Quiltlike

Occassionally I enter a special category competition. This is fun because it makes you concentrate on a certain subject or experiment with a different technique. One month the subject was "Quiltlike." Here are the images I came up with.

First I started with a picture of cactus blooms and put them in the 4 corners. Then I cut out a diamond shape of a monarch and put it around on top of the flowers.

In the second picture I took a waterfall picture and experimented with placement in the square using eight sections and flipping the waterfall around until I liked the arrangement.

The third picture I took a rose image and did a "Fresco" technique to it and put it in the four quadrants and then did a circle cutout of the center and placed it in the middle.

The final picture I took a single oakleaf and stacked in on top of itself.

Different and unusual camera techniques

I was setting up my camera to take some fall color shots. I didn't have the ball head on my tripod quite tight enough. I hit the remote trigger as my camera slowly drifted downwards. Oh dear! But I kind of like the effect- a watercolor, Monet impressionist look. It reminded me of the photo books I have read by Freeman Patterson like "Photography and the The Art of Seeing." He encourages experimenting with different techniques.

So when I was out a few days later, I tried his technique of rapidly zooming in my 18-200mm zoom lens on a tree scene while using a long shutter speed It gave these streaks of light and slight warped look as seen on the right. I also pointed my camera down and tried it on the leaf strewn path of the woods. I really liked this one as the 18mm end gave the entire leaf background and the 200mm end showed a couple of the leaves stacked on top of the scene.

The Search for Fall Colors

Fall is in the air. The mornings are crisp. The trees are changing colors to red, rust and yellow. So the search is on to find these colors. I hiked one of Lake County's many Forest Preserves and found the view above. I took a walk in the ravine near our house and took the picture of yellows to the right.













I looked up to see backlit colorful leaves.

My favorite of the day was when trying out reflection pictures in a stream, I saw these maple leaves floating down the stream with trees from the otherside of the stream reflecting in the water.

Color Experimenting

I have always liked those monochrome pictures that have one item, like a flower, that is in color. I decided to do my own experimenting with that and tried it on a coneflower picture I had taken.

Lincoln Park Flower Garden

A beautiful peaceful place to photograph is a flower garden. One such place in Kenosha is the Lincoln Park gardens. They always do a nice job every year with the plantings. The familiar white arch entrance adds a nice touch. I have taken pattern shots of a section of the garden or pictures of individual flowers. It also brings back memories as I grew up near here and my brother, sisters and I walked by here every day when we went to school.

Sculptures

Kenosha has had several sculptures installed by the lakefront recently. They are interesting, but a bit difficult to photograph. Where they sit, the backgrounds are rather busy. This sculpture had the least busy background as I walked around to find the best vantage point and put the trees behind the sculpture so that the sculpture itself would be the main subject and a busy background of buildings by the lakefront wouldn't compete with the lines of the sculpture. However, there are still some poles and telephone lines that I didn't care for. So I did a little photoshop and took out the poles, cloned in a few bushes in a few bare spots to make it look even and then cropped the picture. Here is the final result.

Little Surprises

I was just bemoaning the fact that my morning hunt for some good fall color pictures was not too successful as we went for our almost daily bike ride at Illinois Beach State Park. This past summer wasn't so great there for pictures either, not like last year. We stopped at one of our usual points by the lake and my husband spotted two little sandpipers dashing around. They were feverishing looking for something washing up on the beach to eat. These little things must be on their fall migration to the south. I crept up and sat on a dead log on the beach and watched them dart around. I was able to get some nice shots with my 300mm zoom lens.

Sesame Street

When I was young, my name was spelled Sherry with a “y.” When I became a bit older I wanted to change the spelling and hence Sheri with an “I.” Now that I am into photography, I want to be Sheri with an “eye.” That is what photography is all about, “seeing.” It is taking the time to observe the world around us. With that I would like to share a couple of pictures and their story that my sister Caryn sent to me the other day….

When I came out of work today, I saw that the pond was covered with geese, so I had to take a picture.

Then the old song from Sesame Street started going through my head
"One of these things is not like the other.
One of these things just doesn't belong.
Can you tell which thing is not like the others
By the time I finish my song?"

I guess every family has that weird Uncle.
Have a good day!
Caryn

I love it. She saw all the geese and decided to take a picture. Then she “saw” that something was a little different than just a bunch of geese. Yes, that is a Great Blue Heron in amongst all the geese. Not only that, but she connected that with a memory of the past, Sesame Street. That is what I think is the fun of photography. It is taking the time out to take a closer look at and enjoy the world around us.

Wildflowers

It is great to go out on a quiet morning and take pictures of wildflowers. It is fascinating to see the great variety that God has created. September is the month of purple flowers. I love the beauty and delicacy of the Purple Fringed Gentian.

Day of Action

Today our church had a day of action where we went to different organizations in the community and helped do projects that they needed done. I went with a group to help at Woodhaven, our local girl scout camp. We helped clean the front of the building, cleared paths from brush, and spread mulch around the building and on some of the trail. It was a good thing someone in our group had a little front end loader to help load the carts with the mulch. This is a good time to have a camera handy and take pictures of things that will be memories in the years to come.

Clouds

Clouds are fascinating. They can be different every day and at different times of the day.



















And by adding a different sky to your picture than what you had when you took the picture, it can perk the picture up.




Before

After

Return trip

It is fun to go back to the same place, as Sand Pond here, and see how different lighting will effect your picture. This picture was taken in the evening just before sunset on a rather cloudy day and the sky opened up just enough to show the sun through for a little while.

Panoramas

The new pocket digital cameras are fun to play with. They have fun features as panoramas. I took this picture earlier this summer, but I was reminded of how pretty Sand Lake is when we rode our bikes around it today.

Birthday Flowers

I just celebrated a milestone birthday and so I decided to start a blog and share a passion of my life, photography. I love to do nature photography and so I thought I should photograph the flowers my husband gave me for my birthday. This picture of a variegated rose I took hand held with my image stabilizing close up lens and flash. I had to use photoshop to sharpen it as the depth of field was so shallow and a lot of the flower was not in focus. I also "cut out" the flower and gave it a dark green background to make it more pleasing in appearance.

In this picture of the red rose, I put my camera on a tripod and was able to take the photo at a slower shutter speed and get more depth of field so it was more in focus. I also did an extreme closeup so I would just take a picture of the center of the flower and not include any of the disturbing background around the flower. The picture was taken in the shade and I used a silver reflector to put in a little soft light into the flower.