Whistle stop fun

Tags

childhood, fun, nature, photoaday, Photography

“He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature.” – Socrates

We had fun making music in the garden using blades of grass, it took a few minutes for my kids to get any sound, but when the did we managed to get three different pitches and had a lot of fun making tunes and laughing as we did.

If you want to have a go then just pluck a blade of grass that’s at least about 5cm long. Find the toughest grass you can with the widest blade. Then lay the blade across the outside of one thumb. Press the outside of the other thumb against the first thumb—first, the base of the thumb, and then the tip. This should create a small pocket between your thumbs, with the blade of grass stretched flat in between. The blade needs to be fairly taut for it to work. Next blow into the pocket (try making a small slit with your lips); this should vibrate the grass and make a sound. Moving the tips of your thumbs back and forth makes the grass pull more or less taut, changing the pitch. I think I will need to play catch up soon as I now have six posts to write to catch up on my 30 Days Wild.

Lensbaby love

Tags

art, black and white, blur, childhood, daily, fine art, lensbaby, photoaday, Photography

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep. – Scott Adams

Run, run as fast as you can

The Lensbaby lenses are manual-focus tilt-shift lenses that allow a photographer to creatively explore selective focus and blur. It can help the subject of your photo stand out more (or less, depending on your desired effect).

On the edge

Sometimes it can even create an effect that makes it look like your subject is in motion.

Swinging

The look they create does not appeal to everyone, however, the images they create are very unique, and a lot of fun. I happen to be a huge lensbaby fan. It is one of my lenses (as well as my macro that is!) that is always in my camera bag. It consist of two parts – lens body and lens optic. I have a composer pro lensbaby lens body and a variety of optics which are interchangeable: sweet 35 (35mm), edge 80 (80mm), macro converters and the  double glass optic (50mm). I hope one day to get the pinhole optic, the soft focus optic and the zone plate optic. By far, my most favorite lensbaby optic so far is the edge 80, I just love the look. It creates a slice of focus through the frame, blurring out the rest.

This post is in response to the Daily Post weekly challenge of “blur”, the brief being “A throwaway shot, or purposefully unfocused? This week, find beauty in a blur.”. I immediately thought of my lensbaby with the word blur 🙂

Texture Tuesday: Schools out edition

Tags

art, childhood, photoaday, Photography, Project Life

“If you carry your childhood with you, you never become older.” – Tom Stoppard

Well what I did was as follows:

1. Sharpened in Lightroom 5 slightly.

2. Transfered to Photoshop cc

3. KKbrush used colour burn @ 85% opacity.

4. Duplicated the background layer, screen @ 20% opacity

5. Duplicated the background layer, soft light @ 30% opacity

6. kk_OhMy, multiply @ 25%

7. kk_LittleThings, multiply @35% opacity.

8. kk_LittleThings, Darken @ 35% opacity.

The pre shot is here , as you can probably tell I have just brightened it slightly and added the text, I quite liked the golden tones of the straight out of camera shot and just wanted to enhance it slightly.

Childhood moments

Tags

blogging101, childhood, daily, lensbaby, photo101, Photography

“To photograph is to hold one’s breath, when all faculties converge to capture fleeting reality. It’s at that precise moment that mastering an image becomes a great physical and intellectual joy.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson

Time in motion

I have often used a slower shutter speed to capture movement, as mentioned in the email for Photo 101 “movement is a great way to convey time and fleetingness”.

Since my two children were small I have taken photos of them. I do not want to miss any of the simple moments of childhood as they are far too fleeting. I embrace the ordinary, going beyond simply capturing birthdays, holidays, and special occasions. I am capturing their childhood! Toys left on the floor, homework being done, sleeping, waking up, eating, playing, happiness, tears, moods, you name it I shoot it. I think my kids are so used to having their photos taken now that most of the time they do not mind, often not even noticing that I have taken any.  🙂 Even my son who is not as keen as he used to be realises why I take photos and lets me (within a time frame) take them. He often looks back fondly on all the photos I have taken and the memories that they help keep alive.

The photos below were all taken with a slightly slower shutter speed with a Lensbaby, I love the additional sense of motion that the Lensbaby blur gave to the shots.

Playground to and fro

Fun and games in the playground

For Blogging 101 we are encouraged to enter another blogging event, I never knew there were so many, I will have to have a look through and see if any will work for me and my blog, so watch this space 🙂