Monday, July 18, 2011

THE LENS BABY

I am NOT the Lens Baby.  Just thought I'd get that right out there in case there was any question.

The Lens Baby is a new lens that I treated myself to this past spring because I'd been such a good, good girl.  I have yet to learn to use it.  It's quite difficult to find the "sweet spot" and make great photos, so I am taking a course on Lens Baby.

 In this past week I have taken over 90 shots.  Approximately 80 of which were not in focus.  For my assignment I had to turn in 3 photos that I really liked.  I was lucky enough to have had 3 photos I really liked.  So here they are...  If you double click on the photos they will enlarge.  Arrow back to get back to the page.


The Bee



The Butterfly Bush


Tiny Baby Pinecones


If you look closely, you can see the image around the "sweet spot" is blurred.  This is the intention.  

Since I needed some flowers, and everything in my yard is dead, I had to depend on the kindness of neighbors for my specimens.  I was in our next door neighbor's yard so many times I was beginning to feel like a stalker, so I drove to the next town to a friend's house for some of these.   

This is going to take some practice.  Maybe by the time the class is over, I'll be an expert of finding the "sweet spot".  Then again...

I got some really good comments on the first and third photos.  The second one, not so much.  I agree with the instructor, it has too much contrast and the dark background doesn't enable you to see the Lens Baby effect.  But I had 80 others that were from Blursville.  This is harder than it looks.  They all looked in focus on the camera, but as soon as they hit the computer - Blursville.  But I WILL MASTER THIS!!!  As God is my witness, I will find that "sweet spot" and run with it.

Gotta' run.  Next lesson is in.  I'm off to perfect my skills.  Yada, yada, yada....


HOW WE SUFFER FOR OUR ART!

Sunday, July 10, 2011

TILGHMAN ISLAND, MD

After yesterday's disappointment on NOT sailing on the Kalmar Nyckel, we drove down to Tilghman Island to see what goes on there.  Apparently, nothing.  It is a sleepy little fishing village with a few B & B's and some restaurants thrown in for good measure.  Located 4 miles past St. Michael's, Tilghman is a great place for quiet.  We drove to the end of the island to Walnut Point and it was open seas as wide as far as the eye could see.  The Chesapeake and the Choptank River come together at the Point.  It was a beautiful spot.  A couple of guys bought the 58 acres on the Point and opened a B & B and a bird sanctuary.  We didn't see any birds, but they say there are osprey there now.  We saw deer all over the island, too.



WALNUT POINT


Lunch was at The Bridge Restaurant just over the Knapps Narrow drawbridge.  We sat on the water and had the best crab cake sandwich I've ever had.  No filler...just crab lumps.  And the flavor was incredible.  The waitress took great pride in the crabmeat.  She said it was her family's crabmeat.  They are crabbers.  I'd love to spend a day doing that sometime.  I'm going to look into finding a crabber who takes people out crabbing.  There's got to be someone out there who does that.  The waitress offered to take me chicken neckin', where you get a chicken neck, tie it to some string and just drop it in the water.  She claims it really works.  She invited another waitress to go out with us.  So I might just go chicken neckin' with the girls.  The people on Tilghman are the best!


KNAPPS NARROW 

SAILING...SAILING...

OK, so Friday we decided to take a half day and go sailing on the Kalmar Nyckel, a reproduction of a tall ship that brought the Swedes to America in the 1600's.  What is wrong with me?  Don't I EVER listen to the weather?  Sometimes I am staring at the screen as they do the weather and Dick will ask me what they said and I won't have a clue.  My mind is somewhere else.  Needless to say, Friday morning the sun was shining brightly and I smiled as I looked out the window.  However, a deluge of thunderstorms were predicted for Friday afternoon.  Sailing time was 2:00 pm.  We arrived at the dock at 1:30 and took some shots of the prep work the crew was doing, then at 2:00 the crew announced that due to the inclement weather, the sail would be canceled.


The Kalmar Nyckel

Jordan actually did some work on the Kalmar Nyckel's dingy when he was in high school, as a school project.  As you see, it has since been replaced (that was over 20 years ago) by a super fast pontoon rubber raft.  Real authentic. What's up with that?

We have rescheduled our sail and will report back soon.  This ship has so many original carvings on it it would be a shame to miss them.  It is a work or art, manned by a partially volunteer  crew.  Should be a fun sail, as we can get as involved as we'd like.  Well, Dick can heave ho as much as he'd like.  I'll be the volunteer papparazzi.

Be back soon.