Image of the Week

Often this time of year, in anticipation of spring, I will buy flowers from the grocery store and take pictures of them in my kitchen. I usually just play around with my macro lens and various camera settings to see what I come up with. My love of photographing flowers began several years ago when I wanted to learn how the different camera settings effected the image. I would practice photography by photographing flowers at home. Since then some of my favorite subjects to photograph are flowers. This particular image is a close-up (macro) of a tulip.

Image of the Week

Looks like Punxsutawney Phil was right with his weather forecast this year. We have an early spring here in the South with early blooming trees and flowers already in full bloom. Right now, I have two Bradford Pear trees in my yard that are full of beautiful little white flowers. These little flowers are usually the first images of spring that I make each year. Beauty can be deceiving though - these little flowers are beautiful, but they give off a horrible scent. It's funny to see someone not familiar with the tree look around and wonder what that smell is.

Image of the Week

Spring has sprung here in the south, but I have several images I've taken during the snow storms we had this way and I wanted to get one in before moving on into spring. It's hard to believe we had several inches of snow on the ground just a few weeks ago when this shot was taken. The snow was coming down outside, so I had my camera set up near my kitchen window photographing the birds visiting the bird feeders outside. I have a few branches set up around the feeders for the birds to land on as they wait their turn at the feeder, and so I can take pictures of them in a natural setting without seeing the bird feeders just a few inches away. This is a Dark Eyed Junco, a very simple, but I think, pretty bird. We've had several of them visit this winter.

Image of the Week

I'm going to try something new.... for me....

I'm terrible at keeping this blog and my Facebook photography page updated because there just aren't enough hours in the day to get everything done, and writing up something for these sites always gets pushed off to the side. I've seen some other photographers post an "Image of the Week", and I like that idea, so I'm going to try to do something like that. The goal will be to work on a recent image and maybe post a little something about it, without making it a long and drawn out article - though that may happen from time to time. :) I work better with a routine, so hopefully this will help me get in the habit of posting something here.

Never know until I try, right?

365 Black & White Slideshow

I created a slideshow of some of my favorite images I made for the 365 Days of Black & White Photography project that I just finished up. I'm glad to have a break from it, but I'm kinda missing it as well. I hope you enjoy!

MacKenzie (Take 2)

Met a friend again this fall to take pictures of her daughter, MacKenzie. It's amazing how much MacKenzie has grown since I took her pictures in the spring time, but she was still just as sweet as before. She was a natural in front of the camera and even came up with several poses herself. Here are just a few from the shoot.

Favorite Lens?

I received a compliment recently about my photography and was asked what lens I couldn't do without. I guess the answer to that question would depend on what I'm photographing at the time since certain lenses are more effective for certain types of photography, but my impulse was to say my Canon 50mm lens. Though I go through phases about which my favorite lens is like the Canon 100mm macro or the Canon 70-200 zoom, today it would probably be the Canon EF 50mm 1.4 USM prime lens. I love this lens!

The 1.4 aperture makes this a very fast lens that allows me to take pictures in low light or at night, without a flash or tripod, and with the narrow depth-of-field that I love so much. The bokeh created by the narrow depth-of-field is outstanding as are the shadow details that this lens picks up. And because it's a prime lens what I do want in focus is very sharp. This lens works great for portraits and all around general photography. Here are a few images that I've taken with this lens.