Bond Falls

I ended up having some time away from work and decided to make a trip to a set of falls I’ve been wanting to visit for awhile. Now that I live an hour closer to them it makes the trip a little easier and I’m hoping to make another trip to them sometime during the summer. For all of these photos I had on my gear to go walking into the water to get different perspectives. For the colored photo with the reflection I ended up waist deep in the water. I was trying to get closer but it got too deep but I’m glad I was forced to get the photo I did as it allowed to capture the reflection in the foreground.

 

Reaching – Original

I know I said I was going to post what the photo that I posted two weeks ago last week, but I couldn’t find the time. So here I am a week late. Better late than not at all though.

Here is the edited version so you don’t have to view the last post:

And here is the original that I used to create that photo:

Now can you see what it is? It’s an orange, but more specifically,  a mandarin orange. I liked how it looked when I peeled it so I decided to take a photo of it. Don’t know when my next post will be. I’ve been busy getting things moved out of my house and searching for a new house. Looked at 4 so far and haven’t liked any of them. I’ve got quite a few on the list though.
The next one is less than half an hour from Lake Michigan so it would be nice to get that one. I hope we like it. Two state parks near by as well.

Until next time!

Reaching

You are always told to not play with your food, but where is the fun in that? With that in mind, can you guess what the above photo is of? You won’t find out in this post. To me it looks like it could be a minuature tree reaching towards the sky.

Unlike my other photos this one was taken with my phone and edited in snapseed. Once you have a vision and the tools to create that vision, it doesn’t matter how well those tools are as long as they get the job done. It would have been nice to use the DSLR but I didn’t have access to it at the time. LR would have been nice to use but I didn’t feel like going through with the amount of time it would have taken with transferring the photo over and doing the processing. Plus I was happy with the results I got anyways.

I wish I could say that there are more photos coming soon. Instead I’ll say that I have no idea when I’ll be able to process more or even get the camera out again. I’m still working crazy hours, a couple weeks with 70, and on top of that in the process of selling and buying a house. Add trying to keep up with three kids and that leaves me with very little sleep each night and no time to even think about photography. I’ve got David DuChemin’s newest book and some other photography materials but no time to go through them. I think about how much I wish I could and still I wait until I have the time. Patience is something I’ve learned to live with.

I’m hoping this busy life will slow down soon so I can get back to what I enjoy. Until then have fun guessing at what I have presented you with.

Monochrome Madness – Pollen Covered

Click on the image to view a high res version.

Focal Length: 105mm
Aperture: f/29
Shutter Speed: 1/200
ISO: 100

 

Monochrome Madness – Drop of Life

Click on the image to view a high res version.

Focal Length: 105mm
Aperture: f/20
Shutter Speed: 1/100
ISO: 100

Whenever I find that I have a little bit of free time and some inspiration along with something to work with, I can’t help but work with my flash and camera to come up with something creative. I have found that a lot of photos I’ve been taking lately have been right in my dining room or kitchen. For this photo I used a water dropper to place a drop of water in order to give this photo something else to help it along. For other great monochrome photos don’t forget to visit Leanne Cole’s blog for Monochrome Madness this week!

Monochrome Madness – Beads of Light

Click on the image to view a high res version.

Focal Length: 105mm
Aperture: f/18
Shutter Speed: 1/200
ISO: 100

For this weeks Monochrome Madness I decided to get a different angle of the rose after I had photographed laying down. I decided to process this in B&W to focus more on the details and lines that the rose provides us. To see more great monochrome photos visit Leanne Cole’s blog every Wednesday!

Monochrome Madness – Rays of Sunshine

Click on the image to view a high res version.

Focal Length: 20mm
Aperture: f/13
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 100

I love the way this shot turned out with the rays off the sun. To view more great monochrome photos visit Leanne Cole’s blog every Wednesday!

Monochrome Madness – Fuzzy

Click on the image to view a high res version.

Focal Length: 105mm
Aperture: f/3.2
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 100

Monochrome Madness is now onto it’s second year and going strong. To view more great monochrome photos visit Leanne Cole’s blog every Wednesday!

Thought I would also put in that I finally got a smart phone so now I am also on Instagram. I’m not sure how you would find me on there but if anyone would like to follow me on Instagram then let me know what I need to give you.

Big Nose

Click on the image to view a high res version.

Focal Length: 16mm
Aperture: f/4.5
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 100

The 5th and final day of theh Black-and-White 5 days photo challenge. I usually don’t care much for street photography but always look forward to what Shane over at The Weekly Minute posts. So for this last day I’d like to invite him to do this challenge. I hope to see some more B&W photos from you Shane!

The rules for the Black-and-White 5 days photo challenge are:
(1) Publish a black and white photo every day for 5 days
(2) Invite someone to participate each day

Layered

Click on the image to view a high res version.

