12/365

Yesterday (Sat) was a long day.  I didn't have any plans, and I didn't want to drive to get to someplace interesting but I really needed to get out of the house for a while.

There's a small man-made lake not too far from the house, with a small playground and a short walking trail.  I headed there hoping against hope to see something interesting.  This was about the best I could see.  

When I first got there, there weren't any children, but by the time I left there were several families and their kiddos were playing on the equipment.  I was glad I took the photo when I first got there.

                                                                                11/365                                                                                                                                                                Paint and Brushes   

It was a dreary day on the heels of 3-4 other dreary days.  I'm glad I'm on a roll with photographing still-life in my house.  It's challenging when you don't have many props in the house, but it's great when you have friends who can loan you objects to practice with.

I didn't spend much time on this one.  I should have started earlier in the afternoon, but I procrastinated a lot and only had about 40 minutes before I had to leave the house for Sunday Evening service. 

Still...I'm not terribly unhappy with this image.  I have a few more ideas that I'll try in the future, but this is it for today.  Acrylic paint with brushes against a pale pink watercolor background.

10/365

A little flat lay practice with the only nail polish I own.  I don't do colors.  I've been looking for the perfect "clear" polish.  I still haven't found it, but I'm not buying any more until I use these three up completely.  I can't believe how much nail polish costs these days.

9/365

These are pieces of the chess set I borrowed from a friend the other day.  I'm still working on adding funky backgrounds to some images.  I had this driftwood background in my files, so I tried playing around with it for these chess pieces.  

Editing was definitely a nightmare and it can't be enlarged too much without seeing the mistakes, but as a small image I think it's kind of interesting.  

 

Every time I practice with a process, I'm hoping I get a little better...and faster.

8/365

Chess Board

Confession:  I know NOTHING about chess other than that there are some very beautiful chess sets out there in chess-land.  Once upon a time many, many years ago I attempted to learn the game.  After leaning the absolute basics, I never pursued the game at all. 

It's just not anything I'm interested in.  

But...I am interested in photographing beautiful chess sets.  A friend from church told me she had this set and she was willing to loan it to me for a few days.  It's not over-the-top ornate, but being made out of marble it's very appealing.  

7/365

More from the Barrel Race...

 

6/365

Barrel Race

The competitors were so good.  It's heartbreaking to see a barrel get knocked over.

There were a lot of competitors in this event.  The horses are beautiful and it's pretty amazing to see them work as hard as they do to compete.

5/365

Bicycle

There's a small town not far from where I live that's so cute.  

All along the Main Street there are bicycles randomly placed in front of businesses.  Most of them are painted funky colors and it's fun walking along the street seeing them all.

 4/365

Bobcat in Captivity

The other day I went to the zoo with a friend and naturally we took our cameras with us.  It was very difficult to get shots of the animals since the enclosures were all surrounded with black wire fencing with small spaces.  I had the long lens on the camera which blurred out the fence pretty well depending on how far away from the fence the animals were.

This bobcat was the perfect model and there's no sign of the fence.  The animal stayed on the perch for quite a while, moving a little, stretching a little, yawning...  In other words it was the perfect model and what a beautiful one.

 3/365

An old file worked with a new background.

2/365

 The other day I found a couple of photos in my files that I made a few years ago that were images of sections of an old fashioned transcript that I intended to use for a background.

I totally forgot about them until just the other day.

I thought the egg basket with eggs would be perfect with the handwritten document as a background.

It took forever to edit this with layers, but I really like it.  I suppose a process like this won't take as long after some significant practice. But actually, even just a year ago I wouldn't have attempted this, so I guess I'm making progress.

1/365

January 1, 2021

When I was in high school I read the book "1984".  That was so far in the future it was beyond my comprehension that we would ever get to that year (really...it was only 20 years in the future).  Not only did I think that 20 years was forever, but I also thought the events in the book could NEVER come true.  

Well, here we are 56 years later and events today are looking more and more like we're living in the book. 

All of that has nothing to do with my post today.

I'm feeling motivated to take my photography and editing to a new level the way I was never interested in before, or actually that I never thought I could do before.  Even so, it's pretty elementary, but it all takes perseverance and determination to work at learning the skills.   

Where I live is pretty ugly and I'd have to travel to find anything interesting to photograph, so I've been concentrating a little more on still life and trying to learn how to apply textured backgrounds.

These are the same books as in the previous post, just a different set-up.  They've been my favorites for many years and I kept them with the thought that I wanted to read them again.  After I moved I did just that.  I read them all (including ones not in the photo) again.  And....I was correct. My memory served me well because they really are my favorites.