Tag Archives: Photo 101

Motion

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Here’s a photo I took in New Orleans. I think it’s a good one for this challenge (Motion) from the Daily Post. I loved watching this couple dance and listen to the band play in the street. New Orleans is really great for this kind of thing. 🙂

It’s not really blurry, but I hope you can get the idea of motion anyway. The couple was really dancing up a storm (swing, jitterbug, etc.), the musicians were all tapping their toes and swaying to the music and everyone was having a great time.

I didn’t think to buy a CD from this band, I wish I remembered their name. But I did get one from another one that was playing further up the street. Here’s a post I did about that one. Check it out, the music’s worth a listen. 😉

Photo 101: Edge & Alignment

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Here’s my entry for the Day 18: Edge assignment. I think it’s ‘edgy’ in more ways than one. 😉

I took it at the Houston Museum of Art. It’s in the tunnel between the 2 parts of the museum. It changes colors (slowly) and it’s really neat to watch when people are going through it.

I haven’t seen anyone fall off the edge yet, but I checked it out and you wouldn’t fall very far. 😉

Photography 101: Rodeo Moments

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I haven’t been able to get out to get many new pictures lately, so I’m looking through some old ones for the Photography 101 Challenge: Moment.

The idea is to ‘”capture a fleeting moment and experiment with blur and movement”.

I did try this last time they ran this challenge, but I found some different pictures this time. I took these at the Brazoria County Fair a couple of years ago. I don’t think these turned out as good as the earlier ones I just posted. It was SO hard to get a good shot of the cowboys once they came out of the gate on those bulls!

I’m thinking of going to the Houston Rodeo tomorrow tho, so maybe I’ll be able to get some better ones this time. I really love going to the rodeo. I’m lucky to be home for this one. I’m in Houston tonight anyway, so might as well do something here in the morning before I go home. It’ll be either the rodeo or the zoo. 🙂

Photography 101: Moment

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I haven’t been able to get out to get many new pictures lately, so I’m looking through some old ones for the Photography 101 Challenge: Moment.

The idea is to ‘”capture a fleeting moment and experiment with blur and movement”.

I did try this last time they ran this challenge, but I found some different pictures this time. I took these at the Brazoria County Fair a couple of years ago. I think they get the idea across, don’t you? 😉

Photo 101: Architecture

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I thought I’d try to do this Photography 101 project again, since I wasn’t able to spend much time on it last time and missed a few assignments. Here is my post from last time.

I thought I would have more time this go ’round.

It doesn’t look like I will, but while I’m home, I’ll try to participate. Here’s my entry for the ‘architecture’ challenge. I’m trying to find some good ones I can make black and white.

Here are a couple of shots I took a few years ago when I was in Argentina for vacation. I really loved it there. I wish I could have spent months there instead of only couple of weeks. These photos are both from Buenos Aires. The first one is looking down the neat old spiral staircase I found at my first B&B. The bottom one is looking up into the skylight of a market

I think they both show some great ‘bones’. I have some other good photos of architecture from that trip, but most of them look better in color. I don’t usually think in black and white.

Do you think that might help to get better photos?

PS- the ‘featured image’ is also from Buenos Aires. I took it while I was wandering around down near the river one day. I don’t have any idea what the building is.

Photography 101 Challenge: Triumph

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Well, this is it. The last assignment for the Photography 101 Challenge. It’s Triumph.

I thought about this one a lot. I really can’t think of anything I have photos of, to show the idea of- “triumph”-other than the fact that I actually managed to FINISH this challenge. I even somehow did it within the time frame they had set for it.

For me, that really is an accomplishment. Usually I fall so far behind in these things I never manage to complete them and it would be months too late if I had.

So I decided to make another gallery of some of my favorite photos from the various assignments. Here they are…

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If you like any of these and want to see more of the original post they were featured in, you can search my blog for the words at the bottom of the photos (double, moment, solitary, etc). 🙂

Photography 101 Challenge: Double

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It’s almost over. In fact, I think it is officially over. But here’s my post for Day 19: Double of the Photography 101 challenge anyway.

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Photography 101 Challenge: Edge

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Here’s my post for Day 18: Edge of the Photography 101 challenge. I think it’s pretty edgy in a couple of ways. 😉

Since I just saw the email from the Daily Post re:Converge, I’m going to use this post and photo for that challenge too. 🙂

I took this picture (and about 1000 more) at the Houston art museum. Problem is somehow I lost a huge amount of them. I have no idea what happened. I was glad I still had some left.

I like that museum. Actually, there are 2 of them. There’s the Museum of Fine Arts (FREE Thursdays) and the Contemporary Arts Museum (FREE always!) right across the street.

This picture is from the tunnel between them. They always have some good stuff to see and they have new exhibits pretty much every month. It’s worth checking out if you’re in Houston.

