Week 7 by Robin

I've been trying to get back to my uninhibited, creative side. I lost it a while ago. I always admired photos of oil on water with pretty light and colors so I thought I'd give it a try. I tried for a few days to get something I liked. The first tries were pathetic and out of focus. I finally got some shots tonight that were closer to what I imagined.

Week 7 by Becky

Self Portrait - July 14, 2011

This photo was taking for my personal Project 50, where I take a self portrait on the 14th day of each month until I turn 50. This is my 3rd self portrait. I have always loved photography. I love looking at photos and I love taking photos. I love messing with photos in Photoshop. I enjoy turning our vacation photos into photo books. I am all about memories and catching the moment. My first SLR was a Nikon. I have had other brands over the years, but finally went back to my old love and bought my Nikon DSLR last year. I love it.

Week 7 by Judy

The Pollinator

Caught this bee coming in for another load of pollen, but I don't know how he could carry much more! His target is a Peruvian Apple Cactus flower. It only blooms for one night. Then the blossoms fall off and a red skinned fruit, about the size of a small apple, begins to form and in about two weeks it ripens. I had some of the fruit for breakfast this morning. It is hard to describe the taste, but it's good. I took this photo at 7:36am and by 8:15am the blossom was closed up.

Week 6 by Judy

Googly Eyes

This was a project called "Break Out of the Box" in the latest Photoshop Elements magazine. It's supposed to give a 3D effect. Of course, it took a lot more time to do than I thought it would, but it was a fun learning experience. I was more interested in the doing the project, than the subject matter for the photo, but I like it. It's a clay turtle I received as a gift several years ago, but I know it was purchased at a local art show.

Week 6 by Robin

From Becky's lovely image...to my photo of a this hideous creature, the common house fly. Beauty and the beast! Ha ha! I was outside with my macro lens looking for something cool to photograph with my external flash, but all my photos were terrible. So... I saw this housefly on the window sill and he became my model. I used my flash off the camera and set my camera's flash to flash with the external for the first time. It worked! No wires! I diffused the light some. The colors were quite nice for such a revolting creature! :)

-----------UPDATE------------

This photo won a first place prize of $60.00 at JPGMAG "JPG Shootout" " What's Buggin' You? " I didn't quite believe it at first, but it was true. Then...I got paid for the winning photo! Yay! What a wonderful feeling THAT is! Joy! :D

Week 6 by Becky

COWGIRL

Arrggh, I hate when I don't check my ISO. This photograph was shot with the ISO set to 2000. So it has more noise in it than I wanted. I still like the photo; I just hate that my ISO was set so high. I normally like to shoot around 200. Oh well, live and learn. Anyway, this was good practice for processing a photo with a lot of noise. This is my daughter who graciously posed for me for this week's blog. Normally, she isn't an easy model because she gets frustrated that I take so long to get a shot and I keep saying pose one more time. I am always wanting to get better at taking portrait shots so I thought no better time than now. Shot using available window light. Opened in Photoshop and messed around to achieve this trendy high contrast look. I followed Scott Kelby's photo tips on achieving this. Also played around with skin softening techniques. Not that she needed it, but it is nice how it came out.

Week 5 by Robin

Darn! I was hoping to not be last again! But, I usually edit photos at night while watching TV. Anyhooo...I didn't have anything great so I combined two photos I took this morning and edited them with an overlay. This is the same bird. She is a brave one and the first one at the bird feeder when I put the seeds out in the morning.

Week 5 by Becky

TRAPPED

I bought this large crystal ball a few years ago for the sole purpose of being one of my photographic props. Saw it sitting there on my shelf and I figured it was about time it was used. I have always liked what I see when looking through a crystal ball or even a clear marble. I figured I could have fun with this and also do a self portrait. So, here I am acting like I am trapped in this crystal ball. Took me three days to come up with one that I kind of liked. I had a lot of fun doing this. Getting the lighting and the shocked/scared look was a bit humorous.

Week 5 by Judy

We spent a couple of days at Disney's Caribbean Beach Resort for the holiday weekend. This is a photo of some of the buildings at the resort with storm clouds approaching. I liked the colors of the buildings and the decorative woodwork. I did a little editing with Topaz (mild detail). Happy 4th of July!!