56-365 Mirror Like

So it was rainy as all get out and cold today.  I was sitting in my car when it started to rain and since I'm into the water drops right now, I thought I'd try to capture the ones on my windshield a little differently.  When I put my camera up towards the window and saw the tree limbs above me in the frame, it looked like a mirror reflection.  I really liked it.  I adjusted the levels just a bit and bumped the saturation just a tiny amount and this is what I ended up with.  Taken with my cell phone so no fancy settings.  Just changed the white balance to cloudy.

55-365 Color Drops

I really want to get a really cool water drop picture but I'm not too happy with what I've done thus far.  Of course, I've only done two so far...but still.  I want a "cool" one.  I might try the whole water droplet hitting water and capturing the splash next.  For now, here is what I came up with tonight.

The settings were: shutter speed 1/60sec, aperture F3.5, ISO 400, WB Auto, flash not fired, focal length 60mm.

54-365a Warmed Pine & 54-365b Rusty Grate

I went out in my backyard real quick to snap this first picture because the dead pine needles looked a nice warm color at sundown.

The settings were as follows: shutter speed 1/125 sec, aperture F5.6, ISO 500, WB Auto, Focal length 20mm.

I also liked the sunlight on the rusty cover that goes over my fire pit.  

The settings for this one were: shutter speed 1/125 sec, aperture F5.6, ISO 500, WB Auto, Focal length 20mm.

53-365 Onion Top

I don't feel so great today but I made myself get up and take some pictures to catch up from yesterday and to post for today.  I decided to use my wide angle lens for all of my pictures and am pretty happy with the results.  The clarity at closer ranges is great for a wide angle lens.  I cropped a fair amount off of this picture because I liked the texture on the end of the onion.

Settings for this were: shutter speed 1/15 sec, aperture F2.8, ISO 500, WB Auto, Focal Length 20mm.

52-365 Water Drops

I've always wanted to do macro of water droplets so when I was watering my plant, I saw the cool looking drops on it and decided to snap a couple shots of it.  I didn't use my tripod so it was hard to get positioned just right so that I wasn't moving and could keep the droplet in focus long enough hand held to snap the picture.  

The settings were: Shutter speed 1/30 sec, Aperture F5.0, ISO 500, WB Flash, Focal length 60mm, Flash bounced from side wall.

51/365 Pirates at the Expo

I actually "sort of cheated" on this picture but I wanted to post the one I had of our booth WITH the awesome balloon arch our Grant/ByLaw Coordinator made.  She did a great job so it just had to be in the picture.

Our Fundraising Coordinator got us a booth at the Swansboro Business Expo and even though we are non profit and not really a "business" we were able to make a little money off of our hourly raffles for the upcoming  seasons. We even got some potential first time football players from the 6 hours we were there.  We were quite surprised with the turn out and response.  I hope to be able to have a booth for my husbands shop next year.

So...here is my photo for yesterday...(we did decorate everything but the trophy's and the arch yesterday so it technically "counts" as a yesterday picture.)

50/365 Frost from the Past

Okay so I'm cheating today.  I found this in my archives and forgot I had taken it.  I think it would be much cooler if it had been a clearer more sharp image.  It's frost on my car window.  It makes great patterns so I may have to try this again next winter.  Taken on cell so no fancy settings or anything and I did some Photoshop levels and curves adjustments on it.

49/365 Wirey Rust

Tonight I spent some time "scouting" in my back yard.  I started off with this cool rusted net looking metal fire pit cover but couldn't get enough focus range on it to be happy with it.  Then, I snapped some shots of quarry rock around our sump pump because it's got some great texture in it but I wasn't feeling the macro on it.  I snapped some shots of other stuff like the wood roof on my birdhouse and the top of a fence post.  Nothing was pleasing me, even the center bolt of the rutter on my husbands boat that looked awesome "in camera".  One of the series of shots I took was of a rusty wire fence and post that sits in my neighbors yard closing in a small section where our two fences meet so their dog can't get out.  I took 15 shots of the same thing.  Some closer than others, a couple different angles.  For my shot of the day, this one satisfied me the most.  I love the color, the clarity, the composition and also how the green rusty spotted steel fence post rail that was used as a "color" backdrop for the rusty knot.  If you haven't looked for rusty items to photograph before, I definitely suggest trying it out.  The color and texture it lends in your pictures is gorgeous to me.