Photography 101 Challenge: Glass

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Here’s my post for Day 17: Glass in the Photography 101 challenge. I haven’t really been out to take pictures. Too busy trying to catch up on other things. But I found a couple of good ones on my computer (I sure WISH I could get the darn thing fixed!!).

I took these last time I was in New Orleans. I went on a plantation tour one day. We went to Laura Plantation and Oak Alley. I’ve never been on one of those tours before. I thought it was interesting how different they were, even though they were both built to do the same thing.

I liked the contrast in these 2 shots too. One is very old and also practical. The other is brand new and really serves no purpose other than decoration.

Photography Challenge 101: Treasure

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I’ve been busy with other things again and falling behind on blogging. Here’s my post for Day 16: Treasure of the photography challenge.

No, not the flag (or the moon). In fact, I treasure my (and your) right to trash it if you so choose. What I really treasure are the principles that flag (or the country behind it) represents. Or, I should say, USED to represent.

Principles we mostly seem to have forgotten. Principles “our government” now seems hell bent on squeezing out of us.

The most basic of those principles is not stated explicitly in our founding documents, but it’s there. It is the principle of self-ownership. This simply means that YOU own YOUR life. No one else. Period! All else derives from that (fact).

The founding principles of America were all based on that very simple premise.

Principles announced to the world in statements like these from the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,

–That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

 

Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. Those are the things our government was established to PROTECT. Today, it does everything it can to destroy those things. So, I treasure what little there is left of them.

Photography 101 Challenge: Landscape

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Here’s my choice for the Day 15: Landscape challenge.

I took it when I went out to Las Vegas for the Freedom Festival. I took a side trip to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon and Zion National Parks. I only wish I had more time. It was an amazing trip!

 

Photography 101 Challenge: Swarm

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Here’s my photo for the Day 14 assignment: Swarm. Yes, they were “moving about in great numbers”.  I do love to watch them, they’re so calming. 🙂

Photography 101 Challenge: Moment

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At first I thought it said movement, but then I saw it was really moment, but the assignment (Day 13) is still to play around with blur and movement. I think there are a lot of ways to interpret this one. 🙂

I’m still stuck in class all day and it’s way too cold out here for me to go out (and I have no transportation either), so I’ve been picking out old photos to try and illustrate the themes for the challenges.

Here’s a photo I took in New Orleans last winter. I loved watching this couple dance and listen to the band play in the street. New Orleans is really great for this kind of thing. 🙂

It’s not really blurry, but I hope you can get the idea of motion anyway. The couple was really dancing up a storm (swing, jitterbug, etc.), the musicians were all tapping their toes and swaying to the music and everyone was having a great time.

I didn’t think to buy a CD from this band, I wish I remembered their name. But I did get one from another one that was playing further up the street. Here’s a post I did about that one. Check it out, the music’s worth a listen. 😉

Architecture: Black and White

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I tried to find some of the photos in my computer so I could ‘finish’ the task for the other day. To look at these buildings in Black and White. I did look on my computer, but for some reason, I couldn’t find all the photos I used (or I couldn’t get them to a place where I could change them into black and white versions).

Here is what these same photos look like in Black and White. I didn’t change anything else. I probably could have made these look a lot better if I had the time to play around with them and edit them even a little bit. Let me know what you think. Which versions do you like better?

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Photography 101 Challenge: Architecture

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I’m trying to keep up with the tasks for the Photography 101 challenge. I’m pretty busy this week in the Leadership course at MITAGS, but doing what I can here. 😉

This is my choice for the Day 12: Architecture assignment.

Here are a few of my favorite photos I felt would illustrate this theme. I couldn’t make up my mind, so I did a slide show. I do really like to take pictures of interesting architecture, so I have a lot of these pictures. 🙂

The assignment was to think about lines and shapes and to try and go monochromatic, but I just didn’t have the time to mess around with editing tonight and have to get up too early in the morning to think about it. I do think most of these would work nicely in B&W. Maybe if I have time tomorrow I’ll try and see if I can change them. If I can figure it out, I’ll post it. 🙂

School. UGH! It takes too much time! 🙁

If anyone has any comments about any of these photos, I’d like to hear them. Which do you like best (or not like)?  What do you like or dislike about them? Do you think I should have just stuck to one style of building (modern, art deco, temples, etc.)? Or one location (New Orleans, Thailand, Chicago, etc.)? Or do you like the large variety? Do you like the post with the gallery, or do you prefer it when I have all the pictures just all sitting there?

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Photography 101 Challenge: A Pop of Color

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I’m trying to keep up with the tasks for the Photography 101 challenge. I’m pretty busy this week in the Leadership course at MITAGS, but doing what I can here. 😉

This is my choice for the Day 11: A Pop of Color assignment.

