie as we waited to enter the reception hall.  We're too close to the lens to be in good focus, and the sun was shining in.  But it's cute nonetheless.  :)

Two more sun stars to brighten your day.  This first one is a building at the University of Illinois (Champaign/Urbana).

And my final sun star is within the tower that houses the Millenium Carillon.  Perfect time of day, sun shining through the building--rather cool!

Treasuring life's moments,
Christine

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Weekly Header Challenge ~ Almost Perfect

It's time for the Weekly Header Challenge!

"Headbanger" Participants

Craver VII 

Fishing Guy 

Katney 

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 voilà!  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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Weekly Header Challenge - Thinking

It's time for the Weekly Header Challenge!

"Headbanger" Participants

Craver VII 

Fishing Guy 

Katney 

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 ~ Thinking

In addition to having to think about this week's theme, I also had to think about how I was going to upload photos, write, and publish today's blog post without internet access.  Fortunately, our internet is back up today, and I had just enough time this morning to upload a few images to portray this week's theme.

Here is my header image, in full:

It is a picture of me--I set up my pose, and used my tripod and remote shutter release.  I had taken it for a blogger group's photography challenge a few years back, and I think it best portrays the theme of Thinking.  Just sitting in front of a warm, cozy winter fireplace, thinking about spring.  Besides being a great thinking image, I think it's a great image for today since we're once again facing one of the coldest days of winter.  :)

Here are just a few more that I could find in the few minutes I had once our internet was working again.  This first one was taken at a mother/daughter event, using my 70-300mm lens.  She didn't know I was taking this, so I think I got a sweet thinking pose without even trying.

My only other "thinking" image is from another event, a Columbus Day cook-off.  I was the photographer for the day, which was a lot of fun since I knew over half the people there.  This guy below is my cousin, Al, and he posed for me with pen in hand, thinking about which dish would get his vote for first place.

I can't take selfie credit for the below; Danny had grabbed my camera and snagged this shot of me.  On Christmas night, after everyone left, someone realized we had never looked in our stockings.  Some sweet angel had put several gift cards in mine!  We were goofing off, and I grabbed my stocking stuffers and held them like a deck of cards.  I'm thinking, "Now--which place will I go first, and what will I get?"

I hope y'all had more time to think about your thinking post today!  Can't wait to see what my fellow "headbangers" have thought up!


Treasuring life's moments,
Christine

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Weekly Header Challenge - People Reflections

It's time for the Weekly Header Challenge!

"Headbanger" Participants

Craver VII 

Fishing Guy 

Katney 

Imac 

Lew 

I'm joining in the group above for this weekly challenge.

Feel free to click on the other participants' blogs

to see what they've come up with!

Theme ~ Reflections of People

I hope I understood this week's theme correctly.  :)

At first, I didn't think I had but one or two reflections of people.  I actually wish my portfolio included some with water as a reflection, since I've seen some really neat images using that technique.  That is a photography wish for this spring, though.  :)  Here's what I do have.  First, the full image from my header:

This young lady, Laura, accompanied her mother to a speaking engagement in Georgia for which I was the photographer.  I snapped a few pics of her playing the piano in between workshops, then I noticed her reflection in the piano.  Shutter speed is slow; I probably used a tripod (1/6 second, I think), and I focused on her reflection.  This shot was taken early in my digital years, so I was thrilled when the image turned out.

I didn't notice the reflection in Thomas' shades, below, but once I did, I had my dad pose just right for me.  These were taken at our beloved Lake Bonaparte.

Mirrors are another great place to capture reflections, and one really cool "mirror," if you will, exists in the form of a bean.  The Bean, downtown Chicago, whose real name is the Cloud Gate.  Pardon my old banner watermark--and possibly my first attempts at photo editing.  I do like the sepia still, though!

Then there's the obligatory "selfie couple" shot in the Bean.

I remember sitting a distance off, just people-watching with Fernando, when I spotted this little boy who was fascinated with his reflection in the Bean.  I stuck my 70-300mm lens on, and captured him playing with his reflection.

Speaking of mirrors, we found a broken one in our garage.  Danny held it up for one of my selfies.  Hello, Picasso!

My favorite selfie reflection, though, was taken at the Eiffel Tower.  Fernando and I had already waited in line over an hour, but at this point we were inside the building awaiting the elevator to take us up to the top of the Tower.  I spotted our reflection in a window, and snapped the below.

Hope you enjoyed my reflections--both images and memories!


Treasuring life's moments,
Christine

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