Elly

So you met Maya the other day…this is her family’s pug, Miss Elly.  It was kind of strange photographing someone else’s pug for a change but I soon figured out where her good side was. 

Mallard Conversion

Wow…I’m posting back-to-back black & white prints.  Now that’s a first.

But this one, although beautiful in its original color version, came into its own once I cropped away almost all of it and really dug into the pattern of those beautiful mallard feathers.  It was then that I heard it screaming out, “Convert me!”  

I was only too happy to oblige…

Trumpeter

I’m making some images up for my church to use during our Holy Week “Walk To The Cross” that takes place on Good Friday so I’ve been walking around some local cemeteries trying to capture some religious statues and monuments to use in the artwork.  This was on the side of a mausoleum wall and I really liked the way the shadows of the trees in the background made the angel look almost 3-D.  Once I converted the photo from color to black and white, then it really popped. 

Best of 2007

It seems that many of the photobloggers I read are putting out their “Top Ten” this morning so I thought I’d give it a shot.  I bought my Canon Powershot S3 IS back in January, getting me as close to a DSLR as I could afford at the time and it has definitely done its job at helping me take my images to the next level.  Then, in late summer, I bought a copy of Photoshop Elements 5, took an online course and bought the indespensible book, “Photoshop Elements: The Missing Manual” and that also helped me take another step forward by changing how I post-process my images.  By the end of the year I was adding actions and presets into the mix and now I’m just beginning to see all the different ways I can creatively take an image I see in my head and make it come out looking uniquely my own. 

This next year I am going to do everything I can to get my hands on the Canon 40D and a few prime lenses and continue to delve into learning Photoshop layers. 

Here, then, are my pick of my top ten images of 2007.  (To see my top 100 shots for 2007, head over to my Flickr page and view the slideshow!)  *Click on images to see the full size photographs.*

My favorite macro shot of all my flower images, this one just filled the frame with upclose detail.

My favorite butterfly image from the 200+ I shot at the Butterfly festival in Powell Gardens on an August afternoon.  I cannot wait to go again next year! 

This has to be my best cloud photo of the year.  It was used by Stanford University for their brochure announcing a new weather major at their school.

Gotta be my best sunrise image for 2007.  The golden tones just blew me away that morning and it’s luminosity shined through in this photograph.

My favorite plant photo of the year.  Love the bokeh on this one and the contrast between the soft leaf and the hard-as-nails thorns.

This has to be one of my best insect macros of the year.  I love the bokeh on this one as well as the detail of the tiny hairs along his legs. 

I hate snakes…but this one got me over my fear as he posed for my camera in the driveway of my home.  This is the first snake photo I’ve ever taken where I didn’t cringe when I first saw it. 

I’m a leaf girl…no doubt about it.  It was a three-way tie for my favorite leaf image this year but this one won, hands down.  The texture of the mud against the texture of the leaf sealed the deal as I found it lying in the parking lot of one of my nearby state parks.

This one is probably more sentimental than anything else.  I have access to squirrels 24/7 what with the 16 trees in my immediate backyard and this image really did it for me this fall.  I was so happy with his expression, the angle of the shot and the great bokeh in the background. 

My favorite black and white of the year, this was my second favorite leaf image of the year.  It was my first attempt at taking a color image and converting it to black and white using PSE and I was very happy how it turned out. 

And there they are…the ten best of 2007.  

“Porcelain” Petee

Here’s the main little guy in my life, Petee. I adopted him from the Midwest Pug Rescue back in July of 2006 and have been in love with his fiesty character and his loving nature ever since.

I took this photo yesterday over the Christmas holiday. He was sitting right inside my french doors so the natural light was streaming in around him. I converted the image to a black & white and then finished it with a Porcelain action that I purchased from EZ Action Photoblast.   

Cumulus Clouds

I was going through some older images tonight and ran across this one that I took on vacation in Michigan back in the summer of 2006.  Tonight when I looked at it I instantly thought, “This should really be in black and white” so I converted it in Photoshop and tweaked the levels just a bit. 

Here’s both the color version and the black & white.  Which one is artistically better?  What do you think?

Before:

After:

Glory Hallelujah

I was invited to take some photos of my friend with her new horse, Glory, today.  I’m still processing the 200+ images but, so far, this one is my favorite. 

Mosquito Minimalism

I’ve been reading a bit on minimalism as it applies to photography lately so when I saw this mosquito hiding behind the spoon rest on my stovetop this morning I took a shot and tried my hand at it. 

Even though the photo was basically a black bug on a white stovetop I still had to convert it to b&w because of the incandescent glow of the indoor lighting.  Then I pumped up the contrast and positioned him off center and that was about it!

Shades of Gray

I shot this photo of two leaves last night right at dusk and no matter what I did to it, I couldn’t get the noise in the background to quiet down.  I took another look at it, converted it to black and white, wiped out the background and voila! 

I tend to think of Autumn photos as a way to bring the spectrum of nature’s colors to the forefront but sometimes I have to remind myself that there’s more than that to fall images - there’s things like texture and depth of field that can make or break a good fall photo - and changing things up can sometimes result in getting something better than what you originally had in mind.  It’s still not perfect - but I like it so much better than the color version.

Benched

A wooden bench. A spot of shade. What more could you want on a warm summer’s day?