The assignment talks about “paying attention to how color affects your images.”

Here are a few of my favorite photos I felt would illustrate this theme. I kind-of took it to mean photos where the use of color influenced the feeling or mood of the shot. Or the color just really made the whole photo stand out.

If anyone has any comments about any of these photos, I’d like to hear them. Which do you like best (or not like)? Do you think they fit the theme? What do you like or dislike about them? Do you like the post better when I put the pictures up like this? or in a gallery where you see them one at a time like the one I did for the post on the “Natural World“?

New Orleans, Jackson Square at night Full moon over the Ferris wheel Penguins Orchids Fitdee, Aberdeen Scotland Spidey Dolphin, Aberdeen Scotland Still life with butterfly Fishing at night Butterfly in orange and black Thailand Thailand tuna boat twilight

Photography 101 Challenge: Mystery

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I’m FINALLY catching up with the tasks for the Photography 101 challenge. This is my choice for the Day 10: Mystery assignment.

The assignment talks about playing around with lighting to create a mysterious atmosphere. For this challenge, I felt like going a different direction and just showing an object that is mysterious in itself (at least to me- I’m sure the Korean people will know exactly what these things are and will probably think I’m pretty ignorant not to know).

This was taken in Korea back in April. I was at the famous seafood market in Busan and took tons of pictures. I love going to the market in foreign countries. The things they have on sale are so different than the things I see in my local supermarket. I never could figure out what these things are. My best guess is some kind of sea squirt. I do know the Koreans like to eat them. 😉

Anybody have any ideas?

I’m curious (but no, not enough to try eating one). 😉

Photography 101 Challenge: Warmth

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As usual, I’m late and having a hard time keeping up with the tasks for the Photography 101 challenge. This is my choice for the Day 9: Warmth assignment.

This was taken in Korea back in April. I was at the market and took tons of pictures. I chose these to represent warmth for a few reasons: the soup/stew was physically hot, it tasted hot, it was full of hot spices, it also included the hot stove and hot coals, and the warmth of the Korean lady. 🙂

Photography 101 Challenge: Natural World

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As usual, I’m late and having a hard time keeping up with the tasks for the Photography 101 challenge. This is my post for the Day 8 assignment: The Natural World.

I’ve been super busy and haven’t really had the chance to get out and take any NEW photos for this challenge. I did go to Moody Gardens on the way home from the FRC course in Galveston the other day and took a bunch of pictures very similar to these. I just haven’t had the chance to upload them onto my computer yet.

Do you consider it ‘cheating’ that these pictures were all taken at an aquarium and I wasn’t actually underwater myself?

Let me know what you think of the photos. I’m doing the challenge to practice my photography and get feedback on what works and what doesn’t. 🙂

 

Photography 101 Challenge: Landmark

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As usual, I’m late and having a hard time keeping up with the tasks for the Photography 101 challenge. This is my choice for the Day 8: Landmark assignment.

This was taken in Korea back in April. I was at the Busan Tower and took tons of pictures. I was lucky enough to be in Korea during the celebrations for Buddha’s birthday. There were dozens of these traditional paper lanterns set up here around the tower and other places around town.

Sorry to say, it was also a very sad time while I was there and lots of the usual festivities were cancelled due to the Sewol ferry disaster.

Photography 101 Challenge: Connect

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As usual, I’m late and having a hard time keeping up with the tasks for the Photography 101 challenge. This is my choice for the Day 7: Connect assignment.

lovers locks

This was taken in Korea back in April. I was at the Busan Tower and took tons of pictures of these locks. I was told it’s kind-of a tradition that when couples decide they want to ‘go steady’ or get engaged, they come up here and put these locks up to show the world that they’re ‘locked together forever’. 🙂

I couldn’t decide on just one here. Which one do you like best? Why?

Photography 101 Challenge: Solitude

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As usual, I’m late and having a hard time keeping up with the tasks for the Photography 101 challenge. This is my photo for the Day 5: Solitude assignment.

This was a little easier for me than the last one (bliss).  I don’t normally take a lot of pictures of people, but I do sometimes catch them in a photo if I see something that just happens to catch my eye.

I took a lot more than usual people pictures on my recent trip to Korea. This was taken in Busan back in April. I’m not sure why, but this is one of my favorite pictures from that trip. 🙂

Photography 101 Challenge: Bliss

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As usual, I’m late and having a hard time keeping up with the tasks for the Photography 101 challenge. This is my photo for the Day 4: Bliss assignment.

This was a hard one for me. I had a hard time coming up with an idea of how to represent the idea of “bliss” in a photo. I had an especially hard time since I don’t normally take a lot of pictures of people.

