Photography

  • Photography

    Love That Shot Contest

    I normally don’t do contests and almost didn’t enter this one, but I decided that even though I don’t really like Photoshop Actions, I could handle winning some of the black and white actions that are available since I love me some black and white as seen in my submission below. Taken a few weeks ago in September in east Texas, and seen on my blog a few posts ago, this is my friend Kylen! Yes, 2 year olds can be friends! All I did to this shot was desaturate it, bump up the contrast and blacks and adjust a little bit of ISO. I’m pretty simple with what I…

  • Gardening,  Photography,  Thoughts

    Monday Musings: Tomatoes, Jobs and Photos

    This cool weather has me missing tomato season in Florida. This time of year we would have already started our seeds and they would be growing and starting to bloom. Our biggest harvests would be from December to February. Chiot’s Run was showing some seed saving recently and it had me dreaming about tomatoes. I miss the Ball jars lining our sink and kitchen window, fermenting and cleaning off the left over tomato bits. Oh, they stunk to high heaven when you took the plastic off, but the beautiful little seed pearls were what we wanted for growing next year. All of my seeds are tucked away in our storage…

  • Friends,  Photography

    Little Ones—Portrait Session

    In my quest to find other kids to take photos of I thought about my friend Candace (Annekind to you forum folks) who had moved to the area near where my in-laws live. I met her at a local park yesterday and took some shots of her 2.5 year old and 3 month old. It was really fun to catch up with her and to hang out with some sweet little kids. In a ‘small world’ sort of deal, a few months ago my friend Amanda from highschool put out an APB for people to come to her for some free portrait sessions while she was portfolio building. I’d just…

  • Creative,  Photography

    Miss Kylen

    I’ve been wanting to take pictures of someone other than my niece for a long time. Not that anything is wrong with taking her photos, but I need to practice on someone else! My opportunity was with one of my bff’s, Michelle and her daughter Kylen. Today I finally got my chance and even though I was not taking money or was it even a ‘professional’ gig, I was nervous as hell as totally screwing up. For one, I don’t have kids. I have no idea how to entertain them very much and two year olds certainly have the audacity to be bored and uninterested one minute and screaming the…

  • Creative,  Photography

    Trout Lilies in Macro

    Some of the other photos I never processed last March were trout lilies that we took at the Heard Museum. On our hike we saw quite a bit of trout lilies in the south. I can’t remember where they stopped growing, maybe Pennsylvania? Anyway, enjoy the photos. I was happy with how some of them turned out, especially the reverse lens macro ones! Yesterday I went for a run with my brother, the first workout post-hike. I kept up and my lungs felt good, but my knees did not enjoy it when I stopped. I was also disappointed to know we only went 2.1 miles. It went fast, but it…

  • Florida,  Hiking,  Outdoors,  Photography,  Thoughts

    The Last Trip to Fakahatchee Strand

    This week will be full of ‘last’ trips. Every time I go somewhere or drive somewhere I wonder if it will be the last time I’ll drive by it. When we left Fakahatchee yesterday I was reading a magazine and when I looked up and realized it’d be the last time for awhile I said goodbye while watching the evening sun glisten across the fields. I wanted to go for one last trip there but my idea was to go see some variegated Guzmania monostachia. Instead Chris and his hiking friend Rich wanted to go to a very distant population of Cranichis muscosa, the moss loving orchid. It was lost…

  • Ghost Orchids,  Outdoors,  Photography,  Thoughts

    The Last Ghost Orchid Trip

    It was bittersweet taking our last ghost orchid trip to Little Slough. When Chris found our slough in 2007 (you’ll have to scroll down to May because I didn’t link titles back then) we’d been searching for ghost orchids for several years. We’d tromped all around Fakahatchee Strand looking for various plants and just exploring, not really knowing any different orchids. When we found this orchid, Campylocentrum pachyrrhizum after a geocaching camping event, we were super excited because we thought it was a ghost orchid. Only, it wasn’t. Close—but no cigar. Sadly, this orchid isn’t even there anymore, it was taken by someone right off the tree. Bummer. We looked…

  • Appalachian Trail 2010,  Florida,  Hiking,  Outdoors,  Photography

    Dinner Island Part II: Macro and Sunset

    After going through the rest of my photos of Dinner Island I realized I didn’t have enough macro shots to warrant a separate post. Alas, you’ll get a mix of macro and sunset. I love looking at the little details… Lichen holding on… I think this is one of my favorite shots. It can be difficult to get light coming in like this, but I love it! Probably my favorite sunset shot out of the set. I didn’t think this one was going to turn out that great when I looked at it in the camera, but I think I like it! A few things: -Does anyone else have horrible…