We had a heavy frost Thanksgiving morning, so I decided to snap a few shots of it. Several lens changes and a ten frozen fingers later, this is the only shot of frost on our car that I actually like. Photographing frost is hard.
This is frost on my chrysanthemums, but even with the heavy frost, it’s hard to see that.
“Can you tell what this is?” I asked my husband.
“It’s a wilted flower.”
“Can you tell that’s frost?”
“It looks like mold.”
What I’m most thankful for:
This year we had Thanksgiving with a local grad student friend of ours, his parents and assorted friends and family. There were successes (my first homemade double pie crust in, well, ever) and failures (Ike’s abortive nap).
We’ve learned the hard way that Ike won’t nap in strange places. What, you fools expect me to nap in a weird house when there are new people downstairs doing totally fun stuff? No dice.
This week’s photo contest on I Didn’t Blink is sunsets. I immediately thought of this picture I took about a week ago.
Why are winter sunsets redder than summer sunsets?
First, remember why sunsets are red to begin with: when the sun is at a low angle in the sky, sunlight has to pass through more air to reach your eye. The atmosphere is better at scattering blue light than red light, so most of the blue light is scattered away.
During the winter, the angle of the sun is lower than it is in the summer, so it makes sunsets, which are already red, even redder.
[Side note for math nerds: if you’re comfortable with spherical coordinates, imagine a spherical coordinate system centered on the Earth, oriented along the Earth’s axis. We can describe the position of the sun in the sky in terms of phi and theta. Phi, the azimuthal angle, depends on the time of day. Theta, the polar angle, depends on the time of year and the latitude. The amount of atmosphere sunlight has to travel through depends on both angles.]
Citrus season is around the corner.
Fall is apples and pumpkins; winter is for limes and lemons and oranges.
An apple pie says, “Hunker down.” A pumpkin pie says, “The cold wind doth blow and we shall have snow.”
But a lemon tart says, “Cheer up. The sun will come back!”
On a technical note, these are the first pictures that I really altered with RAW conversion. I don’t think I could have made the colors this vivid (considering the fluorescent lights of the grocery store) without shooting RAW.
What do you think? Too much color or just right?
So, I took the plunge and made a few shots with RAW. Here’s Juno chewing a steak bone, converted from RAW both automatically and manually.
Converted from RAW to JPG with auto settings
When I converted it manually with Photoshop, I tweaked the exposure and curve and cropped it.
Converted from RAW to JPG manually
300mm f/8.0
Photographing birds at the bird feeder has proved more difficult than expected. Our feeder is swarming with birds–until I go out to photograph them. Then they stay away. So instead, I took this picture of a bluejay sitting in our maple tree.
It was a cold, gray November afternoon. I think this will be my “Something Cold” in the November Photo Hunt.
Look at that Bedhead! 90mm f/2.8
Ike had just woken up from his afternoon nap. He’s always a little dazed when he first wakes up. I opened the curtain in his room and the late afternoon light came streaming in.
It’s depressing to think that around Christmas, it will be getting dark when he wakes up from his nap.
Today while I was making Sunday dinner, the shapes of the rosemary sprigs, bay leaves, and short ribs fascinated me.
Steam rising off Sunday dinner - 90mm f/2.8
That’s steam rising in the background. I’m not sure what I should have done to make it clearer. It was hard to get a shot that made it obvious what this was, but retained the unusual angle.
This is a little more obvious, but less interesting, in my opinion. 35 mm f/2.0
Next time, I’ll keep trying different angles. Maybe I gave up on the 35mm lens (and switched to the 90mm Macro) too soon. I enjoy taking pictures of food, though. Looking forward to lots of Thanksgiving shots.
In case you were curious, the recipe is Braised Short Ribs, from Molly Steven’s All About Braising.
First, thanks to everyone who viewed my blog yesterday during Sweet Shot Tuesday and a special thanks to everyone who commented. I’ve never gotten anywhere near that many comments before. I was touched.
I was checking out photo blogs (basically looking through the blogs and blog rolls of the people who left comments), when I stumbled on something wonderful.
Kristi does a better job explaining the challenge than I would. I think of it as a photo scavenger hunt. Now I just have to think of creative ways to interpret the challenges.
Winter Berries at Nichols Arboretum
It had been a long time since I ventured out to take photographs on my own. Before we had Ike, I used to go out with my camera around my neck all the time. But after Ike? It was mostly at-home pictures of Ike.
On Sunday afternoon, I went out during his nap and what a joy it was. I should have done that a long time ago. See the rest of my photos here.
So, what did I learn about macro photography? I should probably use a tripod next time. Also, a magic wand to make the wind stop blowing. And figuring out RAW so that I have more control over colors wouldn’t hurt, either. That’s actually my next project. Stay tuned!
Pictures happen all around us. I try to capture a tiny fraction of them. Usually, I fail. Sometimes I succeed, and I post them here.
Rachel Shoots 