October 3, 2011,

This is a clip of a much larger photo to create a whole new composition.  It was cropped too far for my photo making it almost unfocused.  But there are a lot of photos within photos.   Likely I should take more off the top.  This week I am looking for a wall to photograph.

October 1, 2011/ Photos by others that I have liked.

I do not know who the top photo is by except the name is Corbin.  The woman Is by a tracey conwall.  I have just started two days ago the Art of Composition course with Tracey Clark.   This week we are to pick photos and and tell why we like them .  These are two of my three.  I love the woman photo.  She is in her eighties.  The top photo amuses me.

August 30/

Two new postcards.


I have purchased Lightroom because I have started taking photo in the RAW.  It is very hard to deal with them  as they all need to be converted to something else .dng or .jpeg.  It was on sale for $149.  50% off.  This should arrive today.   I was pleased that my Cursor friends enjoyed the photos.

Gilly of Mortal Muses http://mortalmuses.blogspot.com/  had a wonderful post today of getting started with street photography and a list of photographers.  One good way to get started is to have a theme such as animals in cars.  Another good way for me is to just sit somewhere and look what comes by.  This happened for me in Bilbo. I like street photography a lot and the article kind of defined places to start.

August 22/ Postcard critique

Today is the day that I set for putting up postcards on this site. I have less this than the 10 I had hoped.   This has been harder than I thought because I became very self conscious of my work.  But I think also it is not as hard as I made it.  Soon I will have  some food and kitchen photos.  Should you come by and view, please feel free to add comments.  About this I do need some comments.  Would the postcard appeal to you? What kind of postcard would you buy?

Pebbles at Waters Edge/ a postcard plan

Here are a few ideas for this week.
1. Get together 10 postcard photos.
2. Place on this blog for voting.
3. Print five of top three.

Sun Star

This is the picture that I added this week to PI.  I took part in a internet chat with the people of Picture Inspiration.   Tracey and all the women were so gracious to me to talk about my wanting to sell my photographs.  They did this for about 45 minutes off and on.  The whole thing has given me food for thought.
How much do I really want to make money.  My daughter has asked me why?

With the economy as it is and all everyone is talking about money.  My husband is out of work and likely forever retired.  I do want to earn a little of my own, even if just to pay for my camera/photography expenses.  But I have to say, and after several tries, I do not know how to make money.  

Fifteen Favs Analyzed by Moi

I have used 15 of my photos and reviewed them indiviually as best I could with what little critiquing skills that I have. I took each photo and made a list.

 1. My colors are strong, saturated, many times primary, and I nearly always  use the contrast tool.  I live in the Pacific Northwest and we have dreary winters.  I like to show that, because I think it is beautiful, if sometimes depressing. So much of my  winter work is pretty neutral. Our home is very neutral to go with our environment.   But I crave color.

2.  I find my subjects either in the beautiful countryside that I live, or in a  love of produce or flowers in the summer. I like domestic scenes.    I love to drive the fields in all times of the year and I take many photos of the bay outside my window. I take many pictures of old building and barns.  Produce and the kitchen provides endless subjects for me.  I photograph where I am: Costco, in a Foreign country, a restaurant. I try to remember that it is not so much what you photograph, but how you do it.

3.  I am embarrassed to say that I shoot lots of photos from a car as my husband drives.  There are many times we can not pull over to the side.  I like to fill a frame.  And I do it one way or another.  I can not tell you what my two lenses are.  But I like to shoot in both the lower and upper f. stops

4. I notice that many of my pictures have circles, and the rest are straight lines.  All  my life I have liked stripes and I sometimes make of composition of stripes in the landscape.  I like texture, but only under certain conditions.  As I child I did not like crayons because I could not make them smooth.  I shoot head on.  I know this is a no-no, and maybe someone can change my mind.  For me it is part of honesty, which I can not verbalize.

5.  I shoot simple subjects, not much fancy.   I am forcing myself to look at a subject and say, "what is important here." My word for the year is HEART and I chose it for many reasons, one of which in my photography;I want to capture the heart of the matter or subject.

