Between projects and work and life in general

The theme this week at the WordPress photo challenge is between. I’ve been working on a lot of things lately, too many perhaps, and I have decided that I have to choose between a few of them and make a choice about what I am going to focus on for the rest of the summer.

I was out biking a few weeks ago, and since my point and shoot camera is always with me, I got this shot while I was taking a rest:

4mm 0ev f/2.7 1/250

I used the macro setting on the camera and was really pleased with the way the background was blurred, giving the field a bit of a romantic feel.

One of my work projects for this summer is learning Adobe Illustrator.  I’m taking an on-line course that you can do at your own pace.  I created this image from my original photo in Illustrator using Image Trace:

4mm 0ev f/2.7 1/250

I imported my .JPEG file photo into Illustrator then chose Image Trace-Low Fidelity Photo.  Then I cropped the image.

I was pleased with the result, but what do you think?  Learning Illustrator is one of the projects that I am having to decide if I want to continue.  What that means though, is that I need to decide between this blog and the Illustrator class.  Because both the blog and class require on-line hours, I feel like I can only do one or the other if I am to keep the rest of my life and work in balance. I chose the class, it was actually a hard choice for me to make, I love writing this blog. I felt in the short term that the class needed to take priority, so this blog will be on hiatus for the rest of the summer.  Since I am behind in follow-up visits to other blogs I am hoping to take a bit of time every day to visit a few.  I am hoping this will keep my in the loop and excited to resume blogging in the fall.

As always, your comments are welcome below, and I would like to thank all of you who have stopped by to take a look at my blog.

Cheers!

Chicken on the Loose

Extra! Extra! Read all about it here! One little chicken attempting to make a getaway!

You can see he has spotted the opening:

ISO 1000 50mm 0ev f/5 1/100

Edging a little closer to check it out:

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Making his getaway:

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The truth is though, there is no such thing as an extra, unwanted chicken, so he was returned to his home.

I took this series of shots in relatively quick succession, so there was no time to adjust the settings.  I have decided not to do any post editing because I think the imperfections help to tell the tale of this attempted hasty escape. Do the imperfections bother you? or do you sometimes prefer a photo to be displayed as shot? Your comments and thoughts on the matter are welcome below!

These photos were taken as part of a life cycle unit in a second grade class that I was documenting this Spring as is my entry for this week’s photo challenge at WordPress.

Cheers!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Room to Roam

I was camping a few weekends ago and spotted this False Map Turtle:

ISO 100 8mm 0ev f/4.5 1/500

Basking in the sun, which is an activity you are likely to find these turtles engaged in on rock outcroppings at lakes here in Missouri.  After a few minutes of posing for photos, he wandered off:

ISO 100 8mm 0ev f/4.5 1/400

I was at the water’s edge with both my DSLR and point and shoot camera but reached for my point and shoot to get these photos.  I used my smaller camera because I really like the macro setting on it.  The other reason was that for the first photo I have my camera pretty much on the ground.  Getting a photo from that angle is just easier with a smaller camera.

Once I got home, I edited these photos in Photoshop.  I used a levels adjustment layer to get the color to be a bit more true to the actual coloring of the turtle.  The original images were a bit overexposed despite the low ISO and fast shutter speed.  The top image was also cropped a bit and both images were sharpened.

This post was written in part as a response to the theme room.  My favorite room? outdoors, where there is some room to roam.

I wrote a few weeks ago that I was a bit behind on my blog and that I was hoping to catch up soon.  I’m sorry to say that that hasn’t happened.  I’ve been under the weather for just over a week now, so I’m even more behind than before.  I’m happy to say though, that I am feeling better and am happy to publish this post after about a week off.

Thoughts on my turtle images? Do you have a favorite setting on your point and shoot camera? they seem to come with so many these days.

Cheers and good health to you!

Twist of Fate

Where you are born can make a difference in your life. It turns out the same is true for chickens. Every year I have followed a 2nd grade class as they go through a life cycle unit that involves hatching chickens.  Not all the eggs make it to a healthy hatched chickens.  That’s true of chickens everywhere but sometimes if you are a chicken born in a 2nd grade classroom and you need a little help to start your life, you get a lucky break.  Meet this year’s lucky break:

ISO 800 50mm 0ev f/5.6 1/160

Not cute, like the other chicken photos I have shown you.  The reason for this is pretty simple, this chicken needed some help getting out of its shell, so it is still sticky and gunky.  Shortly after I took this photo though, he was cleaned up a bit, so the next day he looked like this:

ISO 1000 50mm 0ev f/5 1/200

He is still not the cutest, although his feathers have begun to grow in.  Because he is small, he has to be separated from the other chickens who peck at him.  Here he is three days later, moving day:

ISO 1000 50mm 0ev f/5 1/50

He is still small, but able now to hold his own with the other chickens.  He moved to his permanent farm home shortly after I took this last photo. So, he has lived his first week.  Under other circumstances, he would not have made it, but a twist of fate and he has enjoyed the luck of hatching in a 2nd grade classroom.

