Apartment Complex

Another photo from my recent walk in the park.  I thought this tree looked pretty interesting, figuring a woodpecker made some holes in it.  I tried to get a few macro shots, but unfortunately they didn't turn out.  While I was up close to the tree, I inspected the holes somewhat and it looks like they were made much bigger (as you can see here) than what a woodpecker would do, by biting and gnawing at the wood around the holes.  I figure this must be an apartment complex for some squirrels.

Face

This is another photo from my walk in the park the other day.  Can you see the face in the trunk?

Floating

Taken on my walk in the park yesterday.  I like how this shot makes it look like the leaves are floating or hovering in the air.  I auto adjusted the colour and contrast using Photoshop Elements.

A Walk In The Woods

I took a walk in the woods/park near my home again today.  This time I went in a different entrance on the other side of the park.  Here's one of the photos I took today.  There is definitely not much colour left on the trees now.  I'm sure this area will look really pretty when the snow comes though.

The Word

Tonight was the first time in a long while that I went to Bible study.  I really enjoyed it, and will be heading back again next week.

Gold Coast

During my last week in Australia, I had the opportunity to go to the Gold Coast for five days.  This photo is of some sort of...well, I don't know what it is exactly (some kind of fruit maybe?).  These were growing on some of the trees around this beach that was right by the hotel.  If anyone knows what exactly they are (or what kind of tree these would grow on), please leave a comment. 

I enjoyed the Gold Coast, but unfortunately, I hurt my back and couldn't do much.  I ended up going to the doctor and getting some medications to help my back.  Ultimately, even with the pills, the doctor told me it would take awhile for my back to get better.  Even now it still feels stiff when I get up or after I've been sitting for awhile, and it's been about two months since it happened.  At least it doesn't hurt now.

Controls

Just playing around with the macro setting on my camera.  These were taken after a recent photo shoot at a local park.  Neither shots have been edited.

In Melbourne

This is a photo from my trip to Australia this past July & August.  It's a street in Melbourne (don't know which one though, but I think it was pretty central).  I wish I was able to capture more photos when I was there, but it's a real hindrance when no one else in your group is into photography other than clicking the odd picture here and there.

This building (near the Eureka Tower I think) had this giant bee/wasp sculpture on it.  There is also a wall below to the right of this that has several of them on it - really cool.

Books

Yesterday, I went to help a friend come up with some ideas for activities for a Halloween lesson she was planning.  She works in a school library and wanted things to center around that.  While I was there, I wanted to try some shots of books on the shelves.  Here is one of them.  The photo was auto adjusted for colour and contrast.

This is the same shot as above, only this time I chose the "colour in the center" application on Photoshop Elements.  I might try to play with the contrast a little more, and maybe see how that looks (especially on the black and white parts of the photo).  I also want to learn to do selective colours as I think that might look pretty cool in a photo like this.

P.S. Yesterday's photo is of some blurred books on this book shelf.

Abstract

Today's photo was an experimental type shot I tried.  Can you guess what the photo is?  Let me know in the comments section what your guess is.

B is for...

Today I decided to capture something blue.  This is a garden ornament in my mother's garden - a iron/steel and glass butterfly.  I pointed up towards the sky, hence the background.  It's not the most creative picture, but that wasn't particularly my focus today - just to take a photo of something that was blue.  I auto adjusted the colour and contrast, and that was all for editing.

This is the same photo as above, only I decided to play around with it.  I added, in Photoshop Elements, what I think was called "glow edging" (I could be wrong with the name though), and thought it might look cool.  I like the way it turned out.

Three Leaves

A simple photo of three leaves which I took at a recent photo shoot at a local park.

Trees

A simple photo of a small grove of trees.  I took this in the park near my home, part of the collection of photos I took that day.  Mostly what I was going here for was the lines - the vertical lines caused by the tree trunks.  Again, it's not amazing or anything like that; but I like how the photo depicts the end of the fall season.

Bit o' Bokeh

These aren't great photos, I'll be the first to admit it.  But, they are from my first attempt at trying to do bokeh.  I definitely need to find my old tripod and make a better setup, but out of the several photos I shot in this session, these are probably the better two. 

I have three coloured bottles - blue, red, and yellow - and I tried shots using the different ones.  I was only satisfied with these two of the red bottle.  Mind you, I'm not completely satisfied with these shots, but like I said before, they are the better ones from what I took.  I also used some Christmas lights to try to get the bokeh effect.  In some shots, the lights had the effect a little bit, but the rest of the light was too visible.  I might try this when it's dark instead of having some light shining through the blinds. 

I've done some reading on this topic (bokeh), and it said it was pretty easy to do this type of photography, but at the same time, it takes a lot of practice to "perfect" it.  I'll keep trying though, because some of the photos of bokeh I've seen are amazing.

Birch

I had taken a photo of this without a flash and it turned out dark, so I turned the flash on and got this image.  I auto edited the colours, brightness, contrast, etc., and I'm sure it could be fixed up much better.  It doesn't help that there is a big white cloud in the background - I wish it had been broken up by blue sky somewhat.  Anyway, I took this yesterday when I went to the park near my house for a little photo shoot.

Leaf x 2

I went out to another local park today, this one closer to my home (practically in my backyard).  I wanted to see if there were still some nice fall photos to be taken.  Sadly, most of the leaves have fallen now, but I did get some nice shots.

