A year has gone by already!

My 365 days of taking a photo a day has ended and now I am trying to figure out what to do with this blog. I think I have built up my portfolio enough now to start a real photography website so when I get a little time I think I am going to organize my best portrait work and start posting it on there.

I still need a place to post my landscapes and challenge entries so I think I will keep this blog going for now and post the stuff that won't fit in with my professional website.

I finally got the opportunity to go out and get my own family photos taken. I was really happy with the way they turned out. I took pictures of my girls and a friend of mine's family. Then she helped me take pictures of mine. It was a big help, trying to do it with a tripod and timer would have been a nightmare. Here they are, I don't have time for comments on each one so I will just let you look at them in silence. :)

Now on to my challenge photos. This first one did really well I won third place and my second highest score of all time. I really love it, the challenge was babies and toddlers and well she is almost not a toddler so I almost didn't enter it. I even took some photos of my other neighbors baby. But in the end I just had to go with this one:

This is the one I almost went with, it is very cute and I think it would have scored well but I just loved the other one too much.


This one is for another long exposure challenge. I took a 1 second photo of a stream in pleasant grove canyon.

This one I am extremely proud of I broke new ground with this one. It was for a nonsense challenge this is one I took with only 1 shot, she is actually lying on some black material behind the fish tank to make it look like she is actually in the fish tank. I won 2nd place with this image:

This next one was to honor breast cancer awareness month. So we had to photograph something pink. I had fun experimenting with this one. I did quite well with this one and got an honorable mention with 5th place:

This one was for a challenge called symmetry. It was a much harder shot than I anticipated. To get the reflection in the mirror to exactly mirror the real thing is really hard, you have to get the camera in just the right spot. Even with many tries I still didn't get it quite right, also I don't have the right type of mirror for this shot, this mirror gives a triple reflection and makes the image appear blurry.

This one I did really well with, it was for a challenge called natural body of water. Lucky for me I live next to some really scenic bodies of water.

And finally to commemorate Steve Jobs passing we did an apple challenge. Most people did photos of apple products, but I don't own any apple products so I just did a photo of an apple. I did well anyway and scored in the top 10.

This Weeks Challenge Entries

I had a fairly good week with my challenge entries, I got another ribbon and an honorable mention. This first one was my favorite and the one I won a second place ribbon for. It was a really cool evening, there were thunderstorms going on all around me. I was hoping to catch some light from a lightening bolt in one of my images. This is one of the ones I managed to get it. You can't really see the lightening bolt because it is a 5 min exposure but the lit up part of the clouds is were it struck. It was so dark outside that I didn't even know it was raining on the other side of the lake until I got these photos onto my computer and saw the rain falling on one side of the image. You can't imagine the trouble I went to to get this photo, the bugs were so thick I thought I was in one of those horror movies. I would have to get my camera set up and press the shutter button and then run for safety a few yards from the lake. Not all of them were biting bugs but I got my fair share of mosquito bites. Anyway in the end it was worth the trouble since I won a ribbon for it.

title:

Thunderstorm at Night

This next one was for a minimal editing challenge that means "strait out of camera" no editing what so ever allowed. You can't even crop, so it takes some patience getting everything right. The challenge was called out your favorite window. Since acquiring this cool looking door it has definitely been my favorite window so I thought it would be fun to take it to a cool location and have my favorite window also include one of my favorite views. I did quite well with this one and got an Honorable Mention with it.

title:

A Door With a Window Into My World

And here is the door again, this is one that didn't turn out very well for the minimal editing but really came to life when I did some advanced editing techniques on it. I entered it in the free study for August and it did quite well I think I will get in the top 20 which is good for free study where there is over 300 entries.

title:

Left Standing

I had fun with this next one, I don't know if my girls did but it was a technique I had never done before and it was fun experimenting. We drove out to the Copperton/Bingham Grave Yard. It is a really old an quite interesting grave yard. There is no grass just weeds and wild flowers growing everywhere so it looks quite haunted. Plus it is in the middle of nowhere which adds to the spookiness. The grave stones are really old and many are tipped over most have some sort of makeshift fence around them, I guess to keep people from walking on the graves. Some had nicer wrought iron fences around them that were in fairly good condition. This was one of the better spots.

Here is how I did it for anyone curious. I had Kaylee pick a pose she could hold for at least a minute. Depending on the light your model must hold their position for 30 seconds to a minute. then after the minute is up you have your model walk out of the frame. Then you let it continue to expose for another couple minutes. What you end up with is a ghost in a single exposure. You can also add ghosts to images by layering photos in photoshop but this way is much more challenging and fun.

Title:

Not Yet at Rest


This next challenge entry was for "the letter C" challenge. You had to take a photo of something starting with the letter C. I thought it would be fun to do a cornucopia with vegetables that start with the letter C. These crates I found at one of the abandoned buildings I photographed are also coming in handy and crate also starts with the letter C so it was a bonus.

Title:

"A Cornucopia of C's"

That's it for challenge entries now onto a few I took this month that I really liked. This first one is of a sunflower, I really like how it turned out when I converted it to black and white. I think I am going to try and do a grouping of flowers in black and white for one of my walls at home.

Here is my next attempt at a flower for the grouping. It is a Cosmo I like it but not quite as much as the sunflower. But I do think it will work in the grouping.

And one more I am experimenting with. Not sure if the side view works for the grouping or not. But I liked it anyway. It is a Black Eyed Susan.

These next two are just some close ups of some bugs I took I thought they turned out pretty nice.

Hanging in there!!!

