Monday, August 29, 2011

Week 13 by Robin

This is a single-blossom hibiscus vase standing up in front of a "groovy" iTunes visualization screen on my old Mac that I just resurrected back to life. Peace, love and happiness!  :)

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Week 13 by Judy

Soon-to-be Seedlings

These are Desert Rose seeds just as they are when they come out of the seed pod. The seeds are about three inches long and very delicate. If not contained, they are designed to be caught up and dispersed by the wind. They are so weightless, I had to turn the AC off in the house while shooting them because it was blowing them around. I hope to plant these and start another crop of Desert Roses. This will be my second crop. I got seventeen plants from the last seed pod. Shot with 100mm macro; the only editing done was some cropping.

Week 13 by Becky

DINNER ON THE RUN

For this blog, I had planned on taking a photo of some tree bark or fungus. I was going for an abstract feel this week when I came across this insect going to town trying to dig something out of a hole in the bark. The color of this insect caught my eye. The body is bright orange and the legs were black and white stripes, like stockings. It is the strangest looking insect. So I started taking some photos of it while it dug around in this hole. This is the last shot I took of this guy. He pulled this other insect out of the hole and started walking off with it. From the quick research I did, it looks like this is the nymph state of the Assassin Bug (aka Wheel bug). Great to have around gardens because it eats pests. Which I am thinking the bug it is eating is the bug that killed our pine tree.

Sunday, August 21, 2011

Week 12 by Robin

Dear Little Deer

I decided to go to the craft store up in Viera today just to get out of the house. I brought my camera with me so that I could visit Viera Wetlands before I went home. Well.. the wetlands was very boring at first. No critters close by to take photos of except the occasional bug and I didn't have my macro lens. It was so bad that I started taking photos of grass! Haha! Then I came up to this SUV blocking the road and thought... geez!...What now? Well... there was this little deer munching away and this older gentleman taking photos of him. Other photographers joined in and this sweet little guy wasn't scared of us at all. He actually came towards me while munching the grass and I got this shot! I was in total delight! Such huge ears you have little deer! You never know what's around the next bend in the road. :)

------------UPDATE-----------
This won 3rd place (Class A) in the Brevard Camera Club October monthly competition! It will be displayed at Southern Photo, Melbourne, FL for the whole month! :)

Week 12 by Judy

Nature's Symmetry

I've been playing with my new macro lens. It's my first fixed focal lens, so it is taking some getting used to, but I think it's going to be a fun lens. These are little spores on the back of a fern leaf. I love how they are all lined up just right. Nature is just amazing!

The only editing done was applying a low strength Topaz small details filter effect.

Friday, August 19, 2011

Week 12 by Becky

YELLOW

Tried painting with light. The last time I painted with light was in 2002, using a Minolta SLR (film) camera, for a photography class that I took with my friend, Judy. That was fun. Decided to try it again with my Nikon D300s DSLR. This is a yellow daisy like flower. I used black velvet as my background and a small led flashlight. Set my f-stop to f32 and manually focused. This was all done in my home office. As soon as I clicked the shutter, I lit up the flower with the flashlight. Next time, I will try it someplace where it is pitch black (e.g., my closet or outside). I will play with this technique again.

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Week 11 by Becky

Can You See Me?

I went to the same field trip as the rest of my friends, but after I saw this little guy, on my front porch the following day, I knew he was the one I wanted to post to the blog. Almost didn't see him amongst the rocks. He had some interesting red eyes and he sat there while I took his photo.

Week 11 by Robin

Our camera club went to Historic Cocoa Village to take some night shots. Lots of people wondering about all the photographers with their tripods meandering aimlessly around the village taking photos. Someone mentioned that there might be someone famous in the area and we were the paparazzi. Hahahahahaha! Anyway....it was interesting to try something new. This image is from one of the window displays. The displays were very beautiful, interesting and artistic.

Saturday, August 13, 2011

Week 11 by Judy

The Pink Door

Went to Historic Cocoa Village for one of our Camera Club's monthly field trips. This was an evening field trip and a first for me at attempting night time photography. It was a fun learning experience. This is the front door to one of the several eateries in the Village taken just about at twilight. I liked all the lights, colors and the angles of this entrance. I applied a low strength of the Topaz Psychedelic filter and used the Elements cookie cutter tool to give it a ragged frame.

Monday, August 8, 2011

Week 10 by Judy

What's up Doc?

I had no idea what I was going to shoot for this week's blog, but then I went for a bike ride this evening and rode up on this little bunny. Actually, there were about 10 to 15 bunnies hopping around. Don't know where they came from. This one was the only black and white one; all the others were white, but they wouldn't hold still and this one sat still...well, for a few moments anyway. I converted the background to B/W and saturated its eye a little, but it was already a pretty blue.

Sunday, August 7, 2011

Week 10 by Robin

We went to Viera Wetlands this afternoon and only got a few shots in before they kindly told us that they would be closing. They used to let us stay until sunset but they probably get tired of waiting for us silly photographers trying to get that perfect image. An anhinga drying his wings and an ibis. I cropped this quite a bit, adjusted the color to make it a deeper orange, adjusted tones and contrast and added a vignette.

Saturday, August 6, 2011

Week 10 by Becky

IN A HURRY

Macro shot of some potpourri piece I kept to take a photo of. Thought the shape looked interesting. Set up on black velvet with natural front lighting from my home office window. Processed the raw file in Adobe Photoshop CS5, curves, sharpened using high pass filter, noise ninja, Topaz Adjust (spicify) which I reduced the opacity, converted to B/W using Gradient map, resized and saved for web. I think that covers it. I titled it "In A Hurry" because to me it looked like a person who was in a hurry to get someplace.

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Week 9 by Robin

This is one of those gel-like balls you get in jars at the craft store to add to flower arrangements. I love photographing them because they are so clear. I was attempting to get it to look like a water drop, but felt it was too big to be convincing. I stuck it on a green stem. The background was a big flower on blue fabric.

Monday, August 1, 2011

Week 9 by Judy

Sunrise Over the Cape

We went camping this past weekend at a small county park along the Indian River. This is a great park for watching rocket launches from Cape Kennedy. We have camped here a couple of times to view Shuttle launches - just beautiful! Across the river is the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB). Sadly, the VAB is now an icon of a bygone era. The Shuttle program was a great success and it will be missed. This photo was taken just before sunrise with some cropping as the only editing.