My settings for this shot were: Exposure 1/250, Aperture F3.5, ISO 500, WB Shade, Focal Length 60mm, Flash not fired.

48/365 - Eat Your Greens...or Purples

So I will be caught up after tonight.  Yesterdays picture I'm posting now is asparagus....and as you know, it's SUPPOSED to be bright green and pretty with purplish "tinted" ends.  Well...I had to Photoshop this one because it wasn't focused as it looked in my camera and I wasn't  pleased with my white balance as it made it dull in appearance.  So....here we go.

Settings were: Exposure 1/15 sec, Aperture F4, ISO 500, WB Fluorescent, Focal length 60mm, Flash not fired.

47-385 Colored Clips

I have to first share my awesome news!  I FOUND my card reader and favorite memory card.  It was in the bottomless pit I call my purse.  Hrmph.  How excited I was for that!  I had pretty much given up and thought it was gone.  

My picture today is actually yesterdays picture and I may retake this later with my Nikon because I really like the idea and this was taken with my HTC Evo. (I'm still impressed with the photos that it produces.)  The real thing looks much "cooler" in person too.  The picture is colored paperclips on my football registration forms.  I had to slide them down a little for each packet so they would stack a little flatter.  I thought the colors along the white paper offered up some pretty cool contrast and texture. 

As always, thanks for looking.  :-)

46/365 Nerd

This is a boring, uncreative, lack luster photo.  But...it's "organized", right?  These are my folders for football registration paperwork.  My creative juices were non existent but I had to take a picture yesterday.  I'm only one more picture behind so I'll post two tomorrow and be caught up.  Guess I better go take a picture for today, huh?  LOL!  Sorry for the lack of quality on this one.  I photoshopped it too and it still looks horrible.  I'll try to do better for my tomorrow night picture.  :-)

45/365 Good Health Food

So Saturday, I wanted to make my family a healthy dinner.  I always have a craving for healthy food when it starts to get warm outside like this.  This time of year is the prime time for fresh vegetables and fish!  I bought some tuna steaks and grilled them on the grill with a simple mix of salt, pepper & garlic powder.  They were a tiny bit more cooked than I wanted them to be but still really good.  I made sauteed spinach & mushrooms with Parmesan cheese and also roasted red potato's and olive oil & garlic whole wheat toast.  We also had one over sized crab stuffed mushrooms.  So...I thought I'd share my picture of my delicious dinner even though a couple of my friends have said to stop posting food if I didn't have enough to share. :-)

44/365 Ball & Chain

Okay, so I'm a little late posting this but with all of my technical issue's, I think I had a good excuse.  I still haven't found my good memory card, nor my super fast card reader...and my hard drive is with my friend and he is my last resort in recovering my data because I can't afford the $1500 quote I got for it.  I have two days to catch up after this but for now, I'm posting Friday's picture.  I'll get the others caught up tomorrow as it's been a long day recreating my football paperwork.

My picture of today is of my son's chain that he wears with a neat little yen/yang charm on it.  I like the "bokeh" of my lens in this one and also the colors.  It reminds me of the colors in my aluminum foil picture I took a few days ago.

The settings for this one are as follows: Shutter speed 1/15 sec, Aperture F4.2, ISO 400, WB Auto, Flash not fired, Focal Length 60mm.

