POTD CHALLENGE: VERTICAL, HORIZONTAL

After the latest freeze a couple of days ago, of course I headed for THE Falls to find hoarfrost. There was none; only a tad of barely-discernable frost. But it was a good time to try the assignment because the Falls are always photographed vertically. They are huge and long and, well - vertical, after all! This time I wanted to keep the Falls totally in the background, so I focused on the red berries touched with frost.

Now to force myself to do the horizontal from the same place. I guess with the Falls out of focus, it doesn't really make any difference.

POTD CHALLENGE: WORDS

I apologize in advance if this newest post wastes valuable space on this board. I have no idea what I am doing to try to put photos in a row. Before the fact, I see that they may be way too miniscule to even read. My purpose in this post is to pay tribute to my photo buddy and friend, Pat, of patspix. Sometime last year we challenged ourselves to collect letters of the alphabet from nature. You have already seen Pat's blog with the explanation that we must not - will not - "stage" a letter. We must shoot it exactly as we see it, nor will we use any enhancement tool. We each have all our letters, but there is so much fun in the hunt that I may decide to include more than one example of each in my "book". The letters here spell "FRIEND" if they are too small to read. I need to learn how to make a storyboard! Thanks to all of your for your encouragement; I am still rather slow in posting. ML

POTD CHALLENGE: WORDS

I had to make a hurried post this evening, on subject. It is from my Living in Hungary files. Not a good photo, art-wise, but very meaningful otherwise. While there, we visited the apartment of some college-age Americans and I was touched by their July 4th "decorations." "God Bless America" in any language are great words! ML

POTD Challenge

Fresh snow and a near-by mill pond - yay! And Pat to go with me - Yay again. We had a wonderful morning, leaving as soon as it got light, to go out and about and see what we could see after the fresh, dry, cold snowfall. At the edge of the mill pond, I tried for a shot of stark white snow background to these cattails, stuck in ice. So, here are 3 varieties, which is pretty cocky of me since I don't know if even the original is worth keeping! ML

SOOC; no enhancements or crops:Below, I added some degrees of color saturation. What I really wanted in the first place is a stark snow (and nothing else) background with just two colors: the brown tops and parchment stems. I am not sure if I got it right.
Then, to try just BW conversion:

FOCUS INTO 2008

Oh my, this is so weird! I just saw Pat's post and she has the same idea; we didn't even mention it to each other! One of the things on which I want to focus this year is to improve my people-picture-taking skills. I don't have any, so this will be a great learning experience for me. My history to this point (and will be for the little while ahead) as a Pea-er has been with my Olympus point-'n-shoot. I am starting research even now into the big next step of getting a dSLR. Anyway, my hope is that I will be more active in taking (and enjoying doing so, which I don't right now) photos of our grandchildren.

I am happy with this photo of DGD A., age 3, simply because of the sappy expression on her face. You see, she is fondling a rock and she thinks she is alone. I am a rock hound, and I just wanted to hug her when I saw her pensive feelings here!
I tried to get too close, so there is too much noise here, but I am glad that her face shows the dirt from her rock-rubbing! I really, really, am anxious to learn to "do" people this year!

POTD

I am new at this. I could post a few from this same outing I took yesterday, but since this is called PHOTO OTD, I guess it is one at a time... I took a hike around nearby Rattlesnake Lake after a fresh snowfall. This photo is SOOC; no color enhancement. Yes, it was a very cold, and grey 'n white day. But so refreshing! ML

HATS OFF !

Okay, this is my first try at setting up this blog. I'm ready to go! This is not exactly newly-shot, as you can tell from the sun shadows! But it IS hats, and they ARE off. ML