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.
For this photo I traveled to a Rocky Mountain meadow just outside of Vail Colorado. Well, I didn’t go there just for the photo ops. I was in the area for a family gathering and was able to slip away for a few hours in the morning when the rest of the world was sleeping. I was fortunate to see only one person on the trail but plenty of early season wildflowers and some amazing scenery.
By 8:00 am I was back from my hike and I already felt like I’d had a full day. There is something incredibly fulfilling about hiking in the high country of Colorado. I’ll write another post in the near future detailing more of this hike and showing the rest of the photos I took.
Today’s image is of a bridge truss. I was traveling and didn’t have time to think about a subject. So when I saw all of the great lines this bridge truss was showing, I decided to make it mine. Anyway, I have a thing for industrial structures.
Ok, today was bad. I forgot to take a photo all day because I was so busy. So toward the end of the day I just looked around for the first thing that had some color to it and used that as a subject. The obvious choices were the potted perennials and annuals in my back yard. Here is what I ended up with. I know this was a lazy and uninspired day but sometimes you have those.
I like freezing motion as much as long exposures of things that stay still. Today I played around with water splashes. None of them came out exceptionally clear since it’s hard to judge exactly where the splash is going to be. But this is one of the better images. My son likes it because when looked at far away it resembles a mitten and he thought that was cool.
A few weeks ago I discovered a Killdeer Plover nest along the route I walk in my neighborhood. Each day I would walk past and the parents of the eggs would run out to meet me and try to distract me away from the nest. They seemed extra anxious this week and I guess it’s because the eggs were hatching.
Over the course of four or five days the eggs kept disappearing. Finally, one morning I went past and there were only two eggs left. They were disappearing so quickly I assumed they were being eaten by something. This made sense because the nest was on the ground a few inches from the sidewalk. A dog or any other animal could have had a quick bite to eat on their way by.
I took a second walk that day and this time there was only one egg left! I came closer and noticed a little chick where one of the eggs had been that morning. The adult birds were very upset that I was taking such an interest in their family. They were squaking their heads off and running at me like they wanted to peck my face off.
I went back home to grab my camera. When I got there I researched plover hatching and discovered they hatch and walk away from the nest on the same day. I hustled back there, took a few photos and went on with my day. Sure enough, later in the afternoon I went by again and the chick was gone. Today all the eggs were gone.
I have to water my lawn with city water instead of irrigation. So I hate to see it run off, flow down the street and go down the drain. But at least in this case I was able to take advantage of it to get this cool picture.
For a while now I’ve been wanting to make a pencil holder or a pencil box out of pencils. Of course regular pencils are a little boring so I decided to go with colored pencils. I’ll write up a post in the future about how to make them. For now I’ll just show you the finished tube.
For today’s photo I went outside at night and hunted out shadows made by the streetlight on my corner. I’m sure my neighbors thought I was insane for standing outside on my lawn with a tripod and camera in the dark. But what do they know? I liked this image because it looks like some sort of tree monster stalking someone.
