"Vegetables" - Whole Foods Market

"Excuse me, Ma'am. Is there something I can help you with?" the baby-faced employee asked me.

I lowered my camera sheepishly and smiled. He did not smile back. In fact, he looked like he was about 12 seconds away from asking me to leave the premises.

"I'm doing a photography course," I explained, trying a smile again. "Our assignment for this week is 'Vegetables' and I couldn't resist your beautiful displays." (Flattery, yes, but still the truth.)

"Oh, okay," he said. "Have a nice day, Ma'am."

Repeated use of the word "Ma'am" aside, I was relieved. I wasn't sure how agreeable Whole Foods would be toward my camera.

I didn't dare set up my tripod, so I spent the next 15 minutes or so getting in the way and trying to brace my elbow on anything my might help to steady my hands.

I don't even like artichokes, but they look so pretty. My camera has a "food" setting, which allows me to adjust the colors a bit, so this is pretty much SOOC. All I did was crop out a little bit of the bin that was showing on the bottom of the frame.

I don't like tomatoes either, but they do look so cheerful when huddled in a group.

I desaturated both of these shots a little. As bright as they are now, they were glowing a little hot in the original image.

My youngest daughter has developed a taste for bell peppers. The red ones are her favorite, but she likes to eat them raw like an orange. She takes a slice and chews out the meat, leaving the skin to be discarded on her plate.

It's a little gross to watch, but I'm too excited to see her enjoying vegetables to make an issue of it.

This is the photo as I took it. Obviously, the colors are distorted and orange. I didn't have much luck correcting it later since most everything I tried to do to correct the orange tint in the pepper stems on the left made the yellow peppers look sickly and green. I think I just used the wrong color setting when I took the photo.

Live and learn, but I'm including it anyway since I really do like the perspective. Whole Foods really does an excellent job in displaying their food. It's gorgeous.

They even make lettuce look exotic and interesting.

I love it. But what if you prefer a little more color?

There are rows and rows of different varieties and flavors of lettuce. All of it is arranged to look incredibly appetizing and elegant.

I have no idea if this kind of lettuce even tastes good, but I really want to buy it. It will make a really pretty salad.

"Spirit" - Spirits

So, let's say I was in the mood for a martini. A pink one. With some moderately-priced vodka.

Spirits...Spirit...close enough?

"Spirit" - Iwo Jima Memorial

The assignment for this week is "Spirit".

In thinking about how I would approach this subject I had several ideas.

I thought about cheerleaders, of course. "We've got spirit, yes we do. We've got spirit, how about you?!"

I thought about church and The Holy Spirit.

I thought about the spirit and liveliness I find in my children every day.

I'd still like to try and capture each of those things, but the one I ultimately went after was the spirit of soldiers and battles and war.

This photo, taken in 1945 during the Battle of Iwo Jima is simply legendary. It has come to represent the feelings of determination, strength, and triumph that can be felt in the midst of grief, exhaustion, and destruction.

There is a monument in my town that is dedicated to the Connecticut residents who died during the Battle of Iwo Jima. Not surprisingly, it is a statue that mimics this very scene.

I went out to take photos there before work one cold morning last week. Of course, I forgot to bring my boots, so my pretty suede loafers limited me to taking photos on the shoveled path.

The sun was just rising high enough to be part of some of the photos, and though it was a bit cloudy, I thought the sky was bright enough to keep the light from being too flat.

You can see the sun rising in the lower right corner, but the street light that is peeking out there too bothered me, so I cropped just a bit.

I also played with the shadows and contrast to keep the statue as a silhouette. I'm happy with how it came out.

I also went around to the other side of the statue out of curiosity.

I was interested in the face of the soldier that was facing me, but it doesn't come through very clearly in the photo.

I tried to lighten the photo and adjust the highlights so his face is more clear, but I don't think it worked. I think it just became an awkward angle of the statue. I don't really feel any of the power of the moment from this angle.

Finally, I went back and took another look at the soldiers. I became interested in the outstretched hands.

It didn't seem to make sense to show the hands without the flag, so I tried to find an angle that would capture both.

I like the angle, but when I saw the photo on the computer I decided that the sky was too flat, and the white stripes on the flag are too blue, so I tried to adjust for both.

In the end, I found that the best way to improve the colors was to run a warming filter over it. I also lightened the photo as a whole.

I like it, but decided to try one more effect, just to see what would happen.

In sepia the photo seems a lot less modern, which may work in this case. I miss the vibrancy of the flag as opposed to the monochrome bronze, but I think I still see the "spirit" I was looking for in the photo.

"Romance" - Rose

When it comes to romance, I doubt there's anything more iconic than the rose. Every girl knows that the only way to be really sure that your boyfriend loves you is if he brings you roses, right?

Unless you tell him to bring you roses, in which case the only thing you can be sure of is that he is able to follow directions.

In any case, since Monday was Valentine's Day, there are now roses in my house. Alas, they are not my roses. My husband gave a dozen of them to each of our two girls, which is actually much sweeter in my opinion than if he'd bought them for me.

Notice that the roses aren't red. They are a gorgeously saturated orangey-yellowish-red. The light was coming from the window on the right side of the photo, which seems to have made the outside petals cast an orange glow on the inner petals.

I think it creates too much of a saturated glow in the shot - almost garish, so I desaturated and adjusted the light a bit.

I think this ones still gives you the excitement of all that color without it being distracting. Also, I think that reducing the glow makes it easier to see the detail on the inside of the flower. (At least I hope it does.)

Next I though I'd see what happened if I started to remove the tint from the photo.

I really like this one. It has a sort of antique feel. I think it looks softer than the original.

In order to address the glow that the light cast on the inner petals, I decided to turn the open flower directly into the light.