Focal Length: 105mm
Aperture: f/8
Shutter Speed: 1/200
ISO: 320

Keeping up to my low key photos on Thursdays I bring you this photo of some fungus. Fungus always brings us interesting details and I always love to photograph it.

We are now at day 4 of the Black-and-White 5 days photo challenge. Today I would like to invite Sarah over at Taking One Day At A Time. Sarah always produces great photos and I would like to see a few more B&W ones from her. I look forward to what you can show us Sarah!

The rules for the Black-and-White 5 days photo challenge are:
(1) Publish a black and white photo every day for 5 days
(2) Invite someone to participate each day

Newborn Photography

Now that I have a flash and a bit more experience than I had with my first two children, I decided to challenge myself and try to get better newborn portraits of the newest member to my family, Liam. I have to say that it went better than I expected but know that I wouldn’t want to do this on a regular basis. Although I find myself going out in deep snow and sub zero temps and trekking for many miles to get some of my landscape shots, I find that those are less stressful than newborn shots like the ones I did here. For these high key black and white photos I ended up using the off camera flash with the umbrella behind him and using the flash on the camera with a diffuser to do the front lighting.

I did go to a newborn portrait photographer the day before this and took some notes as she was shooting though. But as I tried things out I have to say that it does take a lot of practice to get the baby into certain poses. It’s also very hard to work with them without any clothes on. The room has to be very warm and the baby must be very tired or they are very difficult to work with. I also had a heating pad under the blanket to help out as well. The other photographer worked with him for almost 4 hours where I only just did an hour. I couldn’t handle more than that. Below is a gallery of the photos I took of him. I was very happy with the results I got and can’t wait to do more photos once he’s more contempt when he’s awake.

This is day number 3 for the Black-and-White 5 days photo challenge. For this day I would like to invite Stacey over at Learning to See Light to this challenge. She has recently got a new ND filter set and it would be nice to see more long exposures from her in B&W. Hope to see some more of your great long exposure photos Stacey!

The rules for the Black-and-White 5 days photo challenge are:
(1) Publish a black and white photo every day for 5 days
(2) Invite someone to participate each day

Monochrome Madness 1 Year Anniversary

It has been one year since Leanne Cole and Laura Macky started Monochrome Madness that is hosted on Leanne Cole’s blog. Below I have included a gallery of all the photos I have submitted to Monochrome Madness throughout the year. I wish I would have been able to make all the posts but I started in a little late and then I took a break for a few months. But there’s still quite the collection.

 

This is also my second post for the Black-and-White 5 days photo challenge. For today I would like to invite Laura Macky to this challenge. She’s always producing great photos and photographic art and I would like to see some more B&W from her! Hope to see 5 days of B&W from you Laura!

The rules for the Black-and-White 5 days photo challenge are:
(1) Publish a black and white photo every day for 5 days
(2) Invite someone to participate each day

Nature’s Snake – Monochrome Madness

Click on the image to view a high res version.

Focal Length: 105mm
Aperture: f/8
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 400

My father-in-law has a grape vine growing in his backyard and there are plenty of good shots to get from that. I wasn’t able to get as many as I wanted this last year but as spring comes around I’m hoping to be able to get some shots as we visit quite often. This is also my submission to Monochrome Madness hosted on Leanne Cole’s blog every Wednesday so check it out when you have some time!

High Key Pine Cones – Monochrome Madness

Click on the images to view a high res versions.

Here are some photos I took this winter to create some high key landscape photos. I like that the snow provides a natural white background that helps create the high key photos. For those of you that have a hard time trying to find things to shoot in the winter may want to give this a try as it can create some interesting photos. Naturally our eyes are drawn to the brightest part of the photo but when the majority of the photo is bright then our eye is drawn to the darkest part of the photo. This is the reason that high key photos work out so well.

This is also my submission to this weeks Monochrome Madness hosted by Leanne Cole. Visit her blog on Wednesday to view many other photos as well.

Spinning

Click on the image to view a high res version.

Focal Length: 16mm
Aperture: f/4
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 100

Last week I was a bit late in getting my photo to Leanne for the Monochrome Madness challenge so instead she is posting that photo this week so this is my unofficial Monochrome Madness photo for this week. I’ll have to remember to send that to her over the weekend instead of waiting until the last minute.

On other news, for those of you who care, the baby has decided to finally turn so he is now head down so my wife doesn’t need to have a c-section anymore. This is good news for both of us as she didn’t want to have a c-section partly due to the longer recovery time and I can have more time to practice my portrait photography before he comes. I will be working part time from home when he comes for a few weeks so during the last week or two I will most likely have some time to get out and take some photos of the ice. I’ve missed being able to do that this winter and from some other local photographers I see that I am missing some great opportunities. And I’m sure you all would love to see more of my ice photos as well. But for now I’ll be working on how to use my new flash better for both portraits and landscape. Tomorrow I’ll be posting my first practice shot for preparing for landscape photography with a flash.