My Home Office

Last August I blogged about where I am most of the time when I am working on photos -- From Where I Sit...My Home Office.  Well -- about a week ago I entered the photo of the living room in a contest on another photography blog -- This Photographer's Life.

Take a minute to read the blog.  There are some beautiful rooms represented.  You guys know, I am no interior decorator, but I like to play one sometimes.  I think my room holds up pretty well.  This is a room that is used -- and the photo shows it "in use."  Head over, read the blog and vote for the room you love best.  

This morning -- as I sit where you see Sadie in this photo, she is perched on top of the piece closer to the window.  There is not a day that goes by that I don't think that dog has come a long way from the shelter.  As soon as I wrote that, she jumped down and headed into the kitchen where my son is cooking some eggs for breakfast.

From the Barefoot Files...

Here is another photo from granddaddy's collection.  I believe this is the approach to the locks at The Panama Canal.  There is another photo labeled the Canal -- but it really does not show much of anything.  This one does.

The lower right appears to have a shadow from the ship showing.  Straight ahead from that shadow you can see the lane where the ship would sail -- tightly through.  I have heard from people who had sailed through the canal that you pass so closely to the sides of the locks -- you could reach out to touch them.

Knowing how long ago this was taken -- I look at those hills on the left and know that by now they are not open land any longer.

What Does Summer Taste Like?

Last year on a particularly hot day I wrote a post titled What Does Summer Look Like?  It still gets lots of looks.  Especially lately -- because -- well tomorrow is the first day of summer.  Funny - but in the earlier post about the look of summer, I have a photo of Carl's Custard stand.  If anyplace looks like summer -- it is Carl's!

Today I took another iconic (to me) summer photo...

Again -- it is ice cream.  I am not a big ice cream person -- but on a hot day there is not much better than a little bit of ice cream to cool everything down.  A few days ago when I was shopping I saw these little ice cream containers.  I remember as a child walking across the road with my grandmother to Heflin's store to get a small container of ice cream (always chocolate) and a small wooden paddle-style spoon.  How much fun would it be if the packages of these ice cream cups came with the old style wooden 'spoons?'  It would certainly be a bit more authentic.  For me -- ice cream will always mean summer.

Also in summer it is a time for fresh fruit -- berries, peaches, cherries and more.  I fight blackberry plants in my yard all the time.  They sprout and grown inches overnight.  I try to keep them out of the flower beds but a few always seem to get ahead of me.  Once I see the blooms, I leave them to create fruit for the birds.  Now the fruit is ripe and soon these plants will be pulled and tossed into the woods.  I know it is not the last I see of blackberries in summer.

Something else I think of is the garden.  I spent many hours in the gardens of my grandfathers as a child.  It is still a treat for me to pick and eat a tomato still warm from the sun ripening it.  I have a couple grape tomato plants in my backyard this year.  So far I think I have picked 7 tomatoes -- these are my photo of the day yesterday and they were delicious on my salad last night.

The last thing I think about is something cold to drink.  A very cold beer to sip on as dinner cooks on the grill is a summer treat.  Again -- here is a photo of the day from the 365 Project.  It is hard to believe I have kept up with it and today was day #171!

Happy Summer everyone!

From the Barefoot Files...

Digging through the photos in my grandfather's stash I found this.  Some type of exercises -- love the plane flying over and the sea of tents.  The people in the foreground, lower right corner, give scale to the scene.  A photo like this can show how a lot of empty space can help make the photo.  The men in the lower give scale -- but so does the plane in the sky over the field.

From the Barefoot Files...

Earlier this week it was my grandmother's birthday.  I have always like this picture of my father's parents.  Again looking at this photo, you see the shadow of the photographer.  Also you can see the sheen of hose on my grandmother's legs.

The road is dirt and rutted.  The tires of the car are caked with mud.  It appears to be winter by looking at the bare trees in the background.  Th white picket fence in the background also makes me think this was taken at my great grandmother's home (grandmother's mother).  I remember that house having a fence like this.  

Barefoot Photographer & Son

Tomorrow the Simple Pleasures photography show opens at The Veranda Inn in Senoia.  This is a new show.  Senoia is a busy place these days.  It is home to Riverwood Studios and the 2010 Southern Living Georgia Idea House.  The reception for the show is Friday night from 7 to 9.  I will be there on Saturday afternoon at 2pm speaking on "simple pleasures" and how the Lensbaby lens fits into that for me.  Sunday afternoon a good friend and great photographer, Gary Gruby, will be speaking on photography.  Also Saturday evening there is a dinner at The Veranda, reservations need to be made by contacting The Veranda -- and when you call about dinner, see if they have any rooms available.

This show is special for me because my son has a photo in it.  This is the first time he has entered anything.  He takes really nice photos.  We have been poking around at local car shows.  One of the first photos he ever took is the one that made it into the show.  

So -- you know it is going to be hot this weekend -- come to Senoia and hang out with us at The Veranda where it is always cool in the shade.

From the Barefoot Files...

I should say these photos come from the German branch of the Barefoot Files.  An old friend of mine sent them to me in an email this week.  She lives in Germany.  In the summer, she would visit an aunt who lived very close to a good friend of mine.  We would hang out with her during her visits.   Not too long ago she and I caught up with each other on LinkedIn -- and viola -- she emailed some old photos!  In the photo above she is in the middle, I am on the right, and my friend is on the left.  In the photo below -- it is just me with my future husband.  Interesting things in these old photos that stand out to me are little things; my friend's "Add-a-Bead" necklace, the Izod shirt, my old Bermuda Bag purse, me in my tennis dress, and my husband's first apartment.  These photos make me think I need to get my hair cut shorter.

Depth of Field

Last week someone said to me, "you always take photos with the background all out of focus."  I never really thought about someone seeing it that way -- I like to think of it as my subject is in sharp focus.  But by doing it that way -- making sure the subject is sharp -- most of the time the background is not.  He wanted to know how I do it.

I shoot in aperture priority most of the time.  This is what I choose because -- for me -- the depth of field is important.  The depth of field choice gives me that out of focus background.  Isolating your subject via focus really puts the eye of the viewer where you want it to go.  

Here you have no choice but to look at the daisy.  There is nothing in the background except extremely out of focus objects.  The background was not interesting and consisted of gravel and even a couple weeds.  Who needs that in a photo?  My aperture for this photo was 6.3, I was about 20-24 inches from the flower, I zoomed in with my Tamron 18-250mm lens all the way, and made sure my auto focus point was on that daisy.  You will notice that the daisy is in pretty sharp focus from front to back.  

In this photo (above) I used my 50mm lens and an fstop of 2.5.  Again the background was unappealing.  I wanted to isolate the roots of the poison ivy vine and by creating such a shallow depth of field -- it worked.  By choice, when I am creating a very shallow depth of field I like to use this lens.

In the photo above, I wanted to have sharpness throughout the frame.  Not so much in the reflection -- but along the shoreline.  I chose f18 as my aperture here to achieve that.  Selecting a higher aperture number decreases the opening that lets light in for the photo.  A higher aperture number will decrease the shutter speed -- less light, the shutter needs to stay open longer to let enough in to expose the photo correctly.  

Usually if you work in low light conditions and wish to hand hold the camera -- you will need to use a lower aperture (create a larger opening to let more light in).  When I am shooting at a high fstop -- I will use a tripod.  There is nothing worse than wanting sharpness throughout and getting blur all over!