Texture Tuesday--Minus 43 eDition

. . . a little hydrangea in the snow . . . hydrangea flowers--especially dried ones--are a favorite subject of mine.

I used two layers of Kim's minus 43 texture--one with the soft light blend mode at 55% opacity and one with the multiply blend mode at 43% (one this layer I brushed the texture off the flower).

I added the texture layers after some tweaking in Lightroom and Radlab.

Beyond Beyond Week 1

I do not know how many exercises I skipped in Kim Klassen's original Beyond Layers class--a year long photography and creative inspiration class--but I do know that I skipped a lot more than I wanted. In any case,  I am back in her Beyond Beyond class for this year because I know itt will be worth it even if I do not do as many exercises as I want (and the format is changed to my liking ... one post a week!)

Our first challenge was to set up a scene (or pick a subject) and shoot it from many angles and view points. We were challenged not to move the subject at all and only move ourselves and the camera and change depth of field or focal point. I am not someone who does a whole lot of still-life photography. I do not really know how to set up scenes with multiple objects that 'work', so I tend toward singling out one item instead.

I had quite a bit of free time on Sunday so I looked around the house and tried thinking up something, fiddled with a couple little scenes, but I came up short. I ended up going back to the little heart box that my daughter gave me a few years ago. She made it in daycare for Mother's Day. I photograph it fairly often (especially around Valentine's day). I poured out the little dried roses that I had put in the box some time ago and sort of set something up. I did not move the objects once I started shooting (though I did want to). It was a worthwhile exercise even though I am not thrilled with any of the shots in particular.  My favorite part was putting it together in a collage . . . creating a collage was not something I had the first clue how to before Kim's Beyond Layers class.

Texture Tuesday

For Kim Klassen's Texture Tuesday.

Birds--A Series of Squares

My mother feeds the birds at her home in Poughkeepsie, NY. While I was there for Christmas, there were a couple of snowstorms that came in, and the birds always knew it-- they loaded up on bird seed before and during the storms. I took a series of bird photos that I edited into square formats.

I am thinking about trying once again to feed birds in my own backyard. I have done it before, but usually failed to keep the feeders full!