Photo Assignment #9

Three assignments to share tonight, from three different people! I wish I had my camera when leaving work today - there were some really neat fog photos I could have taken. I hope you enjoy these even though they're not foggy!

From Reebs_RI - "RI is known as the ocean state - why not incorporate water into some pics." Why not indeed. It was very cold and windy by the shore today but lovely nonetheless.



Next we have another challenge from my best bud Amber - "taking pictures from a baby/toddler's perspective, seeing the world from lower down than we do as 'grownups'." I remembered playing under the table when I was little,not quite toddler little but close enough, so I crawled under there and saw some interesting things going on. I think these shapes the chairs made would appeal to toddlers, don't you?



And finally, a suggestion from my dad - "I've always been fascinated by light and glass, especially against black or neutral backgrounds." I think glass is mighty cool too. Love the tones in there.



The last image is a HDR (High Dynamic Range) image - I used three different exposures to get an increased tonal range. Wanna read an explanation of the technique? Check this out.

Photo Assignment #8

Ok, I finally have a couple of assignments for you! Sorry it's taken so long. Tonight's featured challengers are sethsgal05 and my best friend Amber.

Sethsgal05 suggested a photo "either looking into or out of a window at an interesting angle". I've been trying to get a good shot during the day for this one but it hasn't happened yet, so I tried something a little different and "looked out" of the window to see the reflection of my husband surfin' the net. The layers are interesting because some of the objects that show up in the photo are actually outside, though most of them are reflections of the inside scene.



Next up is Amber's suggestion "How about a picture of leaves in various stages of decay? Maybe you could get a really cool one of a neatly skeletonized one! Or it could be a picture of a bunch of different leaves, arranged all decoratively of course! Or maybe I just like leaves." This was a nicely broad leaf statement and allowed me lots of leeway :-) I chose the "a bunch of different leaves, arranged all decoratively" option. And of course, it ended up as a semi-abstract image.



Hope you like them, and I hope to be more on task now that I'm feeling better and Thanksgiving is over!

Have a great night.

Assignment Slacker

Hi all. Just wanted to apologize for not having any new assignments up in the past few days. I've had a bad cold and haven't had much energy to spare. I'm on the mend now, though, so after the holiday weekend I should have some new stuff up!

In the meantime, here's another shot from Roger Williams Park to tide you over:



I hope you all have a very happy Thanksgiving. My family has a tradition of going around the table and saying something we're thankful for. So, if you want to post a comment with something you're thankful for this year, feel free! I'm thankful for two healthy new nephews and a wonderful first year of marriage.

Enjoy your day!

- Diana

Photo Assignment #7

I had a fabulous time photo-taking today and managed to crank out four assignments! Great ideas to work on, as always.

Firstly, an idea from sethsgal05 - "the bare branches of trees"

I liked the simplicity of this one and the soothing, calming colors. If you look closely, there's a kite string tangled up in there, too, as a little detail:



Next, two of Reebs_RI's ideas - she gave me a great excuse to go to the zoo! "Roger Williams Zoo would also lend itself to some awesome pics."

This might sound odd, but I really liked the zebra butts. Photogenically speaking, of course - neat patterns and all. But the one I chose to post here was of the flamingos, gotta love the semi-abstractness :-)



Next up from Reebs_RI - "the park just outside the zoo gates - well you could go nuts." You can and I totally did! Very hard to decide but I ended up going with this simple photo of lamposts behind the Casino:



And finally for this evening, an idea from my best friend Amber "taking pictures of things from below." I meant to do this one indoors during an evening, but the lighting didn't pan out and there aren't many interesting undersides of things around my house. So, this one is of the gazebo behind the Casino at Roger Williams Park, straight up (now tell me...)!



Hope you enjoy. I am very tired (thus the poor jokes) and am off to bed!

Photo Assignment #6

Just one photo assignment post tonight, sadly. I've got some other photo stuff I'm playing with, I'll keep you posted on that as it develops. No pun intended.