44/365 Temporary Hold

I am having horrible technical difficulties. Beside my hard drive possibly being damaged I still haven't found my favorite memory card & card reader. I pulled out a different card after finding my sons card reader to use after even though it's slow as all get out and stuck it in my camera. After taking multiple cool pictures of a chain my son was wearing, I went to plug it in to ,y computer to download the pictures...and guess what...?!?! NO DICE! Windows is having trouble recognizing the drive. So...since I want to post one of those pictures & I can't get to them until I break down & get another card reader, I unfortunately will not be posting tonight. I guess I couldn't have expected to have been able to go all year without missing a day. I'm really only missing one day POSTING and not taking the picture. I can't wait to see it large on my computer. So, forgive me & check back tomorrow as I will be posting it tomorrow

43/365 iPad 2

If only you guys knew how hard it was to stop playing on my ipad 2 to post here, you would understand why I didn't really feel like posting a picture tonight.  LOL!  I LOVE LOVE LOVE IT!!!!  

Of course, I had to take a picture of it when I got here so that's what I'm posting.  I tried to be "creative" but it didn't quite work out.  No one said 365 Project photos had to be "good" photos....and since I lost all originals of my project and all photos and documents from my crashed external drive and I'm an idiot and didn't have a back up for my back up....it's okay that I'm posting a crappy photo for today.  I have an iPad 2 too, so it's okay even more!  :-)

 

42/365 Watching the Welding

Today my friend and co-worker Martin and I went out in the field to see some projects.  This is the welding going on about halfway down (13') to the final depth of the pump station.  They use a huge crane to shove sheet piling down into the ground and then put a steel frame inside it to hold the piling in so they can work.  They have to pump the water that the come into contact with as they get deeper and deeper.  This pump station will be about 25' deep.  I like both of these pictures so I thought I'd try something a little different so I could show both of them. While they were welding below, I snapped the shot of Martin.  I like both pictures a lot so I combined them so that you could see what he was watching during the picture.

On a separate note, I am having huge technical difficulties and trouble with locating my card reader for my big camera memory card.  I guess I could plug up my camera but it takes forever to get pictures off of it that way.  My major issue right now is that my external hard drive where I keep EVERYTHING, including all of these 365 pictures, is dysfunctional right now.  I'm having a hard time deciding what to do with it to try to get my data off so if I happen to not post at any time, it's because I was unable to.  I don't plan on missing a single day of my whole year.  If I do happen to miss a day, I will still post my picture.  It just may be the next day when I am able to do so.  I pray I can recover my data.  My whole project is on it too.  Stupid stupid for not having a back up for my back up.  :*(

41/365 Marinated Chicken

So how about a food picture?  This is a 3 day old picture but shhhhh, we won't tell anyone.  The marinade recipe I used for this chicken is incredible.  1/2 C. Soy Sauce, 1/2 C Lemon Juice, 1 C good Vegetable Oil, 1 Package Good Seasonings brand Italian Dressing Mix, Parsley.  Mix it all up, marinate chicken, pork or steak 8-10 hours...or even better, overnight and grill!  It's delicious.  I know this is a photography blog but food is good once in a while.  If you try the recipe, let me know how you like it! 

 

40/365 Cooking Drops

So tonight, I got out my tripod, my camera and brought in a stem of dried out and dead Crape Myrtle pods (or whatever those things are) in preparation of attempting a variety of macro shots with them as I work towards the macro contest for the photo group I am a member of that I want to enter.  I want to enter what I think would be extra great shots!  Well, after going back home for the weekend and of course taking my camera with me, when I went to get my card out of my card reader, I couldn't find it.  I pretty much leave my card in my card reader when I'm done downloading pictures from it each night and then just put it in my camera when I'm ready to use it. I have 3 or 4 cards but this one is my favorite.  I couldn't find my darn card reader either.  I've looked in my camera bag, my clothes bag (since I haven't completely unpacked yet) and everywhere else I could think I'd have put it.  Usually, I just keep it in my camera bag.  Since I lost my old card and unbearably slow card reader, I don't have a way to get my photos off of a memory card, even if I use one of my older less desired cards.

