Evening light is beautiful in “The Library” as the living room is now affectionately called. The bookcases are coming along, the corner hutch is filled, and the mantel is decorated for summer.
But today is all about reading, ethereal light and tea…
Victoria is my favorite magazine of all times ever since my sister-in-law Linnea left a few issues at my mother and father’s new home then in the early 1990’s. I came to visit and found something I didn’t even know I was looking for ~ ethereal photography in a magazine fresh and light and utterly beautiful.
The Library bathed in sunlight is the best place for reading in the late afternoon with its ethereal lighting. Beautiful light ~ a bit overblown but the light changes rapidly as the sun continues its descent beyond the oaks and fence and neighboring home outside.
Capturing a bit of the essence of Victoria’s now retired photographer Toshi Otsuki was the ideal for me…
Just beyond crickets are beginning their evening song. The robins snack at the birdfeeder just hung beyond the windows and Mr. Squirrel scoots around picking up fallen treats along the ground.
Peaceful and airy and dressed in white ~ the Golden Hour has come and one must capture it as best one can…
“Take a break,” the tea table calls to me.
“Come read a bit and let your heart be free!”
Pulling up a chair I do sit for a bit thumbing and revisiting
Old Friends…
Sip by sip the tiredness washes away on the dust particles floating by in the waning light.
To be lost and forgotten in a world of one’s imagination…
How muchis that doggie in the window? So sings the song and it was especially apropos on this early fall snow day at our son and daughter-in-love’s home.
Our trip to South Dakota just a short time ago was plumb packed with apple picking,
Mall of America shopping and lots of photographic moments like this one.
Come along as we enjoy a little fall snow fun!…
Snow is enchanting when there is just a dusting of it on the ground ~ it is a bit magical with each tiny snowflake sparkling as the sun peaks through the clouds and sets it aglow.
Our son and daughter-in-law’s dogs were excited to go out and play in the snow as was I.
***
Snow is also fun to enjoy from a dog’s point of view.
;)’
Luna~ part Siberian Husky, collie and sheltie, if I remember right. She has the long nose and a collie’s face with those pale blue husky’s eyes! Striking!!!
Part of what I wanted to accomplish while I was visiting was to try and capture Luna and Bandit’s expressions.
Bandit~ like his name, he is hard to photograph. A bit shy and very quick, I had to focus on his body where I thought his face would be later and click-click to get him to turn. Love this of him!
I started taking pictures the first morning after we arrived.
This photo of Luna I had to sharpen ~ she moved ever so slightly as the shutter clicked. Also added a bit of blue to her eyes, backed off the whites and highlights. Decreased the blacks. 🙂
The lead photograph for this post says it all.
Luna and Bandit are best friends; attached
at the hip.
Where one goes so does the other.
🙂
Happy with these pics I then went on to shoot pics
of the October snow day outside.
According to the weatherman this day and snowfall tie the record for the earliest day since recorded snow in Sioux Falls history.
This was just a study of leaves and eaves.
Ha ha, pun not intended.
😉
I love how the snow highlights the rolled up
garden hose…
Pristine snow and leaden skies with just a
hint of blue…
“Home”
The doormat says it all…
A neighbor’s cute entryway.
How much is that doggie in our homes’ windows
waiting patiently for us to return each day ~ our best sparkling home decor ever??
Priceless!
;)’
Sharing with
Friday Features ~ Oh, My Heartsie Girl!
Sweet Inspiration ~ The Boondock’s Blog
Thursday Favorite Things ~ Katherine’s Corner
If you missed Photography Lessons at the Falls of Sioux Falls or apple picking at Country Apple Orchard just click on these highlighted sections. 🙂
Sioux Falls is a beautiful place all year long as I’ve seen first-hand on my trips out there these past years, but the city really sparkles and the parks become just magical places after the first snow falls of the fall/winter season…
Come along as we explore a bit of fun photography here at The Falls of Sioux Falls, South Dakota…
I really brought up the greens and yellows, pinks and orange a bit and lessened
the blacks to make the writing legible when on screen. This had been a very
dark photograph originally and in Lightroom I was able to bring up the exposure.
My family went out and braved the crisp 30 degree weather for a quick morning hike on my husband’s last day there to enjoy the beauty of the year’s first snowfalls and to shoot a little photography…
Later in the evening, my son Peter and I did a little editing on photos we had taken as you can see here.
On the left is my photograph just lightly edited to warm up the blue sky and the greens of the trees.
I believe I added just a touch more red to brown up the bridge a little.
Peter’s photo editing is the photograph on the right and he went in and toned down the whites and highlights and really increased the blue saturation ~ I love how dynamic his photograph is! By doing so he was able to bring out individual clouds in the sky which was quite cloudy that morning since the snow storm had just blown by.
All editing by both myself and Peter was done using
Adobe Lightroom by the way.
