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.