The above shot was taken using the macro mode of my camera, using my 18-55mm lens.  I've auto adjusted the colour and contrast a bit in this photo.  The one below is the same shot, only I converted it to black and white and adjusted the RGB levels some.

B & W Bark

Ganted, this might not be the best or most interesting photo, but I was playing around with the maco setting on my camera and wanted to try to capture the texture of the tree bark.  I converted the photo from colour to b&w and adjusted the RGB levels some.

B&W Tree

This photo is from my excursion a few weeks ago to a local park to take fall pictures.  I changed this over to black & white and adjusted the RGB colours.  I like how black & white helps show of textures - like the bark on this tree trunk.

A Pretty Dahlia

One of last year's dahlias; not sure of the name of this one.

Just Grass

A few weeks ago, I went with my friend Michelle to a local park to take some photos.  This is one that I took that day - just some tall grass growing next to a little brook that ran off the lake.  This photo is untouched with regard to any editing.

Raindrops

It was raining again today, so when I waited for a time when it was more like a mist and headed out with a plastic bag around/over my camera with just the lens poking out of a hole I cut in the bag.  I wanted to try to capture raindrops on leaves, flowers, etc.  At some point I would like to try prettier rain shots, but this is what I have for now.  This is a leaf from a flower/plant in one of the front step window boxes.  I used the lens that came with the camera (18-55 mm) and used the macro setting on the camera.  Some day I would like to have a real macro lens so I can take really good macro photos!

The End of A Season

The end of flower season is pretty well upon us.  This is one of the few remaining purple cone flowers left in my mom's garden, and it's seen better days.  I still liked it though, and thought it worthy of photographing.

Another Autumn Photo

I love the beautiful colours of the trees.  God has done some mighty fine work!

It's Autumn

This is another photo from the park I went to yesterday to take pictures of the beautiful autumn leaves.  I think this is one of my favourite shots from the photo shoot.  I should try to get back to this same location next summer and take a duplicate photo of this scene just to have a different look (all green leaves).

Crimson & Clover

I was out taking some pictures of the beautiful fall leaves today.  I came across this little tree with red leaves.  I like the red ones the best.  I saw this little stubby leaf that looked like it was only beginning to grow when the colour change took place.  I wanted to capture it just because I thought it was cute.

On my way back to the car, I came across 2 or 3 clovers and after a few shots (using my 18-55mm lens set to macro), I got this one.  Using Photoshop Elements, I auto changed the colour and contrast.

I hope to put some other pictures I took today of the fall foliage over the next few days.  I also got some more photos of my mom's dahlias.  It was a beautiful overcast day - perfect for taking pictures!

Downtown Yesan

This is a picture of one of the streets in the downtown area of the small town I lived in for a year in South Korea.  This particular day was quiet and not many people or cars were around at this point - otherwise it would have been crowded!

In this particular town, there were only about a dozen of us foreigners (white skinned as well), so we were quite the novelty.  The kids may or may not have been at a school where one of us taught.  They were definitely not at my school, because I taught at an all boys middle school.

Tinker Belle

I took this shot yesterday of my cat, Tinker Belle.  I had been attempting to take some photos of tomoatoes, but I don't think they quite turned out.  I'll need to try when there is more light, since I took them when it was getting dark.

I know I should have adjusted it so her ears were in the shot, but I was trying to get her washing her paw.  I like how she has one eye opened and the other closed.

Off Shoot

This is a grove (?) of tree trunks on the hill beside my house.  I took the shot a couple of days ago around supper time.  The light was coming from the back right hand side.  I adjusted the white balance (I believe it was on cloudy because that's the kind of day it was) and snapped the shot. 

Using PSE, I converted the photo to black and white and adjusted the red, green, and blue colours.  This was just more or less a test shot because I was trying to figure out how to change the white balance on my camera.  I had learned awhile back but forgot; so when I found out how to do it again, I tried adjusting it.

I had hoped the photo would have had the trunks in the front more in focus, as well as the shoot of the other tree growing among them, but I guess I didn't have the camera set for that.  It's a learning curve - to make sure you adjust your camera settings, apertures, etc. and take several pictures (using the different settings).  I'm not overly disappointed with the photo though.

South Korea Part 2

This is another photo I took on the excursion my class of Korean English teacher's took me.  This was taken last spring with my Sony digital point and shoot camera.  I liked this tree, even though it didn't have any leaves on it; it seemed to have some character to it and I wanted to take a photo of it in front of the buildings.  My focus was not on the buildings, but the tree.

Unfortunately, I don't know how to fix the sign in the picture (it's way too bright/over exposed).  I might try my hand at removing the object - same with the person who is squatting and taking a photo...

South Korea

Today's photo comes from South Korea.  I spent a year there (2007-2008) teaching English.  In the spring of 2008, the Korean English teachers I taught took me on a little field trip to a somewhat nearby Buddist temple to visit.  Buddism is the largest religious sect in the country, and Christianity is the second largest (I'm Christian).

It was a nice outting, and the temple was located in a lovely spot which was quiet and serene.  When we went, it was close to Budda's birthday so there were little paper lanterns strung out along the paths leading up to the temple area.

I took this photo on my Sony digital point and shoot.  I touched up the colours in Photoshop Elements to make them look a little brighter.