Photo of the Day Themes

weekly themes

JANUARY
1/5 Start… Ready, Set, Go
1/12 Use of texture
1/19 Technology
1/ 26 Hobbies

FEBRUARY
2/2 Home sweet Home
2/9 Love
2/16 heart of the….(city, house, etc.,)
2/23 Before and after (SOOC vs PPing)

MARCH
3/2 A few of my favorite things
3/9 Macros
3/16 Safety/ Risk
3/23 Emotions
3/30 Ways to save

APRIL
4/6 Oh Baby
4/13 Motion
4/20 Earth, Wind (or sky), and Fire
4/27 Architectural Details

MAY
5/4 Girly
5/11 Flowers
5/18 Around Town …as seen by a tourist
5/25 Animals

JUNE
6/1 Opposites attract
6/8 Backlighting or sunbursts/sun flare
6/15 All Boy
6/22 Dreams/pretend/Play
6/29 Patriotic

JULY
7/6 Faces in strange places
7/13 Water
7/20 Public Art
7/27 What is it? Extreme close-ups

AUGUST
8/3 Landscapes
8/10 Hands, feet. fingers and toes.
8/17 ABC or 123
8/24 Shapes
8/31 Perspective

SEPTEMBER
9/7 There is Beauty All Around
9/14 People, places and /or things
9/21 secret hideouts
9/28 contrast

OCTOBER
10/5 Play that Funky music White boy
10/12 Reflections
10/19 Aperture differences (Depth of field)
10/26 Black & White

NOVEMBER
11/2 Heroes/Tributes
11/9 Research
11/16 Noise
11/23 Silver
11/30 Traditions

DECEMBER
12/7 Bling
12/14 Dangling
12/21 Cold or Christmas
12/28 Finish : A year in review

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3/365: Night Portrait Setting

The first Project 365 Challenge at ScrapShare was posted this morning. Over the next week, we are to use the Automatic settings on the camera. This is something I hardly ever do, but this evening, I used the Night Portrait Setting on my D70 to photograph Erica and Kathleen playing a Nancy Drew Mystery Game, the Creature of Kapu Cave.



I then checked out the settings the Night Portrait used and shot the same general scene, using Aperture Priority Mode. I learned that the Night Portrait uses the Slow Sync flash, something I should use more often in low light, or at least at home for static pics.



Today's takeaway - the scene modes are a good starting point to learn more about how the camera handles different exposure situations, and then you can use that information in the Manual modes.

1st picture EXIF:
Shot in Night Portrait Scene Mode
Exposure: 0.333 sec (1/3)
Aperture: f/4.5
Focal Length: 70 mm
Exposure Bias: 0 EV

2nd picture EXIF:
Shot in Aperture Priority
Exposure: 0.4 sec (2/5)
Aperture: f/4.5
Focal Length: 70 mm
Exposure Bias: 0 EV

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2/365: Dodging for the First Time

Even though I have owned Photoshop Elements since 2005, I had never taken advantage of the advanced features it is capable of. Last year, I followed one of Jessica Sprague's tutorials and learned how to use layers for Digital Scrapbooking. The problem with written tutorials is they are often hard to follow. Enter the Video Generation and Youtube, where video tutorials abound.

This evening, I took the following picture of some prairie grass as the sun set. I had limited time and only snapped one exposure:

The grass is underexposed, so I thought I would try to dodge some of the detail out. I found an excellent video tutorial on YouTube, produced by "photoshopkid" [the things kids are into these days!] and dodged for the first time.

I'm sure this won't win any photo contests, but I like the results (I cropped it, too):

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1/356: Grandma's Glasses

I think Grandma took advantage of the bright sun today while reading her book.

EXIF:
Camera: D70
Exposure: 0.006 sec (1/160)
Aperture: f/5
Focal Length: 52 mm
Exposure Bias: -1/3 EV
Lightened to +1/3 EV and Curve applied in Nikon Capture

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Project 365 - A Picture a Day for a Year

Even after my endeavor to take a picture each day in December ended up, well, short, I still plan to start Photo Project 365 in a couple of days.

The basic premise? Simple - take a picture every day and post it.
I plan to post here, at my Flickr site and on Scrapshare, where a weekly photography challenge will start in the new year.

I've included some links in the sidebar of others who participate in Project 365.

Wish me luck (I'm gonna need it, I think)!

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Kiss from Hannah

Although I wish Brian's face is more in view, I love the spontaneity of this picture - it is rare for Hannah to "kiss" any of us.

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Eye Candy

The steps leading to the Gingerbread house:

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Ice, Ice, Baby

Truthfully, I abhor that song / artist, but it makes for a somewhat witty title this icy, wintry evening. Today's weather was a repeat of last Tuesday's - freezing rain and ice. Scott and I rode together to work and we left early because we didn't want to get stranded at work with the kids home.

So, some more icy pictures from today:

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New Blog

I decided to spend some time today, the start of my Christmas break, to create a second blog dedicated to my Daily photo challenge and general photography.

I managed to tweak the layout and hopefully that won't impact any pictures I post.

The header picture is a panoramic of Nanchang, JiangXi Province, China, taken from the top of Shengjin Pagoda. Hopefully, I'll change out the header picture every now and then.

That's it for now - hope you come back to visit!

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