Photo Of Choice

I know these photos aren't really great, but the subject is what matters to me the most. This is my life. This is us, chillin' in the hospital with Mom.

Obviously I didn't take the pics since I'm in them . . .

White on White

Okay, so I know these aren't totally white, but close enough.

Eyes

Ha ha. This picture is so bad. Oh well, now you can see my Curtis eyes and clumpy mascara.

Sorry World

Who knows if anyone even looks at this any more! My mom's been sick and I've been consumed with that (even though I'm nearly 700 miles away from her) and haven't been a good poster. I haven't even taken pictures in the last month. However, before the bottom fell out I'd done some thinking ahead, so I'll post the topics I have pictures for and skip the ones I don't have (i.e. the hard ones). No promises on how regular I'll be in the future, but I'm trying. Oh, and I DID get a tripod for Valentine's day so maybe I can keep the bad shakes out of some of my future pics.

Light

Yes, I'm early. I figured it's about time I was ahead of the game. Today was also a great picture today, even though I was constantly worried I'd run out of power before getting the perfect shot.

For light I could always post another of my abundant sky photos, but I'll spare you and shake it up a bit. Today I was visiting my mother-in-law and was struck by the brightness and shadows as the sunlight filtered into the room and fell on her antique sewing machine. I think it created a nice effect.

Movement

Because I had to put together a sequence for this one, you may need to open the picture to get any details, but the thumbnail gets the point across.

Reflection

As I was thinking about this theme, I was having a hard time coming up with an idea because when I thought reflection I thought mirror. That wasn't working for me. Finally I realized I could use the water in the swimming pool for a reflection. Didn't work too well, either. Then as I was walking around the golf course today, I discovered the pond (complete with ducks) was a great option. The breeze--and the ducks--made the watera little choppy, but I'm pretty happy with it.

Photo Of Choice

Should we see how many of my photos of choice are of the sky? Sorry. The sky is one of my favorite things about living in the desert. Even when there are no clouds in the sky, the sunsets are so colorful. Good stuff.

I didn't even photoshop this one. I took it with the sunset setting on my camera, so that made it a little more dramatic.

I think Troy was a little bothered that I took this one because it was cold that morning and he was anxious to get inside, but I had to capture the light bouncing off the clouds as it came over the horizon.

Landscape

This is Blythe. Well, the town is near the horizon. This is agricultural Blythe.

I like how the colors turned out in these. The varying shades of green scream spring to me. Next time I'll get less sky (rule of thirds, you know).

Vehicles

I had planned on taking a picture of the RVs lined up in one of the parks in town, but couldn't get a good shot. However, I think this is an example of a monster vehicle. This thing probably cost more than 5/6 of the houses in town then add the gas it takes to run it. Crazy. I wish I could have got a shot a whole row of them.

Monochromatic

Design Through Cropping Manmade

Design Through Cropping Nature

Well, I guess this counts.

Children

I haven't been around kids for a while, so I had to go into the vault. These are my nieces and nephew at Thanksgiving. I had a few candids, but isn't this what kids do? Half of them put on nice smiles and look adorable and half cheese it and look at the pictures 20 years later and think "Oh goodness." Funny kids. Gotta love 'em.

Photo of Choice

This is a pretty common sunset in Blythe. I was driving around looking for general photo inspiration when I turned the corner and saw this. I really like the silhouette of the trees against the sky. Is it cheating to photoshop? I dimmed the foreground to highlight the colors in the sky more. Why not? This is more true to what I remember the scene being anyway. It was pretty dark. :)

Black and White

I actually took this one for something else, but thought it was fun for this subject. Obviously it was pretty much black and white to start with, but I tweaked it a little in Photoshop to correct some of the lighting color distortions.

Modern--I've Finally Given Up

Yes, I know. I'm behind. I blame this stupid picture. I actually took this on the modern day, but really don't like it so I kept looking for something better but didn't find anything. Finally I decided that if I'm posting 365 pictures, not all of them have to be perfect and perfectly astounding. So here you go. My grainy lame excuse for a modern photo.

Modern

Yeah, this is hard. There is nothing modern in Blythe. I tried taking a few of semi-modern structures, but between the blur of the camera and the lameness of it all, I don't think it's going to work out. I'm going to have to do some research and get creative.

Aging or Old

What do you mean "the library needs new books"?

I'm sure some of it has to do with my camera, but I know I have to take some of the blame for the fuzz that appears in all my photos. This was the only side shot I took--lots of straight on views, but I didn't like any of them as much as this. Maybe I'll tackle it again tomorrow before I put all the books back.

Another's Perspective

This one turned out a little blurry, so maybe someday I'll do a better one, but I guess this is the perspective of our stereo. This is what it would see night after night, us staring at the TV and with the sounds of Sportscenter filling the room. What a life.

I tried to get some good ones at the grocery store, but between the funny looks and the fuzzy images, it didn't work out.

Love

I'll come right out with it: Troy and I are not photogenic. We tried taking some "love" pictures, but it just didn't work. In fact, this is Troy after he realized how bad we looked in our pictures:

So I decided to take a less conventional route. You could say this picture represents how much we really must love each other. I love to eat croutons as snacks and Troy is a green olive fan. Neither leave us smelling too great, but we still stick around and endure the unpleasantness.

The trick with this picture was the lighting. I played with about three different sources before finding something that didn't leave too many glares or wash out the colors.

Complete Stranger

Yes, yes, I'm a little behind. I tell ya, this stranger thing was tricky. I wanted to make this picture focus on the human element, but that's very difficult to achieve because a) people don't act the same when they're being photographed and b) people don't like being photographed by a complete stranger. In fact, as I was sneaking pictures while standing in the super-crowded supermarket line, one of my friends caught me and asked if I was doing surveillence. Oops, I had some explaining to do.

Anyway, I chose this one because of the body language in the picture. It's hard to make your body hide the fact that you are frustrated the express lane is not.

Photo Of Choice

That's right, violas in January. Feel jealous all you freezing Utah and elsewhere folks? Before I jumped on the photo-a-day bandwagon I was tidying up my patio and decided my flowers were looking very vibrant in the muted sunlight, so I played with my macro setting a little. I like this one because it looks like they're telling each other secrets. Kind of reminds me of that weird part in Alice in Wonderland with the singing flowers, but in a good way.

Pyramid

This whole taking pictures for a purpose thing is kind of fun. I look at things more. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me tonight as we drove around town and if I had I don't think I could have convinced Troy to pull over so I could take a picture. I guess this obvious pyramid will have to do.

Rule of Thirds

So I'm playing catch up a little. Obviously I didn't take this during 2008 because Richfield is now frozen and there are no leaves on the trees; I took this last summer. Between the water tower, mountains and sunset, I think this is a good "thirds" pick. I'm sure it's hard to see, but I also love how you can see the depth in the mountains, like one layer stacked on another. Yay for summer sunsets!

363 Pictures

Kamie is my inspiration. What more can I say. After buying our digital camera last year, I don't really do much with it and really want to get better at photography. My dad has super expensive and super fancy cameras that he's gotten quite good with, so why not challenge myself a little and follow in his footsteps? Maybe I'll get Troy involved, but don't count on it. :)

The goal is to post a picture every day, each day with a different technique, subject, whatever. Dustyn and Kamie have a schedule all worked out, so I'll follow it. Although I think I'll be a day behind because I need Dustyn's expertise to explain what the techniques and compositions are. Thank goodness for people who know what they're doing.

Who's ready for some fun? Feel free to play along. Just let me know your blog address I'll add you to my list.