In my frustration, I just grabbed my phone and snapped a quick shot of the water that had condensed onto the clear lid covering my dinner.  I didn't have high expectations or anything but after taking only two shots, I really like the patterns and variety in this shot.  I like that it's dark on the outside edges and brightens as it moves towards the middle.  So, even though I wasn't able to do what I had planned, I was able to get a shot that I was pretty pleased with.  (In the meantime, please pray that I can find my darn card reader and favorite memory card) :-/

39-365 Josie Portrait

I didn't take a picture today.  This time change sucks.  I like the longer days but this particular time change always seems to be hardest for me to adjust to.  

Since I am pulling from the archives, I thought I'd share my most absolute favorite portrait I've ever taken.  I'm pleased with everything about this one.  I feel that the composition, exposure, softness and precious personality of this beautiful little girl.  I love it in black and white because of her dark hair and dark eyes.  This was taken in 2006 and her name is Josie.  Her mom used to babysit for and is also a great friend as well as her mom is to me.  We've known each other quite a while and I've been able to be a part of many of Josie's "firsts" along her first couple of years.  It's sad how time can separate people and though I still consider them great friends, we don't get to see each other so much these days.  Josie has a little sister and brother two that I've not gotten a chance to photograph due to the busy schedule I seem to never be able to reduce.  I hope that eventually that will change.  Hopefully before the little ones grow up and go to college.

I'm so thankful for EXIF data because even though this was quite some time ago, the digital file still has the shooting data.  The settings were: 1/100 sec, aperture F4.5, ISO 1250, focal length 40mm.

38-365a Toothpicks & 38-365b Grill Brush

I don't want any of my followers/friends/coworkers (ahemVICahem) to say a single word about cheating by using an archived photo once in a while or if I ever miss a day posting completely because I've posted double pictures on more that two occasions....as I will be doing this time...and the project only requires ONE per day!  ;-)

For the majority of the rest of this month, you will likely see a large number of macro pictures simply because there's a macro photo contest with our photography group for this months project.  I'll pick my two favorites sometime during the last week of the month to submit.

My first photo of today consists of a little brown cup that used to be my great grandmothers.  It's in a set with 3 matching little cups and a miniature pitcher.  They are about the size of shot glasses to be honest with you. ;-)  They are full of toothpicks and I didn't think this snapshot would end up as my photo of the day.

The settings for this shot were; Shutter Speed: 1/8 sec, Aperture: F3.5,  ISO 400, WB: Auto, Focal length: 60mm, Flash: not fired.

The following photo was taken while I was out cooking chicken and tuna on the grill.  I had also seen a really cool grill brush macro earlier this week in the same set of macro pictures I mention in a previous post this week.  I like the contrast between the red color (peeling off in some spots) and the grill bristles.

The settings for this shot were: Shutter Speed: 1/8 sec, Aperture: F3.5, ISO 400, WB: Auto, Focal Length: 60mm, Flash: not fired.

37/365 Pink Flowering Tree

I came up to see my mom and was so glad to see some of the trees were blooming here too.  The foliage in this area of the state is much more full and bountiful than it is out on the coast.  I can't wait to come up here once spring has really kicked into gear because the canopy trees like maples and oaks are gorgeous.  I may have to even take a trip up to the mountains for some waterfall hunting while the trees are bright green.  I think this tree is a cherry tree but I'm not completely sure.  It looks much bigger than what I had thought cherry trees grew too.  Anyway, it's the time of year to start taking pictures of the colorful flowers and soon to be greenery so you'll probably be seeing a lot of that from me in the coming weeks.