Not a pretty chicken is he? He was particularly hard to photograph because he was always in motion.  The lighting wasn’t helping me either.  While these aren’t my most technically good photos of the year, this was the most interesting storyline to develop in this year’s life cycle unit.

Cheers!

Chickens as Art

This week the photo challenge at WordPress asked us to consider a work of art.  It is my opinion that some of the most beautiful works of art are created by mother nature.

A yellow chick with black accents:

ISO 800 50mm 0ev f/5.6 1/100

 

Still beautiful, even on a bad hair day:

ISO 800 50mm 0ev f/5.6 1/100

These chickens are part of a 2nd Grade life cycle unit which I have written about here and here. When I am shooting photos like this I am generally trying to have the chicken in focus and the background blurred a bit.  Generally an f-stop setting of 5.6 works.  I also attempt to freeze the motion of the chicks, so my shutter speed is ideally 1/100 or faster.  To achieve the shutter speed I often have to set my ISO at 800 or higher.  To my eye, these settings achieve a clear picture without noise.  Both of these photos have been cropped, but that is the only post editing I have done on them.

What do you think of my “found” works of art? Have you ever considered chickens to be art?

Cheers!

Everyone, including the chickens, are on the move

It’s been a busy few weeks in my household, and I’ll end this post with a few thoughts on where this blog is headed.  Before I get to that though, I thought that this week’s photo challenge, on the move, was the perfect time to share a few chicken photos.  Those of you who read my last post know that I am photographing a life cycle unit that is being taught in a 2nd grade classroom.

These photos show a bit of what the set-up looks like:

ISO 640 50mm 0ev f/3.5 1/100

ISO 640 50mm 0ev f/3.5 1/320

ISO 1250 50mm 0ev f/2.5 1/50

Over the weekend the eggs were checked one last time and then went on lockdown.  That means that the incubator will not be opened for several days while the chickens are hatching. One of the things that happens while preparing for lockdown is that we can look at the inside of the egg using a process called candling, basically to check on the health of the egg.  Here is a healthy egg:

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This one is blank, meaning no chicken in here:

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The candling photos were taken on Saturday, just before lockdown, by Monday the first three chickens had hatched.  This photo is of an egg that is getting ready to hatch, there is a small break in the shell, so soon there should be a chicken:

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The shell that is completely discarded belongs to the yellow colored chicken in this photo:

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The darker colored chicken is a bantam chicken.  The children named that chicken Trouble because it was messing around a bit with his incubator mates.

The photos I chose for this post are all unedited, as for the purpose of this post, I was just telling a story and not focused as much on the art of the actual photo.  When I get to the editing process, I will be doing some cropping and sharpening.  The photos taken through the incubator window are a bit tricky due to reflections.

As I alluded to in the title of the post, the chickens are not the only ones on the move. I have not been posting as frequently in the past few weeks because I started a new job and finished a school semester at the same time. So, this is my acknowledgement that I am “behind” on my blog.  This means that I may have a comment of yours to approve or perhaps you have visited here lately and I have not returned the visit.  As I am writing this, I can see that I have 777 visits to make. Thats a lot for me, but having a cup of tea and visiting blogs is actually my favorite way to start the day. I am hoping to get caught back up in the next week or so.

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know that I have been taking a Photoshop class this past year.  I am happy to say that I turned in my final project and took an exam yesterday. My next class is on Adobe Illustrator, so I am not certain how much of that class will turn up on this blog.  I am grateful to all of you who have offered me support and encouragement over this past year.  I’m very much looking forward to getting caught up and then continuing with this blog over the summer.

Questions or comments about the chickens or about this blog in general? feel free to leave them below!

Cheers!

 

Weekly Photo Challenge: Telling a Nature Story

For the last few years I have been fortunate to have robins make a nest and hatch their young ones outside my kitchen window. I set up my camera and take plenty of pictures.  Every morning though, before I set up my larger camera, I take a look inside the nest and take a few pictures using my point and shoot. I use my smaller camera because my larger camera would not be able to fit in this space and take photo like this:

Apr 22 ISO 800 4mm 0ev f/2.7 1/50

For these photos I am using the macro setting.  I choose the ISO; 800 seems to work well in terms of getting the color with out too much noise.

April 24 ISO 800 4mm 0ev f/2.7 1/60

The first morning that there were two hatchlings.  These are approximately an hour old.  They hatched early, before there was enough light for photos, so I waited.

April 25 ISO 800 4mm 0ev f/2.7 1/40

Just a day later, they had many more feathers and a new sibling.

April 26 ISO 800 4mm 0ev f/2.7 1/100

After a few days, these three were doing well, but I was concerned about that last egg.  It had some imperfections on the shell, but it had grown some, so I was hopeful that it might just be a bit late.