More radishes and some cherries

I decided to add to the previous post.  I  was uncomfortable with the previous posted image.  Perhaps it is only that I was into something new.  These two images I am more comfortable with.  I like the pattern of the stems.   and some fruit is not perfect and one cherry half eaten.  The top photo is simple but I like the color.

A jar of pickled radishes

This is one of fifty photos that I took of radishes and cherries.  It was a cloudy day and no  direct sun.  Out of the 50, there were two that could possibly work.  This was not one.

I was busy getting a dinner ready for guests.  What I saw here was the original purple, the sliced radishes(not much) , and the greens in both corners.  A canning jar is always good.  But then I saw the light of the vinegar both at the top and bottom of the jar.  I added some texture.  Now it looks vintage, which is a rage.

20 FAVS

These are the photos that I am going with for my favorites.  What can I say.  I am a Libra.  It is pretty clear that I favor a primary color palette, or at least a strong palette, except when I don"t.  I like a close range, except when I want a vista.  If you are in my class, tell me what else you see.

This is one thing I would like to discuss with me and with others.  I feel that my photos are rather simplistic.  On the one hand I like that.  On the other hand I feel like maybe it is not ART. I will say that I like shooting that way,   but to be honest I feel like maybe my pictures are too babyish.  I like this photo, but similar photos make me go to crazy processing.   One thing I will say about myself, not others, I say dear God, just let me see what it is.

This an example of playing around.  On the left was a photo I was committed to.  Mr. Radish and I were staying at the Lake Quinalt National Park Lodge.  It was a very romantic setting and I was taken with the beautiful lake and the delightful colored retro chairs.  I could not leave the washed out original alone.  I fussed and played.   This is my problem, I say that I do not like processed photos, but then I go and do them.  I say I like clean, unfussy photos and then I turn the water yellow.

This is something I put on my real blog.  I was just messing around.  It was fun to try to get a collage together. I am never sure if that is just wasting time.  But it was fun.  I am never sure if anyone else thinks it is fun.  I love to photography clouds.  I love to photograph houses.  The house in fact is not romantic and the clouds are.   This is a little heaven and hell .  

Sometimes I like to photograph something other than fluff

Sometime I like to photograph something other than pretty.  I like architectural  stuff.  I like lines.  I really like stripes.  Sometimes I see beauty in more masculine ideas.  I liked the light here.

My need for creativity

I do have a need for creativity.  I need to do something everyday.  For many years I put that into cooking, and it has been a life long devotion.  However now at 72 , I have reduced my standards quite a bit.  I have done knitting, gardening and painting, and writing.  I still write a blog.

 I have had health issues for much of my life and two years ago I decided that I needed to change things.  One thing I decided to do was honor my creativity and make it more of a priority.  For what ever reason, my health has improved unimaginably for the good.  I am loving what I am doing.  If I could make a little money at it, it would be heaven.   I am not counting on the money part.

I need to be using my mind.  That is one reason that I take classes.  I love to manipulate the photos, although I am not into processing heavily myself.  It is fun to do, but it is in the end not the way that I want all my pictures to look.  Now everywhere I look I am thinking, how can I make a shot out of this.  This is good!  It needs a photo.  My husband drives me around while I shoot.  

And to be honest, I love that some people like my photos.  That feeds me.  But I think I might still do the photography if no one ever saw my photos.

Why Do I take Photos

I really fell into photography.  Years ago my husband had the film camera and he took all the pictures.  He was great technically, but he did not have the artistic sense that I wanted.  I bought a camera to take pictures of my daughters faces and not the vistas that he liked.  Later I bought a new camera to take pictures so that I could paint  as paintings.  Then I wanted to improve my blog.  For my 70 th birthday I bought myself an SLR.  Then I finally learned to use it on manual a year later and I was hooked.  I started taking classes on line and learning a little more, and I realized that I was getting better.