Weekly Photo Challenge: Refraction

When I see the word refraction, I can’t help but associate it with the word reflection, even though I know they are two different things.  The refraction images I made for this week’s photo challenge could really fall under either description.  This particular window, is lovely in the morning with the first light that it lets in, but in this case I was looking to showcase the trees that can be seen through it:

ISO 400 4mm 0ev f/2.7 1/80

I find the distorted view to be quite interesting.  However, in the original of this photo, the houses and trees visible through the side panes were pretty in focus.  So, when I edited this version in Photoshop, I used the Iris blur filter and adjusted it so that just the middle pane of glass was in focus.  Here is what the original looked like:

ISO 400 4mm 0ev f/2.7 1/80

I liked the dreamy feel that the Iris Blur filter brought to the photo.

When I was shooting this series of images, I pulled out all my cameras and tried a variety of settings.  This one bellow was my favorite straight out of the camera:

ISO 500 4mm 0ev f/2.7 1/60

I used my point and shoot to get this particular image and it has a toy camera setting, which is what I used here.  While the distortion of the trees is still visible, this particular setting also brought out the detail of the glass etching, which I ended up really liking.

It was interesting to me that my top two images from this particular photography session ended up being from my point and shoot camera.  My DSLR and iPhone both created acceptable but not great images.

This week’s challenge was particularly fun because it took me down some unexpected paths, and those can be some of the most interesting moments in photography don’t you think?

Cheers!

Fun at the Game

When I went to to Blues hockey game over the weekend, I knew that the theme at Where’s My Backpack? is yellow this week.  The St. Louis Blues colors are blue and yellow, so I thought maybe I would have some fun with that.  Here is a photo that I cam up with:

ISO 800 4mm 0ev f/2.7 1/50

I took this photo with my point and shoot when Louie dropped by our section.  I had set the camera to color accent, with yellow as the chosen accent color.  When I got home I edited this in Photoshop.  I went to Filter-Blur-Iris Blur.  When you are using that filter you can pick what you want in focus and then blur the rest as much as you would like.

Just a quick snapshot of a fun weekend outing, but what do you think of my editing? Feel free to leave a comment below.

Cheers!

Travel Theme: Tilted

Sometimes I think it is nice to have a photo challenge to push you to take a photo that you have been thinking about but haven’t taken yet.  When I saw tilted was the theme this week at Where’s My backpack? I thought of this sunflower that I pass almost everyday but had yet to take a photograph of.  So, I grabbed my camera, walked out the door, and went and got this photo:

ISO 100 14mm 0ev f/5 1/50

The camera I chose to take this photo was my Canon Powershot ELPH.  I chose that over my Canon 50D because I think that my point and shoot gets really nice closeup shots.  Plus, it was hot, really hot, and my point and shoot weighs less.

As I was taking this photo I noticed that I hadn’t really paid attention to the background the other times I had walked past without my camera.  I was so busy looking at the beautiful flower I had just ignored all that was around it.  When I got to taking the picture though, I could see how distracting the background was potentially going to be.  Other than the distracting background, I felt that the other challenge in this photo was going to be light.  Too much light in this case.  I had set the ISO to 100, but still the original was a bit washed out looking in my opinion.

So, after taking this photo, I edited it in Photoshop.  I used the “levels” setting to make the color pop a bit.  I also sharpened and cropped the photo.

Here is the original from the camera version:

ISO 100 14mm 0ev f/5 1/50

Cheers!

Weekly Photo Challenge: (The Set-)Up

The weather here has been pretty crummy this past week.  During that time a robin has been busy building a nest outside my kitchen window.  I’m pretty excited about this development.  I got some great pictures last spring when we were lucky to have four baby robins grow up in a nest in that same spot.  This morning the weather had cleared so I set up my camera, and then went back inside to take some photos using my remote shutter. I couldn’t resist taking this photo of my set-up with my point and shoot when I saw it outside my window this morning:

The robin is off the nest and framed in-between the tripod legs.

With the camera I have set up outside, I got this shot:

ISO 400 50mm 0ev f/7.1 1/50

I’m hoping to have some robin babies appear in the next few weeks.  My camera set-up is my response to this week’s photo challenge, up, at WordPress.

Cheers!

Travel Theme: Mountains

This photo has a bit of a bittersweet story behind it:

ISO 100 135mm 0ev f/6.3 1/250

It’s the Canadian Rockies as seen from a train.  We were on a lovely trip from Toronto to Vancouver on the train.  This was one of the last photos I got before my camera broke.  I am sure you can imagine that I was quite upset.  Two of the prongs (wrong word I am sure) were bent and the memory card would no longer work in the camera.  I spent the rest of the trip using my point and shoot camera.  Here is the point when you would be right to note that I am lucky enough to have both a point and shoot and a DSLR.  Also, I was able to get my Canon 50D fixed.  So, I’ll concede it wasn’t a total disaster.  But still.

The Canadian Rockies are beautiful and so this is my entry for this week at Where’s my backpack?

Cheers!

Design, this time featuring more lines

Last time I wrote a post about Design class you saw the outcome of an assignment that involved lines.  For this next assignment we were in groups.  Each group had to combine their lines, to represent two words we were given.  My group was ascending and blossoming.  Here we are doing just that:

ISO 800 4mm f/2.7 1/30

Whew.. that was more work than it looks like.

Cheers!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Solitary

ISO 100 8mm f/4 1/100

One of anything is what solitary meant to me as I was thinking about the WordPress photo challenge for this week.  I was out on walk with my larger camera and tripod, but decided to use my point and shoot for this image.  My camera bag is acting as a sun shade since it was the middle of the day.

Cheers!

Another Walk in the Garden

It is a busy time for bees that live near a pond that I walk by fairly frequently.  Last week I took photos with my iPhone, this time I had my point and shoot camera with me.  It was so bright out that I have done some post-editing with this photo:

ISO 100 f/8 1/320 4.3mm

I will tell you at this point that I had set the ISO to 100 and I underexposed the original image by a whole stop.  It is still a really bright picture.  So, I have applied a Sepia filter, but then toned that down to bring back just a hint of the original color.  Different than what I normally do.  What do you think of the outcome?

Cheers!

Sign on the Wall

So, I enjoy going to the local art museum, but sometimes I come across things that I just don’t get.  Like this sign:

ISO 4.3mm f/2.7 1/5

I added a cloth feel and border in post-editing.  But there are some things at work here that I don’t get like, what does the saying on the sign mean even?  The bigger issue here for me though, was it’s placement.  It is in a stairway, no other items on the all, it just seems kind of random.  A random thought for a random wall? or did someone think this through and decide on this place in particular for this sign?  You could start a whole argument about what is art just with this sign I think, and maybe that is the point?

Just odd if you ask me.

Cheers!

 

Scary, up close!

I guess it depends on what scares you.  For whatever reason I find gargoyles interesting.  So, when I saw this one, I had to take a picture:

ISO 1600 15.4mm f/5.6 1/20

This was taken with my point and shoot in the monochrome setting.  Then I darkened it quite a bit and sharpened it some.  I used the sharpening to really bring out the pock-marked stone.

Cheers!