Then I remembered my recent trip to Korea and these photos of Buddha. I was in Korea for Buddhas Birthday celebrations (this picture was taken in Seoul). I’m not religious, but I thought I remembered something about Buddha and it related to the idea of bliss. Buddha and nirvana, right?

Some of his statues make him seem like he has discovered bliss (maybe not this one tho).

Photography 101 Challenge: Water

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I’m going to try again to participate in one of the Blogging University’s challenges. This one is Photography 101. A picture a day to challenge us to improve our photography. I HOPE I can keep up with this one, but I’m already a couple of days behind.

I’m due off the rig and will start traveling home tomorrow morning (if all goes well). So I’ll probably have even less internet access than I’ve had here on board. I’m also stuck without my good camera here and can’t take any photos here anyway (I have to get a hot work permit to use the camera on deck).

Anyway, here’s my photo for ‘water’.

water- 3 kinds- clouds, rainbow, ocean

water- 3 kinds- clouds, rainbow, ocean

I’m out on the rig right now. A different one than the one I took that picture from. I was working in the Gulf of Mexico then. The water is pretty much the same here off the West Coast of Africa. So far, it hasn’t even been rough yet. I’ve been surprised at how calm it’s been here.

It’s also been very overcast since I started working here in July. I wonder what the reason is for it always being so cloudy. Just the last couple of weeks it’s started clearing up off and on. I hope that continues. I much prefer clear blue skies and starry nights to dreary, grey overcast days.

I take a LOT of pictures of water, that IS where I spend most of my time. 😉

If you want to see more, you might like to check out some of these earlier posts (or just search my blog for “water”).

Photography 101 Challenge: Street

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I’m going to try again to participate in one of the Blogging University’s challenges. This one is Photography 101. A picture a day to challenge us to improve our photography. I HOPE I can keep up with this one, but I’m already a couple of days behind.

I’m due off the rig and will start traveling home tomorrow morning (if all goes well). So I’ll probably have even less internet access than I’ve had here on board. I’m also stuck without my good camera here and can’t take any photos here anyway (I have to get a hot work permit to use the camera on deck).

Anyway, here’s my photo for ‘street’.

This is a photo I took last time I was down at the beach. I say beach cause the name of the town is ‘Surfside Beach’ (Texas).

I used to live down there for a while and most of my friends still do. If I go out when I’m home, this is usually where I go. I don’t actually spend much time anymore on the real beach like I used to. I just like to hang out with my friends and catch up on all the local news and gossip.

I really only stopped to take the photo because of the huge thunderstorm on the way. Notice the big black clouds in the background. The weather is usually pretty nice there. It’s especially nice in the summer when there’s always a good sea breeze. The winter is my favorite time to go to the beach there, there’s nobody else around and you can drive all the way to Galveston right at the waters edge. 🙂

PS- the featured image for this post was taken right around the corner from the one I chose for this post. I took it at the St Patrick’s Day Parade last year (it was raining, but that didn’t stop the parade). 🙂

Let me know which photo you like better (and why), it will help me improve my photography, which is part of the reason I’m doing this challenge.

Thanks! 🙂

Photography 101 Challenge: Home

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I’m going to try again to participate in one of the Blogging University’s challenges. This one is Photography 101. A picture a day to challenge us to improve our photography. I HOPE I can keep up with this one, but I’m already a couple of days behind.

I’m due off the rig and will start traveling home tomorrow morning (if all goes well). So I’ll probably have even less internet access than I’ve had here on board. I’m also stuck without my good camera here and can’t take any photos here anyway (I have to get a hot work permit to use the camera on deck).

Anyway, here’s my photo for ‘home’.

This is a picture of my living room/library/bar. I spend a lot of my time on the couch there when I happen to be in town. I use my laptop there and it’s pretty comfortable to work there.

I’ve been trying to pack up my library and have made some progress, but it’s taking me a long time. I hate to get rid of my books! I don’t know if you can tell from this picture, but a few of the shelves are now (almost) empty. Before I started weeding them out, every one of them was stuffed full and books all over the furniture and floor too!

I LOVE to read!

This room also has a bar (notice the bar stools on the right of the photo). My dad made those barstools for me. 🙂

I fell in love with this house when I saw this room. It’s perfect for me to hang out. It also looks out through a sliding glass door onto a screened in porch. There was a big, old oak tree right next to it. I could watch the squirrels chase each other around all day. 🙂

That tree fell on my roof a couple of times, so I’m glad I finally found the cash to allow me to have it removed. I still have a couple more in the back yard, I just can’t see them from my living room couch.

I got the house cheap. Mostly because of that tree. It had fallen on the roof and caused a lot of damage. I spent a couple of months cleaning up the mess. I do a little bit of improvements whenever I have the time and the money at the same time.

I always have lots of projects to do when I’m home. 🙂