There are so many amazing and beautiful trees, plants and flowers in Colorado. It seems like every day I go out I find something new. Horsetail is a neat plant that reproduces by spore rather than seed. This cluster of shoots was found near the Milkweed of day 28.
I was on an early morning walk when I crossed over an irrigation canal and found these Milkweed flowers growing on the banks. Although these wildflowers are common in parts of Colorado, I don’t think I’ve ever seen them around here before. I was impressed by their round clusters and starburst buds.
Sometimes people walk by and look at me like I’m wierd while I’m taking pictures. Others are suspicious of someone with a camera and a zoom lens. Still others are simply interested and crane their necks to try and see what it is you are seeing. Most people just walk right by things of beauty and wonder without ever observing them. I think everyone would do well to walk around in the early morning with a camera (even a phone) and try to capture observations they normally wouldn’t make.
Memorial Day has only been a federal holiday in the United States since 1971. But its origin is in the days after the civil when graves of the fallen were decorated in rememberance.
I was out in the front yard with my son when we saw that our rose bushes were blooming. I love the light in this photograph and the rings of light and shadow that it produced on the petals. There’s even an aphid on one of the petals in the middle that I didn’t even notice when I took the picture.
It was late in the evening when I remembered that I hadn’t taken my photo of the day. So I grabbed my camera and went out back to photograph the local wildlife (my cockapoo who had rolled in the dirt and was causing dust clouds every time she sneezed).
As soon as I tried to take the first picture I realized I hadn’t charged the battery and it wouldn’t even take one picture. By this time I really wasn’t feeling like thinking and trying to take an interesting picture anyway. So I got my old phone and used that camera to take a picture of the first thing I could see, which was an avocado. I took the picture, turned it balck and white and called it a day.
While I’m enjoying my 30 days of photographs challenge, I’m also definitely ready for it to end. I want to keep taking pictures on a daily basis but I want the option to skip a day when I’m just not feeling it. On the other hand, pushing through your desire to quit something or avoid an unpleasant situation is how you make great things happen. I wouldn’t have taken some of the fun pictures I have over the last month if I hadn’t forced myself to think and come up with interesting subjects and compositions. Rather than look for a way out, maybe I should be looking for a way to continue this daily routine and see how far it takes me.
In the meantime, here’s an avocado.
When I showed my family today’s photograph they were stumped about where it was taken. Their perception was thrown off by it too. The background texture looks somewhat like rocks so they thought these were giant spider webs on a red rock wall.
In fact, this image was taken right outside my back door. The red background is the siding on my house. It’s fun to take something that you see every day and take for granted and look at it in a different way. Instead of just sweeping life’s webs away, try looking at them closer.
I was trying to get a shot of the large clouds in the sky on this day. But I thought this image of the moon with its craters was more interesting. I was using a 300mm zoom lens hand-held but it still came out surprisingly sharp.
The picture’s a little bit smaller today because I had to crop a much larger one to just get the moon.
This image is a cross section of a cooked purple sweet potato. There’s really not much more to say. It’s purple, it’s sweet, it’s a potato. Enjoy!
Today’s photo project involves water, oil and origami papers. I put the oil and water in a pie plate and the colored paper underneath. I started by using a stand-alone flash along the side of the dish. Even at the lowest setting it was washing out the image though.
I then used the built in flash to light up the oil from above. This gave a really interesting colored light bouncing back up through the oil. After experimenting with different colored papers I settled on the blue since it gave a really rich hue.
Sometimes you just have to look up. Actually, I recommend always looking up, down, left, right and behind. Looking at things from different perspectives lets you make new discoveries and be more creative in the things you do.
When I was looking for todays photo, I looked up and realized I could play with the speed of the fan and the speed of my camera shutter. What I ended up with was an abstract photo with a nice mix of points, lines and polygons. This was thanks to the combination of recessed ceiling lights, the line along the peak of the ceiling and the spinning fan blades.