Tonight I'm featuring the third idea from my sister-in-law Jeannie:

"here's just an inspiration word, do with it what you will - longing"

Now I don't know about you, but when I think "longing" I think "chocolate"!

Photo Assignment #5

I'm sad to say that I did have to skip some other suggestions - waiting for some free daylight time, but I did enjoy working on some suggestions from Shareen (sassypants123) and my sister-in-law Jeannie!

Shareen also was into the reflection idea, and rather than take the easy way out and have one photo for both reflection challenges, I took another picture. I know, I know, I'm sooooo great. :-P

"I love pictures of reflections- in a mirror, in water, in a shiny tabletop, anywhere."

I chose to use a metal bowl as my reflective surface. In post-processing I used the fairly common technique of combining different exposures of the same subject to get a richer tonal range. Now that I have a remote shutter release (thanks Mom & Dad!) I can actually use this technique (the photos have to be perfectly aligned, even pressing the shutter button can throw it off). I think the reflections of the flower petals in this shot have a particularly "organic" feel to them, like they're kind of going off and doing their own artistic thing.



Jeannie's first challenge was "a cool label from an item in your pantry of fridge". This one ended up being all about the color balance and post processing techniques used to get some really rich color, more than about composition. I wanted to focus on the label, and not the item itself, so not a lot of interesting shadow details or anything. It was interesting, and much different than my usual photographic method. Now I'm hungry for Indian desserts!



And finally for this evening, Jeannie's second suggestion "an object from your childhood that you've held onto". My object of choice was my favorite doll that I've had FOREVER - baby blue. He's so darn cute! I tried to take the photo as a portrait of the doll, as if he was a real person. He kinda is to me, I guess.



Enjoy! I should have more up tomorrow.

Great Comic Strip

I just stumbled across a great comic strip featuring a photographer duck...

Photo Assignment #4

I'm on a roll with these photo assignments, I'll tell ya! Such great suggestions, it's hard not to spend all my time working on them!

Tonight I'm featuring two "challengers" - sethsgal05 and shanana77. Both had some suggestions that will have to wait until I'm free during the daylight hours, so for now I'll post the indoor shots!

sethsgal05 - "any cool things you brought back from your honeymoon"

My cool thing of choice was the gorgeous bracelet we bought in Istanbul...



shanana77 - "photographing food? sort of edward weston-esque style? like fruits, veggies, etc."

I'll be honest, I've tried to emulate Weston in the past, and I just can't come close to his awesomeness! I'll blame it on the reduced tonal range of my digital camera vs. his film. ;-)

Here are some lovely parsnips, in a quasi-Weston style. I noticed that most of his food photos seemed to mirror the look and feel of his nudes, so I attempted to do something similar. Such sexy veggies!



and the final assignment of the evening...

shanana77 - "reflections of things in puddles, etc."

I took that "etc." for all it was worth and used a pan full of water instead of a puddle, so I could get a shot indoors using artificial light. I partially desaturated the image, and I like it. I particularly like the translucency of the petals.



As always, check out the galleries! Art makes a great Christmas gift! (*nudge* *nudge* *wink* *wink*)

Photo Assignment #4

I actually got a chance this weekend to take the last 2 photos Alicia (a.k.a. asf619) had ideas for! Without further ado, here they are:

"Piano keys or even a computer's keyboard?"

Since we don't have a piano, I took a photo of my somewhat dusty computer keyboard.



Next up - "Your husband's shadow coming through a doorway, as lit from another room?"

This one was a little tough, since the doorway configuration in our apartment is kind of tight, but I like how it came out. I also have one where his shadow looks like a wierd alien robot, but I decided not to embarass him by posting it!



Enjoy, please feel free to post comments about the photos or to suggest new ideas. Don't forget to check out the galleries! A new photo was added today.

Since my website contact form hasn't been working since we switched servers, I've added a different way to get in touch with me.

