Red flowers

Took this shot on a friend's porch. 

more barns

I love this barn! I have to give thanks to my sweet mom who yielded to my creative spark! We were driving down Hwy 99 on Saturday. It was windy and rainy. I was looking out the passenger window just admiring sights along the way. I saw this red barn next to a vineyard and felt my heart sigh :) About 30 seconds down the road I was still thinking about it and said out loud, "I wish I could have taken a picture of that gorgeous, red barn back there." Mom said, "Do you want to?" I said, "No, no, it's ok, it was back there and there isn't anywhere to pull off safely, it is down that frontage road somewhere, etc." A few minutes later she pulls off on the next exit, we find the frontage road, and drive a few miles out of the way to find this barn! An additional bonus was the use of her moon roof in the Suburban to get the height I needed for the shot without too much foreground. It was fun and I am thankful to her for feeding my whim instead of squishing it. I hope I remember to do that with my kids as they grow and express their dreams.

Back view

Not quite a barn :) But still coool!

Barns

Today I had so much fun trying to get some shots of barns that I love in the area.  There is a photographer that I have been reading after and he always describes these adventures where he uses the top of his Land Rover to get good shots. Being vertically challenged, I thought I could follow his coolness...so I climbed on top of my Lan....well, my Ford Freestyle ;) It wasn't easy since I was in boots and a long skirt! I sure attracted some attention for the field workers nearby! But since they probably thought I was nutty, they didn't bother me at first! After a while, they got more bold and I had to cut my photography adventure short- oh well.   The first one is one that sits in a vineyard at an angle and always catches my eye. I tried these shots today, with the overcast skies in mind. I would also like to try the first barn at sunset with the rays hitting the door/vineyard. The second barn is at the house where I spent much of my growing up years. It is special just in content. I have a couple more in particular that I want to try to photograph, but here's the first 2.

More HHI favorites

This one makes me happy :)

Trees before the marsh

Pond, trees, then marsh beyond the trees

RELAXATION!!!

Technical stuff and patterns

You know what I wish? I wish that I had set my camera to AUTO for a few of those sunrise shots on Hilton Head Island---just to compare a before and after. The first morning I was out there, all my pictures were black. I kept making adjustments and it just wasn't happening. Additionally, there ended up being too much cloud cover to show much of a sunrise. In the end, it was kind of comical because about an hour AFTER sunrise, and after a couple cups of coffee I realized I was "adjusting" the wrong thing! I blame it on blurry vision and jet lag??

Ok, so maybe someday I will read all these notes and see this photos and feel a little embarrassed at my lack of skill. But in keeping with my intentions for this blog to be somewhat of a learning record and journal of what captivates my attention, I wanted to write a little about what I did to get the sunrise shots.

First of all, none of them have been altered at all in Photoshop.  I know for certain that if I had a tripod with me, I could have taken some really neat, different shots. The lighting could have been lower and I was so desperately wanting to slowww down that shutter speed to show the motion of the waves and the spray in the low light. But, it just couldn't happen without my tripod. I would have also liked to get the moonlight reflection off the water. I'm pretty sure that shutter would have had to have been open for many seconds-- 20?? or so??

In order to get enough light into the picture so that it wasn't black, but also deep enough so that the colors weren't washed out, I had to use the spot meter and read light from a moderately shadowed area. I found the shadowed sea dunes and and part of the unlit sky gave me the best balance. So, I focused the spot meter on that spot, locked in on that reading, reframed the shot and took it.  I had to try that several times to find a reading that was adjusting appropriately.  In the meantime, the light is continually changing and quickly! I was getting distracted- the fire in the sky, the reflections on the sand, the play of light in the sea grass, ooohh, back to the the cloud line and rising sun!! Fun!  So, I had to keep making adjustments. I also found that as the sky was filling with light, my eyes could see those deep hues of color on the horizon but the camera wasn't picking it up- everything looked very light and washed out in my viewfinder. I quickly adjusted the the exposure compensation- trying first to bring it down about half of a stop, but in the end, I think my favorites were around -1.7.  In review/summary- exposure compensation is the camera's ability to make balanced adjustments of the 3 components necessary for proper exposure (aperture, shutter speed, and ISO-or the light meter's sensitivity to the light.) 

I'm trying to think if there were other technical things in my mind that I was responding to while shooting those pictures... and right now I can't think of anything else. I am going to try to attach a couple shots of fun patterns that I found on the beach and wanted to capture in case I wanted to use them creatively sometime in the future.

You know, there was a better pattern of sand/silt that I was sure I had on my camera. Bummer. It must have been one of those shots that I appreciated and took only with my "eyes". :)

More Hilton Head Island

Here is another one of the waves catching sunrise light.  The contrast of colors is beautiful to me.

In this shot I was trying to capture the "fire" coming out of that low cloud line. It really looked as if the distant puffs were aflame. You can kind of see it, but not quite to my satisfaction. I wonder if a longer telephoto lens was needed? I also like the play of colors here and reflection giving appearance of texture.

I took this one, enjoying the reflection on the sand, the suds, the texture of twigs against smooth sand.

Same draw to this one, especially liking the bird  but wish I could have quickly changed my focal point as it seems the focus is set more on the waves than the bird..

Some first favorites - East Coast Beach Sunrise

This is one of the first shots I took on the morning it actually wasn't cloudy.

The wind was blowing and without a tripod in such low light---there was no way I could get this to focus. But I LOVE this shot. I am so lacking in artistic ability but THIS!!, this seems artsy to me. I would frame this or print on canvas to hang.

I wanted a shot of the surf and I was happy to get one that wasn't dead on but with some interest in a slight diagonal. What I was really trying to capture on this one was that beautiful, warm sunrise sunlight backlighting the waves. Isn't it such a picture of hope? His mercies are new every morning.

I have so many more I would love to post, but am out of time.