The Better Ones (PICS)

Of course, I figured I’d round out my barrage of photo entries with my attempts at actual photography.  Some are of nature, some are from the chili cook off, and some are just of random things from around the house.

Enjoy!

Yep, that’s me.  I propped my camera up in my bathroom window (which is actually made of glass blocks and diffuses light really well), and sat on the edge of the bathtub facing it.  I didn’t touch up my eyes or anything on my face, but I intentionally post processed this to make it look harsh.  I love it.

This is one of the first pictures I took after I got my new 50mm f/1.4 lens.  I took this same shot several times at different aperatures to study later.  That lens, by the way, is my new, most favorite thing ever.

One of the plain cedar bird houses that Chuck made with the girls.

That’s an incense burner that I picked up in Key West almost ten years ago.  I don’t really know why I stuck a wildflower in the top of it.  I think I just wanted an excuse to take a picture.

Yeah, this is my mail basket that I keep in my office.  Apparently, Willie decided it should be his bed.

I figured it was a good photo op.

I was quite amused by these trophies at the chili cook off.  Of course I had to take a picture.

There was also a car show/contest at the chili cook off.  I love old cars, so again, had to break out the camera.

It quickly became apparent that the bumper on this car is crooked when I tried to straighten up this photo in Gimp.  That made me laugh.

This was some weird decoration on one of the show cars.  I couldn’t resist.

This was probably my favorite picture that I took that day — the inside of an old Chevrolet.

Taken at a leather worker’s booth.

I had to throw at least one kinky one in there, right?  I may be in a new role as a near-mommy and near-wife, but hey, I’m still me!

I don’t know if you guys are familiar with smoke photography (which I’ve decided to coin SmoPho), but I’ve been interested in it since I first saw an article about it on DPS.  I finally bought a shoe cord for my flash just so I could try it.  I watched a couple of how-to videos on YouTube, and built a mini home studio out of some paperboard and black spray paint.  It took me a little while to get the hang of it, but I eventually got a ton of great smoke shots from a burning incense stick.

Obviously, I colorized this one red in post processing.

I colorized this one, then inverted it to get the purple smoke and white background.

I love this one.  It makes me think of a turbulent ocean with waves at the bottom and stormy skies above. Yeah, I totally just amped up my dorkness, didn’t I?

So, I knew I also wanted to do some kind of composite shot with my SmoPho, too.  I took this photo in my same little, homemade studio, but with a table lamp lighting from directly above.  Chuck actually thought I should photograph an apple since I was burning apple incense, but alas, I was eating the last one.  Oh, well.

And here’s the final product.  I used the orange photo and that first smoke photo that I posted above to create this image.  I have lots of ideas for some more composite shots that make a little more sense than a smoking orange.  I just haven’t gotten around to taking them yet!
 

Well, that’s all I’ve got for now.  Happy Tuesday, everyone!

Cheers!
Felina