36/365 iPad 2 Sales

I was SO upset after calling Best Buy this afternoon about their iPad 2 sales and finding out that you had to go inside at 4:30pm and be given a ticket to go buy the thing at 5:00pm!  And on top of that the 3 stores that are selling them around here, don't even know which ones they are going to have in stock!  So...I really don't want to risk standing in a 3 hour line to "maybe" get the one I want.  (64GB Wifi + 3G)  I figured if the "release date" was March 11th, I'd logically be able to go get it in the morning when the store opened.  So, I came home and made a couple of calls where my mom lives just to make sure it's the same deal and it is.  Plus, my internet research confirmed the same thing.  I have been so excited all week and it's been the slowest week ever just because of that.  Now, I don't know when I'll get one because they don't allow pre-sales.  Guess I'll be getting up at 4am to order it straight from Apple.  If I wait til I get up in the morning...on my day off...I'm thinking it'll be sold out.  So...sorry for venting for this photo of the day but dang I'm NOT happy and I want everyone to know about it!  HA!  It'll be better tomorrow.  Maybe I'll throw in an extra update post after 4am to let you know if I got it ordered.  LOL!

35/365a Bubbles & 35/365b A Fork in the Road

I went to a website today that had some really cool macro photos and I wanted to try the bubbles one that I saw there.  My bubbles didn't look all cool and hexagonal like the photo I saw.  I pointed a green colored flashlight at the bowl that held my Dawn dish bubbles and took a couple of shots.  Here is the one that I ended up with.  I was kind of pleased with the final product.

The settings were shutter speed 1/30, F5.6, ISO 40, WB auto, focal length 60mm, no flash used.

After not being impressed with the bubbles and pretty much thinking I wasn't going to use one of those, I went on to other ideas.  Some of the ideas were crushed red peppers, salt and pepper, the rope hanging off of the bag of a Crown Royal bottle and a fork.  I wasn't impressed with the fork in the camera either but when I opened it up on the computer, I was quite happy with it.  I processed this one a little in Photoshop just to give it a little more character.  This was also and idea I had seen on this website I saw today.

The settings were: shutter speed 1/15 secs, aperture F5.6, ISO 400, WB Manual (about 5000K), focal length 60mm.

34/365 - No Cokaine

My coke can looked so pretty sitting on my table so I snapped a picture of it for today.  I'm starting to notice a trend in my project.  Most of my weekday shots are with my cell phone (though I do sneak a couple with my big camera too) and my weekend shots are with my big camera.  We had a meeting tonight so I forgot until I was sitting here on my computer that I hadn't taken a picture yet.  So...it's not something fancy but I did come up with a unique name...so that makes it okay that I didn't spend much time tonight on taking pictures, right?!?!  :-)

33/365 Jailhouse

I went outside this morning after my friend Tom got to work and told me that if I hurried I might could catch the sun coming up through the dead trees.  It did look pretty cool but I only had my cell phone (because I lug enough crap to and from work each day as it is) so I wasn't able to get a good photo of it.  When I was walking back around the main entry, I just happened to look up and I thought the building looked like a jail turret/guard house.  LOL!  Kind of funny that the building I work in 40 hours a week looks like a prison to me!  HAHA!  Anyway, I snapped this quick shot.  I did a little post processing to try to make it look a little more interesting.

32/365 Cool Rocks

I've taken pictures of these before but never spent much time on them.  The picture always turned out either blurry or the wrong tone from wrong white balance.  I spent a little time today taking pictures of these and was pretty happy with the contrasting textures and colors in them.  My son gave me these after a field trip a few years ago.  They now sit in a dish with a dolphin coming out of it that was given to me by a good friend.

The settings were 1/4 sec, F3.5, ISO 400, WB Flash, Focal length 60mm.

31/365 Paper Craft Supplies

I bought some card/scrapbooking supplies today and was messing around with some of them trying them out.  When I was cleaning up, I saw the box that I was putting everything in and the variety of colors and shapes which I thought were pretty.  So...I snapped a picture of it.  With my cell phone, the settings are pretty much always the same.  I think my white balance may have been on fluorescent though.

Now off to watch Dispicable Me with my family.  Have a great Saturday night everyone!

