Ok, so I’ve slacked on my Project 2009 series a little bit. I started out well enough, but then got busy with wedding season (and other excuses). To finish the series off, here’s my submission for the final month of the year. We’ve been hunkered down under a bunch of snow, and honestly, it’s quite nice. We haven’t gone very far and have simply enjoyed our time together playing games and relaxing. Enjoy the final project pictures from 2009, and have a safe and happy New Years!
Ok, I can’t help it. The flowers are blooming, the weather is nice and I love taking pictures of bright colorful flowers (they’re so cheery, aren’t they?). So here is an addendum to my ‘Project: Spring’ series — 6 more images to make your eyes happy. I promise not to take any flower pictures for next month’s project.
Check out the full set of images on my Flickr page.
Spring is a wonderful time of year. Not just because it means no more snow for 7 months, but because flowers and buds on trees and the smell in the air all put a big smile on my face. All of the pictures for this month’s project were taken in my backyard while Isaac and Evan threw sand at each other in the sandbox — they are just as happy to be spending time outside as I am, and it will take more than sand-throwing to ruin that.
You can view the all 13 images from this project on my Flickr page.
Well, it’s that time again — time for my monthly photo project. I really thought I was going to be late with this one and come up with a lame excuse as to why I didn’t really have to do it and then stop the photo project series completely. But, as luck would have it, things just worked in my favor and I was able to take some wonderful pictures for this month’s project.
I picked the theme for the silly fact that it’s Valentine’s day. Yeah, I wasn’t too creative with my theme selection. When I first started thinking about this month’s project, I figured I would simply get some red flowers and go to town on them (photographically, that is). But I decided to add a twists. A while ago I was browsing the interwebs and came across the idea of using a standard lens as a macro lens by simply turning it around. This month’s project would be a perfect opportunity to try this interesting technique out.
At first, it took some time to figure out the exposure and how I was going to get the focus I wanted. Focusing a reverse lens macro is much like focusing a LensBaby — it takes a special touch and a lot of patience. Once I got rolling, it was a lot of fun to explore those miniature roses in macro. I was blown away by the intricate details that are there if you just look close enough.
The lighting was all done naturally — I simply had the flowers in direct sunlight. By moving myself and the flowers, I was able to get a wide range of light and shadow options. I could have probably used some reflectors to soften the light up a bit, but for most shots, that wasn’t necessary.
All of these shots are hand-held. Because the lens isn’t actually attached to the camera, you really have to hand-hold the whole deal. Also, I think a tripod would have been too limiting. I was constantly moving around looking for various angles and a tripod would have made it too much work. There were definitely times where I wanted a tripod, but I made do without one.
You can view the full set of images from this project on my Flickr page.
One of my New Year’s resolutions was to focus more on personal projects. I laid out 12 projects, one for each month of 2009. The first project is themed “Ice” — I figured January was a good time to take pictures of ice.
Originally, I was going to experiment with bubbles — I had read a blog post a while back where somebody said that when it’s cold enough outside, if you blow bubbles up in the air, they will freeze instantly. Sounded pretty cool, but when I tried it out last night, the bubbles didn’t freeze until after they landed on the ground (if they didn’t break when they hit the ground). It probably wasn’t cold enough and I might try it again later this week when tempuratures are supposed to be downright frigid, but to my delight, when I woke up this morning, there was a super thick frost all over the place. So, I grabbed my camera and took the dog for a walk in the park to capture some images.
My favorite images are the two of the seemingly random branches all covered in frost. The patterns that the branches make remind me of Japanese-style watercolor paintings.
You can view these and more of my images on my Flickr page.