Photo Assignment #3

Alrighty, today we've got photo ideas from Alicia (a.k.a. asf619) - I picked 3 of the 5 ideas she gave me to focus on this afternoon. I will hopefully get to the other 2 tomorrow!

"The pages of a well-read book"

This one was my favorite to work on of her suggestions - and I came up with two photos that I coudn't decide between, so I'm posting them both. I wanted to focus on the pages themselves, since that was specifically mentioned, and I wanted the books to remain anonymous. Here are the results (in the first photo I flipped the pages as the shutter went off, to get the blurred effect):



and



Next - "a radiator or heating register/vents"

Our apartment has very normal and boring heating vents - but like they say, anything can be a picture! (Who are "they" anyway?) What I ended up with was this wierd and very high contrast abstract image. I kinda like it.



And finally... "A candle's flickering flame"

This one came out much differently than I expected. Instead of seeing the movement of the candle flame as it flickers, sort of like in the first book pages photo, the flame took on a different shape entirely. I think this is because a candle flame is actually light - not an object reflecting light. I kept this one kind of simple.



That's all for today! Check back tomorrow!

Photo Assignment #2

The last two suggestions from Chris:

"2. Oil stains on the driveway"

Unfortunately I couldn't do this one - I looked in my driveway and wandered around the neighborhood peeking into parking lots and there were no oil stains to be found! I guess this means that cars in my area are properly maintained? I will keep an eye out for future opportunities. Sorry about that!

EDIT: Since I could do driveway oil, here's a photo of cooking oil/water/foodcoloring in a bowl, not quite the same but still fun.



"3. fresh fruit next to rotted fruit or some other contrast picture like that"

I didn't feel like waiting for my fruit to rot (especially with company coming this weekend), but I did do a contrast picture involving fruit... I even messed around with some post-processing effects, just for something different. Here tis:

Keep the suggestions coming!

Photo Assignment #1

Some great suggestions are rolling in - here's my attempt at the first. It's one of the three my cousin Chris thought of - I haven't been able to try his other two challenges yet, mostly due to lack of supplies and daylight. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to get to those.

For now...

"1. one of those infinite reflection photos ( the kind with two mirrors showing reflection in a reflection in a reflection)"

It was nearly impossible to get this kind of shot without my camera being in the photo! I wanted to avoid that, since it seemed like the easy way out of what was supposed to be a challenge. I also had a shortage of objects to reflect that would have any real meaning when seen a zillion times. The photo on the left is what I came up with - I figure at least the hands have a human connection, literally and figuratively. It was a great "assignment" - I got so into it I nearly missed LOST!

Inspire me!

Ok people, I need to get geared up for this charity event I'm selling photos at - I want to hone my photographic skills by taking some photos outside of my normal niche. That's where you come in...

Think of 3 pictures you’d like to see. Things around my house, or yard, or whatever… something I can take a picture of easily (G-rated please). Leave the list as a comment. Once I have enough requests, I’ll start posting them here. If I can’t, or won’t, take a picture of something you’ve requested, I’ll let you know.

Thanks in advance for the inspiration!

The One Million Masterpiece

I learned about this collaboration today through deviantart, and thought it sounded interesting.



You can create a tile that will be part of a huge collaborative art project about the world we live in. In addition, the "fee" to sign up is simply a donation to a global humanitarian or environmental charity - the group running the project hopes to raise $6.5 million for the several causes it's affiliated with. So check it out, enjoy the artwork that people have created, and think about making a tile yourself! If you do make a tile, post a comment here with a link to it, so that I can check it out!

News on Upcoming Event!

I am glad to announce that, barring any unforeseen circumstances, I will be participating in the Blackstone Valley Advocacy Center's 20th Anniversary Gala as a vendor. This is a charity event and will benefit victims of domestic violence. I'll update with more information as I hear more details. For now, check out the BVAC's website for information about their organization and the event.