30/365 Golden Game

I got home and decided to go into my little ones room to pick a subject for today's photo.  I figured surely a little boy would have something cool to take a picture of.  I remember taking a picture on my oldest son's dresser a couple of years ago and it's one of my favorite pictures.  It was quite the epitome of a young boy.  There was all kinds of "stuff" on his dresser from a piggy bank, to books to a Poke' Ball.  I did it in B&W and it was pretty neat looking.  So in Alex's room I saw his five football trophy's from the last five years.  I took a couple pictures of all of them just arranged on his table but they were pretty much just "snapshots".  I decided that since the light was low and the "overall" shot idea wasn't working, that I'd bring them out in to the living room and go from there.  I dropped a navy blue shirt over the two tallest trophy's and started snapping away.  After 20 pictures and angling a lot of them to make it look as though the first guy that is getting tackled, was also being chased by another player, I finally got ONE that I liked.  I was not happy with the rest of them at all.  The navy color was chosen because my son played for the Pirates whose colors are navy & white.

The settings were 1/30 secs, F2.8, ISO 400, WB Cloudy, Flash fired, Focal Length 20mm.

29/365 Crane

So while my friend Martin and I were finally visiting the site of "my" pump station...a project I did the drawings for (the first pump station I've ever done drawings for)..he pointed to a Bradford Pear tree and said that would make a picture for today.  THEN as soon as I took a picture of it...he said...you post too many flowers...take a picture of the crane.  So...I thought..okay then...I'll amuse you today...of course I felt obligated because he DID bust me out of the office today.  ;-)  So I have to post this for him.  

I took about 10 pictures of the crane and I had hoped to post one of it moving or placing the sheet piling but because of the location of the sun and the fact that I had to back up so far to get the whole crane in with the sheet piling, I got a weird haze over the picture.  So, I'm posting the first picture that I took instead.  It looks slightly grainy on my computer but that may be because I had to upload it to facebook first and then download it instead of getting it from my email, despite the fact that I tried to email it to myself like four times.  I snapped the shot though as soon as it started turning around to the right and a puff of smoke "poofed" out at the same time as you can see in the picture.  :-)  I tried this in B&W but I loved the bright blue of the sky in it and for the angle I was shooting at and the location of the light, I think it turned out pretty good.  Taken with my cell phone, the only setting I changed and experimented with was the white balance...which I ultimately ended up using auto on.

28-365a - Pocket Change Etc & 28-365b - Ryleigh

I almost forgot AGAIN to take a picture tonight.  I saw some junk laying on my bar counter that had been left there while cleaning out our pockets after the day.  I thought it might be a neat photo to use my 20mm wide angle on.  I applied an action that I have no idea what the name is because I downloaded it and also my midnight sepia action as otherwise it would have been a little bland.

The settings are: 1/30 sec, F2.8, ISO 400, WB cloudy, Flash used, Focal length 20mm.

As I was getting ready to put my camera back in my bag, my dog was hanging out there wanting to sniff my camera...he wants to sniff everything that we could ever have in our hands.  So I let him sniff my flash and then   I quickly put it back on my camera and told him to SIT.  I got this quick snapshot off of him.  It reminds me of those silly cards you see of dogs where their noses look super huge and their eyeballs are all weird because of the perspective.  Ryleigh looked almost cross eyed in this one and he just has the cutest face to me that I had to share this one too.  I find out every time I take photos of him how photogenic Labs are...serious shots or not.

The settings for this one were: 1/30 sec, F2.8, ISO 400, WB cloudy, Flash used, Focal length 20mm.

27/365 Baseball

So after cheating last night by pulling a photo from my archives, I took some time with my boys baseball and glove for today's picture.  I took 24 pictures of this at various white balances, settings and compositions and the one below is the one I decided to go with.  I tried not to be "too" macro with it since that has seemed to be my theme in many of my photos latel.  Of course, I DID take one extreme close up of the stitching on the baseball which turned out kind of cool.  Maybe I'll save that for one of my cheats another day.  After discussing and researching the "rules" of a 365 Project (you're supposed to actually take a photo a day), my friend Chrystal said she could tell us right now that she won't be doing that.  I had to agree.  For the most part, I will take a photo each day but there are times that life will surely get in the way that I will have to rely on my archives.