A Tree's "Best Side"... Photography Tips

There are so many photography tips... and I wanted to share a few again. This post has many pictures that are all various views of the SAME tree!  :)

Can it really make a difference? A picture of a tree is just a picture, right? No.... there is a lot of difference. Keep reading and looking at the pictures to see why.

 In this post, every picture... is of the same tree!  The pictures are of the same tree from various sides and angles.

The tree doesn't look like much in this picture... boring.... and the color isn't good.
 

 The tree from another angle... the water looks okay, but the color is washed out of the picture overall.

 Another view... color is better in the sky and water... but the tree isn't great and overall it's not a great picture.

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TIP
Take pictures of an object or scene from different angles and sides. Though the object can look boring from one angle, it may be great from a different angle.
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Another blah photo.

This is the view from the other side... looks different... and it's okay... but not what I wanted.
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TIP
Some of the pictures that don't work for THE picture you want... may have a part that would be wonderful if you cropped it down. These are great pictures to "play" with. Crop them down, change to black and white or just experiment. You may find a winner... and you will probably learn something new.
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This is the same picture... but I added a little more fill light and a few shadows. The color looks natural for what we saw that day (it was a beautiful day for pictures), and the "ho-hum" picture from above now is more interesting. 

Again, there is the same picture, but I changed it to black and white and added a few shadows. This picture is not one I would use and I don't like it. Sometimes a black and white photo can be amazing though, so it can be fun to try it.

This was the same picture as the three above, but this time, I made a copy and cropped as I explained in: 

A Killdeer... and Photography Tips 


Sometimes, you can come up with a nice picture... this time,  the picture is okay, but I won't use it other than here as an example.  

This photo is really blurry.... my camera messed up for a while and I didn't notice. Sad because I have a lot of photos I would have liked except they are so blurry. It's hard to see the screen for the camera when out in the sun,  so I didn't notice. Also, the picture was crisp and clear until I hit the shutter button then it blurred, so I didn't catch it until after I had taken several.

 This picture is interesting, but not what I wanted overall. There are things I like about it.. the reflection, lily pads, greens in the water, blue water, leaves hanging down, etc.... so I may use it in some way.














 This was a good one.... but I still took another one and changed it slightly.  The next one is the best one. These 2 photos are very similar, but the second one is better. 

Notice that the metal and the sticks on the right side of the first picture are not in the second one.







 This photo is pretty much untouched... just a tiny bit of shadow added... it was worth taking so many pictures to get this one. 

You can tell that the angle in this one is better for the reflection and the lily pads. It is also better to have the extra line of blue water in this picture that shows on the other side of the walkway. Overall it is a much better picture. 

I really like the curved trunk of the tree and then the reflection that makes it like a half circle. A graceful arc and lots of interest in the picture. 

I hope these tips have been helpful. Remember to take LOTS of pictures so that you have more to choose from... you may have to throw some out, but there may be some good or great ones in there too.  :)  Thank you for visiting.... I love to read your comments.... I hope you have a great week. 


Other posts in this Photography Tips series, include: 

Tea... and Photography Tips?????

A Killdeer... and Photography Tips

 "Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits, even the God of our salvation. Selah."  Psalm 68:19

 #photography #PhotographyTips #nature #trees #photos


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A Killdeer... and Photography Tips

The first picture.....

 While on a walk with my kids, we saw a killdeer, but couldn't get close to it. We were on a path that led to a creek/river and the killdeer was farther down and there was no way to get to it... too much brush.I zoomed in as far as I could, but it was a darker area and hard to see. 

I was very disappointed as I wanted to capture the scene, so I took a couple of pictures figuring they wouldn't be any good, but I had to take a couple anyway. 





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TIP:
By the way, if you have a digital camera, TAKE PICTURES!... take a lot of pictures (it's nice not not have to pay for film and developing!) Sometimes you will be surprised what you end up finding and using. Yes, you will throw a lot of them away, but you will learn and improve your skills... and hopefully, you will have a lot of fun too.  :)  
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In editing I cropped the picture to this and it was okay, but originally I rejected it as too hard to see and too blurry. The original picture covered a larger area than this and the killdeer was just barely visible. 

 I lightened the color some and liked the effect more, but still didn't have a use for it, so just left it. Periodically, I went back to it because I have never been able to take a picture of a killdeer before, especially one with the reflection in the water, so I kept trying.















I cropped the same picture down even more to this. I tried cropping the same picture tighter, but the quality reduced more than I wanted.

 I finally settled on cropping it this much. I wanted the bird, the reflection, the ripples and some of the rocks in the picture.

I tried playing with the colors more,but it just didn't look right... not natural, so I only did a little to it.



