Black and Whites

I don't think I really had to go take new pictures for this assignment, but the trees were so pretty this weekend, I couldn't resist. Of course, I had to wait until Sunday to have time. John and I went for a drive up highway 79...and it was a beautiful drive in spite of the rain!

I also converted some of my previous pics to b & w for fun...and this turned out to be a time sucker, but lots of fun! I couldn't put it down. So, even though I only have a few pictures posted, I spent hours figuring out more about PS and how to do masking. I managed to do some in a couple of my landscape pictures so I could exaggerate the sky without losing the detail in the rest of the image. Whaddya think? Click here for a couple more...

Macro Photo Assignment

I spent the weekend in a Chicago suburb and the weather was beautiful. I was surprised to see how many flowers and leaves were still around to photograph...I thought everything would be drier and colorless.

This garden was at"Catigny" which was the home of Col. Robert McCormick, former owner of the Chicago Tribune. His home is now a museum and the grounds are a fabulous park-like garden...there were wedding parties moving about and we spent about four hours there overall.

When I count my blessings, my family is at the top of my list. Allison is my middle child, and she was willing to sit for my assignment this week. My husband pulled some magic out of his hat too, when I needed some light stands for the clamp lights. Some of his "toys" from his collection of stuff in the garage served well. It allowed me to place lights up high when needed, without contorting and balancing, etc. Well...mostly. There was still some climbing and balancing, but it was much less, thanks to him!

As for the photography...we had fun with the assignment. Allison put on a couple of her old formals and was playful once we passed the initial stiffness. I tried every tool in my aresenal: white balance, ISO, aperature priority, shutter priority, and exposure compensation. I found that my tendency remains to over-correct in my adjustments and thus I have to take the shot a third time (at least) to get what I'm after. Most of these were taken at an ISO of 800, with a white balance set at "incandescent" and using a 50mm lense. Aperatures ranged from 1.8 to 22.

When I played with ISO, I rolled down as low as 400 and up as high as 1600. I used exposure compensations up to -1.3.

Architecture Assignment

Well, I'm FINALLY finished with this one. Camping over the weekend did not provide "ample" opportunity for photos of architecture and a mini-crisis at work on Monday meant I struggled to find the time for this assignment. I have to say, however, that I really enjoyed it once I finally dove in. I went to the St. Louis City Library...what a beautiful place. I spent an hour taking pictures and never made it off the second floor. I know there was much more to see. There was also this really cool church right next to the library with amazing creatures jutting out - it looked like Cerberus, but that wouldn't be, would it?