Amateur Photography

I like photographs, but I like *taking* photographs even more!  And some days I'm torn.  Go somewhere special and just take photos?  Or ... making a photograph out of something ordinary?  It's never an easy choice.  Either one of them takes some kind of effort.  And it takes practice to engage yourself, and sometimes in many ways you're putting yourself into the photograph. 


With camera phones and all the other technology available these days, it's easy to take some pretty amazing photos, but it's an effort when you're trying to create a photo of something out of an ordinary thing.  Last weekend I stopped off at my local park and was just snapping photos. 


I was attempting to get a few things that were a little more eclectic than the usual of finding something to focus on and take a photo.  Like, if there's a bird on a pond, it's an obvious choice to take a photo. 

Here's an example of one that I might have tossed, but as I looked at it, I liked the whimsical angle of the cactus reaching for the sky - not as if they're standing tall, but as if they were ... perhaps, dancing in the wind?   Ok, maybe that's a stretch, or my fanciful imagination, but not all photos should look ... hmmm... staged.









And this second photo,
while there's nothing really
in the photo - no bird -
I was fascinated by the way
they sky and clouds were
reflected in the
(not so clean) water.





Another thing I like to do is make comparisons.  Take this old fence post.  You can see in the color photo that it has a little age, and some rusty barbed wire.  But convert it to black and white, it can take on a whole different look.  I'm not sure which is my favorite of these; I tend to favor black and white photos, but the soft green in the color photo gives it a nice look!

























So if you enjoy taking photos, try new things,
explore, even get a little edgy if you want. 
To me, it makes life just a little bit more interesting!

Black and White

 

I have an affinity

for black and white photography

There's something elegant about it.

Or maybe it's that taking the color out of a photo

makes the person seeing the photo

have to do more than just glance at it.

then again, maybe I'm just ... weird that way.

Even the rain drops show up in this black and white version

and the reflection of the bird in each photo .... 

Pretty neat, but that's just me!

Rainy Day Photos

After the recent warming trend, we have a surprising dreary day on our hands.  Dreary I can take, but I got everything ready to head out the door with Sadie for a walk in the park and discovered it started raining!   Ahh well..... we waited 30 minutes until it let up and then headed over to the park. 

I've become fascinated with trying to capture photos of people around Arizona, along with a black and white format.   As I look at them, I wonder "What's their story?"  and try to discover details captured in the photo for clues. 

In an odd way, it reminds me of my childhood.  We ate dinner at the table together as a family each day at 5pm.  Our dining room has a window that looks out, and our view is an entire neighborhood street with about 20 houses on it.  Which gave us lots to talk about .... we'd see someone loading something in a car and begin a little story about what's going on.  Another neighbor would get a visitor -- is that a relative?  Oh look, same color hair, maybe that's so-and-so....  lol  Yes, we were quite odd in that way.  And so the fascination with stories continues.....

Here, a couple strolls in the rain, heading home perhaps.

He's wearing shorts, and she is barefoot.  

Did the rain catch them unexpected?

These four intrigued me.  Part of a wedding party?

The two boys in front are wearing matching outfits right down to the shoes!

At Night

A study in light, in black and white.  

This is the HOA pool at night

I took a late evening walk, it was so very nice out.  After Sadie's outing today, she's been worn out, but I made her walk with me anyways. hehehe She outta sleep tonight!

I held my own, was very strong in my resolve to do well with my eating today.  That made me happy, even though there were times when I thought I was quite hungry.  Turns out water helps ease that a lot.   I'm still struggling with the numbers I want to reach on the scale.  No matter what folks say, the number still matters in many ways.  I'm still happy with my progress, I just want to see that number -- a number I haven't seen since before I left California in 1998.

Lots of cleaning and sprucing up to be done this week - my girls are visiting next weekend, and I'm looking forward to seeing them!!!