Photo Play #5: Photographing the Familiar

I've been off the computer and out of the sewing room for about a week now in an effort to get my shoulder and back lined out.  Both are improving. I'm hoping to get in a bit of sewing time this afternoon, just as I'm getting in a bit of computer time this morning. I'm starting with a photography post as I've done a lot more of that recently. I'm hoping to get back to the quilting posts on Sunday.  Fingers crossed that there are no ill effects from this morning's computer time and this afternoon's sewing sessions. 

I'm still a bit behind on posting how the photography improvement program is going.  The photos in this post are from mid-February.  These photos were all taken with a Canon 70D with a Tamron 18-400 telephoto lens.  The photos haven't been edited other than to reduce the file size. 

By this point I'd been on each major trail in town once.  It was still winter here at that point, still pretty brown. What would there be to photograph that I hadn't seen before?  You do have to look and take advantage of chance to find new images. 

I noticed the lichens in this photo when I got close to the trunk to take a photo of the branches against the sky.  The colors and textures are really interesting.  Rather than brown there's black, grey, orange, yellow and white.  The textures and colors made this one of my favorite photos from this walk.

One thing I noticed as February passed was the presence of more birds.  My walks in January were mostly silent.  There were two crows who were being pretty vocal about something during this walk.  Crows aren't beautiful birds, but I pulled this photo out of the days shots because it was the best out of 5 photos. All of which were in focus and reasonably composed. That was a big contrast to my robin photos from January, where only two or three out of about 40 shots were actually in focus.  Turning on the lens stabilization and getting the shutter speed right really made a big difference. 

 

Yes this photo was taken on the same walk as the crow photo. What happened to that blue sky? Within minutes of the crow photo, the clouds moved in.  I also shot with a slower shutter speed and smaller aperture, so less light. I really like the atmosphere of this shot.  It's more dramatic, almost threatening.  This is my favorite shot in this post.  

 

Most of my walks include at least one shot of tree branches.  I love the patterns these branches make against the blue sky. That is one part of winter here in Oklahoma that I like, the sky is so blue since it's so dry here (no water particles to muddy the light).  

 

By the end of the week, there were some trees starting to bloom.  This tree is on a different part of the walking path, but I was so thrilled to see these early buds. Unfortunately, it was windy that day and none of my close ups were really in focus.  The telephoto lens only goes so far. Still, that blue, blue sky works for me every time.  

Taking the time to learn the controls on my camera is starting to pay off.  More in focus wildlife photographs, better ability to capture the scene how I want it to look by manipulating the light getting to the sensor.  Learning to really look is still hard and even harder is to slow down and think rather then just point the camera and press the shutter.  I'm getting better, but it's still not second nature yet to think if the camera settings are going to give me the best shot.