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 TIP
When working with changing the colors on your pictures, don't overdo it...  it is best if the picture looks natural, not overdone. Do as little as possible... unless you are looking to make some obviously enhanced work. 
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 The second picture:

 When I cropped this picture down from the original, I liked it better than the first one... and you can see the killdeer better. The shadows and reflections on the water are interesting.




Again, I lightened it just a bit and the picture below shows how that turned out.  It worked.

When I copied the picture and then cropped this one tighter, the quality went down, but  it is acceptable. This was part of what I had to learn... not to always reject a picture that is not as clear as I want it to be.

I realized that there is almost a painting type of quality to these photos. I really didn't do a lot to the pictures other than a LOT of cropping and more cropping.

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TIP:
If you have a picture you like and want to play with, you can make a copy of it. To do so(at least in Picasa) you click on the picture. When on the picture, you click on "file", then on "Save a copy". This allows you to play with the picture and make changes while still keeping the original.  Of the 6 pictures here, they all come from only 2 original photos. 
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I hope you are developing your skills as a photographer. Don't be intimidated by not having an expensive camera. Creativity, skill and hard work can overcome some of those issues...  not all, but it is certainly worth working on it no matter what camera you have to use. 

My photography skills continue to develop as I keep working on them... I learn a little here and there and most of all, I really enjoy taking pictures... so much so that I almost always have a camera with me... I just don't want to miss anything. :)  

Do you find these photography tips useful? I hope so...  and periodically, I will share more of them.  Thank you for visiting.


If you are interested, another post in this series is:

Tea.... and Photography Tips????


#photography #PhotographyTips #pictures  #killdeer




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A Romantic Hairstyle and Lace Dress

Oh, what fun...  my young lady daughter who just a few years ago liked more "tomboy" things.... now enjoys dressing up sometimes.

She wanted to have her hair curled to look nice with her  beautiful lacy dress she planned to wear for church.

 It started with putting sponge rollers in her hair the night before. Her older sister put the rollers in her wet hair, so that by morning she would have curls. 

There were 61 rollers! This daughter has a LOT of hair! I remember sleeping on those pink rollers when I was a kid... it wasn't too comfortable. She did say that she didn't sleep very well.  :)The things we do to have curls!

This morning, my older daughter is shown here taking the rollers out of her hair.

We have curls!!!  


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You can see some of my other hairstyle posts here:

Pigtails and French Braids


Easy Wavy Hairstyle


Two More French Braid Hairstyles

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 I pulled curls to the top and back and held them in place with bobby pins. A little here...a little there... it was starting to get that romantic look. :)  

We put a pretty comb at the top and called it done. She looked beautiful... of course she always does, but this was special....

 Lace dress, curls in her hair, pearl earrings...  the stuff of princess dreams. 



By the way, a couple of her brothers didn't like the curls... they prefer her hair as it usually is which is a bit wavy and a bit straight, not curly.
 Brothers can be like that... but they tolerate the curls and really like that she dresses in such a feminine way. Of course, they rarely TELL her that!   :) 



This pretty and romantic hairstyle takes a little longer than braids or other types of hairstyles, but it is special and worth the extra effort sometimes.  :)
















The lace dress has a full skirt and works great for twirling! :) 

The hairstyle was a success, although I should have put a few more bobby pins in it... after a couple of hours, some of the curls started to fall down a bit.

All in all it was a success..... but we won't do it very often. That just makes it all the more special.

How precious to see our children grow and enjoy life. What a blessing that God has entrusted these kids to us... we need to be so careful to raise them to honor the Lord.

Thank you for visiting today.

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#hairstyles #romantic #curlyhair #princess #laceandpearls

Silhouette Beauty

 Silhouettes... they are just dark outlined shapes... nothing special...... 

and yet, there is something intriguing about them.

The sky is beautiful... but so are the outlined shapes that are dark against the sky.

 I am so thankful for the variety of beauty it is possible to find.....   I hope you are also able to enjoy the beauty of the silhouettes you see. Thank you for visiting...  I hope you have a nice week.  :)




"Oh Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!" 
Psalm 8:9


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Geese At Sunset

It was a beautiful evening... a simple trip to the park..... a sunset on the water as the geese swam. Beautiful.

 

 Sunset on the water... reflections...  a peaceful time... a gentle setting..... a nice way to end the day.

Silhouettes of the geese... a fleeting moment.... and beautiful. So easily missed and so glad we were there.


There is beauty all around us... many times in our busyness, we miss it. It is good to train ourselves to look for those snippets of beauty.... they are there....






"He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end."   Ecclesiastes 3:11



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