April 28 ISO 800 4mm 0ev f/2.7 1/80

By the time I took this photo it was four days after the first hatchlings made their appearence.  The egg does not look good.  Also, the other three birds are now strong enough to stick their heads up over the lip of the nest when the adult birds come to feed them. So, even if this last bird was to hatch, I suspect it would be too small to be able to get food.

Two days later the birds are much bigger and looking more like robins:

May 1 ISO 800 4mm 0ev f/2.7 1/60

It turns out that was the last photo of the babies I would get.  The next morning, this is what I found:

ISO 800 4mm 0ev f/2.7 1/80

No sign of the babies or the last unhatched egg.  I’m not sure what happened but my guess is that they were taken by another bird. I like doing projects like this, just documenting nature.  It isn’t always pretty.  Our nest last year had five successful hatchlings, four of which were then taken off by a hawk.  This post was written in response to the Weekly Photo Challenge, Spring.  A reminder perhaps that nature is both beautiful and brutal. What do you think of this type of project, do you find it difficult to stomach?  Let me know what you think of the photos or the project in the comment section below.

Cheers!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Grades are Letters Too

One of the things that is tough about taking a Photoshop class is concern about my grade.  I can’t help it, and I probably worry about it too much.  What should be most important is if I think I am learning something, not what letter has been assigned to my most recent project.  This post is about my most recently turned in, but not yet graded project, and is also my response to the Weekly Photo Challenge, Letters.

If you have been by the blog in the last few weeks you know that I am working on a project that is a tribute to Georgia O’Keeffe’s Cow’s Skull with Calico Roses.  Since I wrote about it last this project went in for a final critique and then was turned in as a finished project.  One of the major changes I made before the final critique was to change the overall color of the image.  Here is what I had:

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And here is the next version:

ISO 100 50mm 0ev f/5.6 1/125

I changed the color in Photoshop using Image-Adjustments-Match Color and matching it to the original painting.  You may also notice that I removed the oil paint filter from the cow’s skull and instead put a slight blur on it.  I applied a similar amount of blur to the tree blossom.

Based on the feedback I got in my final critique here is my final version:

ISO 100 50mm 0ev f/5.6 1/125

You can see I added a bit of a shadow, and a vertical ripple to the right side, and added another layer of texture.

What do you think of my final version? Feel free to comment below. You can even leave a letter grade if you want.  This was also turned in as a print.  I chose to make and 8×10 print on 11×17 art sketch paper that was a cream color.  The paper itself also had a bit of texture to it.

Cheers!

 

On Top of my Electric Meter

Every spring for the last three years there is a robin nest on top of my electric meter.  As a photographer, I love it when my subject comes to me and sets itself up perfectly.  I wrote a bit about what my set-up to get these photos looks like last week.  Here is a photo from yesterday:

ISO 800 50mm 0ev f/6.3 1/100

If you took a look at my set-up, you would probably have guessed that I have a remote shutter hooked up to my camera.  That makes it possible for me to set up my camera, then come back inside to take the photos.  So on mornings like this I come into my kitchen to start the day and wait for her to leave the nest which she does at a fairly regular time.  While she is gone I go out with my ladder and point and shoot camera to get a photo like this:

ISO 800 4mm 0ev f/2.7 1/30

I then put that away and drag out my chairs, tripod, and large camera.  By the time I have done that, she is usually back. I go inside so she will get back on the nest and I can take my photos.  Then I wait for her to again leave the nest and I retrieve my equipment.

When it comes to editing these photos, I do very little.  At least at first I am making more documentary style photos than artistic ones.  The photo of the robin on the nest has been cropped.  I did a levels adjustment in Photoshop to push in the whites a bit.  Then I sharpened it.  The egg photo was not cropped.  I did a levels adjustment to push in the blacks a bit and then I sharpened it.

As this project progresses I will be blogging about it and posting photos.  I also put a photo or two on Twitter and will be adding to that, so if you want to check that out, you can find me @marantophoto. Questions or comments about my photos, editing, or set up?  Feel free to leave them below.  If you have a post related to robins feel free to leave a link to your post in the comments as well.

This post was written in part as a response to the Weekly Photo Challenge: On Top

Cheers!

 

Weekly Photo Challenge: Monument to Photography

There is a lot going on in my backyard this week.  Some robins have built a nest so I am busy photographing their efforts.  It looks a bit ridiculous but here is what the set up looks like:

ISO 200 4mm 0ev f/2.7 1/50

I’ll call it my monument to photography.  Yes, those are the “good” dining room chairs.  It’s a temporary monument, I set it up, take my photos then take it down.  Here is a photo I got this morning:

ISO 800 50mm 0ev f/6.3 1/125

At this point there are two eggs in the nest.  I’ll be experimenting with different camera angles over the next few weeks in the hope of getting some good photos.  This photo was cropped and sharpened, here is what the original shot looked like:

ISO 800 50mm 0ev f/6.3 1/125

I am so excited that the robins are back and building here. If you are interested in seeing where this project led last year, you can click here.

Cheers!