Okay seriously I need some new models. I have had to use myself way too much in the last few challenges. So if any of my neighbors want think it would be fun to model for me let me know. Mostly my ideas are a bit goofy so I always feel bad asking people. The one above was for a challenge called Horizontal/Vertical the idea was to photograph something usually photographed Horizontal or Vertical and photograph it the other way. I came up with this goofy idea and to my surprise it actually tricks the eye pretty well. I only had to lay on that stupid rock about 20 different times before I got a decent pose. It ended up in the top 10 of the challenge.

This one was for a challenge called "Home" the idea was to photograph something that is about home. It didn't necessarily have to be your own home, but when I saw Sydnie blowing bubbles on the deck and those cool clouds behind her I decided to grab my camera and see what I could come up with. My editing was a bit sloppy on this one but I still did fairly well and scored in the top 10 of the challenge.

This one was for a challenge called "Stripes". This one I really wish I had another model for. Kaylee and I had to stand in the middle of the road while Brianne watched for cars. Luckily it's not a super busy road. But we did have a few people pass and wonder what in the world we were doing.

This one I had fun with. I borrowed some of my moms old things and then did my hair in a 1940's hairdo and posed for this one. The challenge was called "Film Noir" it was a style of movie made in the 1940's and 1950's the idea was to capture the moody lighting and film subject. This is what I cam up with:

This was for the abandoned building challenge. I actually visited several abandoned buildings on my way home to Idaho a couple weekends ago. This one was one of my favorites and what I ended up entering for the challenge.

Here is another one I stopped at on the way home. My kids were getting really annoyed with me making all the stops. Usually I have My Husband with me and he doesn't like to stop. He wasn't able to come on this trip so I was having a field day being able to stop as often as I liked.

I want to say this was one of my favorites too but I will end up saying that on all of these abandoned building shots. I guess abandoned buildings are just so fun to shoot, they have so much character.

This one really was my favorite photo, not building though. The one I entered was my favorite building. But this one had such a cool sky behind it, I can't help liking the overall scene of this one a bit more. I may still end up entering this in a challenge, the monthly free study is coming up and you can enter anything you took during the month of August.

And finally this one. I entered it in a challenge called "Time" you were suppose to convey time in some manner. I must have missed the mark I didn't score well on this one. My idea was to show how sometimes we wish time could just stand still.

This last one I did not enter in anything it's an out take for another challenge currently in judging. I just threw this one in for fun.

Wow! I have some catching up to do.
I took a ton of photos in July. I think just a combination of all the trips we took, the great weather and entering a lot of photo contests. I will try to keep my writing short so this post won't be any longer than it is. I will start of with my challenge entries. They are in order of how well they did.

This first one I loved it was for a challenge called distance. It is of me, Sydnie and Brianne. I was going to have Kaylee in the photo but I ran out of time getting everyone ready and I didn't have anything white for her to wear. Instead she helped me take the photo. I got third place with this photo.

Title:
Onward to Distant Mountains

This one only got an Honorable mention with 5th place but it was up against some stiff competition. It actually scored really high and got a 7 average only my third 7 out of over 100 challenge entries. I always love it when I can score a 7 even if I don't win a ribbon. The challenge was to photograph a bug.

title:
Mr. Smiley Face


This one did pretty well also and I got in the top 10. I was kind of surprised it did so well, I thought it was kind of a weird but cool photo so I didn't know how it would be received. This is a close up of Sydnies eye. The challenge was to take a close up of something other that a bug or a flower.

title:
Looking Up


I almost got in the top 10 with this one. I was really surprised too. It was a National Geographic challenge. You were suppose to photograph something that could go in a National Geographic Magazine. I thought that I didn't have a chance since I didn't photograph an Animal. I chose to photograph the copper mine in Utah. It was really hard to find a way to get a sense of scale. I used a editing technique called tilt shift. It is when you blur the top and the bottom of the photo and it makes the object seem miniature.

title:
Bingham copper mine, 150 years of turning a mountain inside out


This one did fairly well. It was a skyline challenge I thought mine was unique because it had a double skyline both the mountains and the city.

title:
Two skylines....Two Creators


This next one did fairly well but I think it would have done better if I had titled it properly. It was suppose to be showing how you took a tutorial and showed it in a photograph. My tutorial I found was how to change the color of someones hair. I must have done too good of a job because people kept commenting on how they didn't know what the tutorial was. I thought it would be obvious because there is no way I would dye my 7 year old hair pink just for a photo.

Title:
Please mom! Can I dye my hair pink.


Here is the original just in case you were worried her hair is pink.


This one scored okay as well. Looking back on it she is a bit too washed out. I should have done a better job editing this one. Challenge was rule of thirds in blue.

title:
The girl with the blue polka dot umbrella

This one did fairly well considering I shot it about 30 min before the challenge deadline. I didn't have time to edit it properly so I just cropped it and added a frame. The challenge was to paint with light. So this was taken in pitch black conditions and then I used a flashlight swirled around the object to make the light patterns. This is also fun to try with sparklers on the 4th of July.

Title:

Mystical Blue Orb

This one only did okay. I think it was because it was just wrong for the challenge I entered it in. The challenge was to take a photograph of a mainly pastel subject. I guess this one wasn't pastel enough.

title:

Butterfly in Pastel

This last one was wrong for the challenge I entered it in as well. It was suppose to be a photograph of a knife, fork, or spoon. I guess a pitch fork doesn't work.

The next few photos were not for challenges they are either outtakes of other challenges or ones I just love or both.

I just loved this one of Sydnie. I don't know why but I love photos of kids looking down so you can see their eyelashes.

This was an outtake for the bug challenge. I loved it but I think my grasshopper was the right choice.

This was and outtake for the distance challenge. I loved it as well but the other one was just a bit better.

The rest are not outtakes for anything just pictures I took messing around. These first two I really love they are long exposures of a waterfall near a place we go camping.