I am not sponsored by Adobe for this in any way but I do like this program very much and all thoughts are my own. For the full Adobe suite it costs about $400 per year for online updates and includes Lightroom and Photoshop programs.
Here I brought in a lot of blues and left everything else as it was. I like how dark and moody this shot of the bridge turned out!
In the afternoon just my son and I went to the The Falls to capture the beauty of the fall’s rushing water and other scenes around the park. We talked shutter speed and aperature a bit then Peter took over shooting the water cascading down the pinkish Proterozoic quartzite.
If you haven’t played around with your camera much you’ll want to try this with your camera on a tripod.
These two shots are almost identical but Peter was working on blurring the water ~ luckily some obliging rocks acted as a tripod so he could turn on the camera’s timer and let the aperature (eye’s iris) stay open longer.
Keep your shutter speed at 100 which makes your images nice and crisp.
This created the top photo’s “running water” effect. The photograph below just “stops” the water ~ good but less dynamic.
Playing with the coloring effects ~ increasing or decreasing magenta, blues and greens really changes how a finished photograph looks as you can also see between these two photographs.
The bottom pic shows the colors more as they really are ~ because of the cloudy day the rocks were looking bleached out.
Sioux falls’ rocks really are this pinkish color!
🙂
Full running water effect ~ makes for a powerful photograph. Photographs by Peter E. Chapman Chapman Wedding Films.com
One last look at the falls at Sioux Falls ~ stunning!
Here’s what I’ve been up to for the past couple of weeks now.
What I’ve been working on:
Getting gear for an upcoming birthday party
photography shoot. Here are some of the goods:
I’ve been texting and talking back and forth with our son about what kind of tripod I should purchase for this upcoming photoshoot as the current one we have is just falling apart ~ one leg falls off when it’s not convenient and the swivel head sags so you have to hold it up with your left hand {kinda defeating the purpose of the whole tripod thing} 😉 He suggested getting this bad boy! It’s the Manfrotto MT055XPRO3 with a 3-way head. It weighs in at 17+ pounds ~ and should hold up our Canon camera and a mounted flash no problem! He also suggested getting the Fstoppers flash diffuser to create soft light on the subject being photographed. I’m excited to see this in action! Can’t wait ’til it gets here. XD
Learning programs
I’m currently working on learning how to
create special “pins” in Canva and I’m also
beginning to work on editing photos
in Adobe Lightroom.
I can shoot pictures all day long
but shooting the right way
and then editing each photo in a new
program is tough.
Does it ever seem to you that there
just. aren’t. enough. hours.
in. the. day
to first read about using a program
then practice with it
then really do it.
{I fell asleep at the computer last night head fallen down
Jickie Torres ~ editor of Country Cottages and Bungalows
Hello from Beverly Hills and the
Design Bloggers Conference!
Today I thought I’d share a little about styling your own
photoshoots like a professional.
This was the talk Jickie Torres and Courtney Allison
two of my favorite photo stylists and designers
gave on Sunday afternoon.
Jickie is the editor of Cottages and Bungalowsmagazine
and
Courtney is the photographer and blog-author of
French Country Cottage
one of my favorite blogs out there
in Blog Land.
Together they spoke about creating
good quality photos and the differences between
creating photos for your blog -vs-
creating photos aimed towards
magazine publication.
Two slightly different ways of photo shooting
that I think most bloggers wouldn’t just
intuitively realize.
Courtney of French Country Cottage
In this slide, Courtney compared two
of her photographs and talked about how
the one on the left is more of what the industry
calls “a vignette scene.”
See how it’s more of a “close-up?”
It shares more details like the pompom ruffle
around the chair pillow,
the thick plush down seat cushion
and of course
the ever sweet doggie!
These kinds of photographs work great
on your blog, but for editorial print work
there needs to be more of a “room shot.”
Editors also need your photos to
“tell a story.”
Jickie mentioned to make your photos
realistic ~ have a cup on the table,
drape a blanket over the chair’s arm.
You want those things in your scenes to draw a
reader in and make him or her
want to jump right into the picture and just
plop right down making oneself
right at home.
🙂
Well, those are just two of the big takeaways
from Jickie and Courtney’s talk late
Sunday afternoon!
There’s sooo much more to share from conference and I’ll be sharing more in tomorrow’s post.
As always, feel free to share this post and any others and please sign up if on my sidebar and follow along on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook as I’m posting video and other photos there.
Just a study in black and white today… Few words, just photos…
A photograph I took of our cat, Tigger, back when I was 15 years old with an old 110 Kodak instamatic camera. I went out to milk our goats. She hopped up on the milking stand. I had the camera. She turned her head ~ and this is the shot!
Tip: Still learning about photography and changing to black and white… I did not realize until now that one has to lighten up the photograph if the original photograph was shot in color or it will appear dark. 🙂