Better, I think, but I still warmed up the white and desaturated the flower a little.

I'm not sure about this one. Am I losing too much of the power of the original orange?

Maybe, so what would happen if I lost all the color completely?

After I made the photo B&W, I also increased the shadows and highlights to create more interesting contrast. I really like the result.

Finally, I laid a few of the roses down together.

Although I like the lines of this shot, I thought it was a bit to predictable, so I went ahead and cropped it.

I also warmed up the photo a bit, but left the saturation pretty much alone. I think this is a much more interesting composition than the original.

Finally, I did the same treatment as earlier to remove the tint, and then I added a lot of grain.

I really like this one too, though I probably wouldn't be able to call it a particularly romantic photo of roses.

"Romance" - 722

It's Valentine's Day. Not surprisingly, the assignment for this week is "Romance". I do have some lovely photos of a rose that I'll share later on this week, but I wanted to start with a less conventional view of romance.

My husband is a big, strong, hard-working man. He's not fancy, and he suffers no fools.

However, when it comes to his family he's as soft as they come.

We were married "later in life" than most - I was 34 and he was 36 - so by the time we came together and had a family we were both more than ready.

I explain all of this because it might serve to make my interpretation of "romance" a little clearer.

That's my wedding date tattooed on my husband's finger. There are four dots around it - one for me and one for each of our kids. (I like to think that mine is the dot on the bottom, supporting all the rest.)

I asked him to pose for this photo and took him as-is. He's wearing a dirty work shirt, and there is a day's worth of work dirt gathered under his fingernails.

That's my man. Fancy? Not even a little, but there's no question that his family is his life.

Anyway, that's the shot straight out of the camera. The first thing I did was crop it a little closer.

The sharpness of his hand may tell you that I am finally using a tripod regularly. Live and learn, right?

I like the shot as-is, but decided to make it a little more dramatic.

I sharpened up the lines, played with the contrast, and adjusted the colors slightly. I am a little sorry that it took away the brown in his eyes, but I think the result is a pretty powerful photo.

After that I went back to the original and tried it in B&W.

I ran it through a filter (yellow, i think) and added a lot of grain, especially in and around his face. Not bad, I think.

But I think this one is better. I added more contrast and tried to sharpen the lines in his fingers while keeping his face blurred.

I'm happy with it. Who says romance has to be about perfumed hearts and bubbly beverages anyway?

"Body Parts" - Old Dog

Yup. The poor brown dog was recruited against his will to be my subject today.

He turned 11 years old today, and I thought I'd take some shots of the old guy to show how much he's aged.

Here he is at age two.

Here he is with the Yellow Dog at age four.

(The two of them ruined that sofa, by the way. No amount of sheeting was able to keep the oily dog smell away.)

Seven years later, the one I consider my firstborn is an old man.

He is a tired, tired old man.

Look at how the white hair has crept from his snout all the way to his eyes.

Go ahead and rest, old friend.

Look, even your paws have turned white.

Oh, and it looks like it's time to trim your nails again.

Brace yourself.

Happy Birthday, Brown Dog.

(July, 2006)

"Body Parts" - Feet

With all of the bad weather we have been having lately, it's been difficult to get out of the house to do anything, including taking pictures. I was relieved that this week's assignment was one I could manage to complete indoors.

"Body Parts."

I came up with some wildly inappropriate ideas right away that would have involved naked baby bottoms, but decided against it. Who knows who might see such photos, and although the idea of using them in 10 years to blackmail my children might be appealing, it's not worth the risk.

Instead I decided to do a study of our feet. I tried to take photos that not only showed their adorable little toes, but ones that also tell a bit about the subject.

Starting with the oldest, Number One is a snuggler. She has a soft heart, and just wants to love and be loved.

At the same time that I took the photo of her asleep in my bed (for the "Sleep" assignment), I looked down to find her toes peeking out of the bottom of the blanket.

I didn't do much to edit this one at all - I only cropped it a little to make it square. In the original the toes are running through the center of the frame. The square pushes them more toward the right side.

The photo makes me smile. Being curled up, relaxed, and snuggly is such an apt pose for this girl.

My younger daughter, on the other hand, is much more lively and independent. She's still loving and sweet, but more than one old woman has stopped me in the grocery store to say, "That one has a bit of the devil in her, doesn't she?"

She does indeed.

Crazy toes are so appropriate for Number Two. She's a ball of energy all day long until she drops from exhaustion.

Again, I didn't have to do much to this photo. The color was there, so I just blurred the edges of the carpeting a bit.

Now for The Boy.

He is just barely a year old and desperately wants to walk but he's still working on the tricky art of balance, so he's limited to crawling for the moment.

So he crawls. And crawls. And crawls.

He's constantly on the move, so this is the view I usually have of his feet.

This photo was more difficult to get tham I thought it would be. I had such a hard time getting him to crawl in the correct direction while convincing the camera to focus at the correct things at the correct time.

I'm happy with the final shot. I warmed up the color just a tad and made it a little more crooked so that he's crawling more toward the corner of the shot.

I tried to get a photo of The Robb's feet, but it didn't work out. Too much work, too little natural light, and a significant lack of good ideas. Maybe I'll still try to get one later this week.

Saving myself for last, I ... well, let's just see the picture.

A mom in her habitat. Chipped pedicure, a dirty floor covered with brightly-colored toys, and pants with a very high spandex content.

I didn't do a thing to this photo. One thing I noticed when I saw it on the computer is that there's a shadow of a dinosaur on the wheel of the tractor. Totally unintentional, but I love it!

So those are our feet. I'm sorry about my choice of nail polish. It's actually a dark purple color that I thought the girls would like. However, once it was on I realized that it is far too dark and looks like I've suffered an unfortunate case of frostbite.

Or perhaps I dropped a series of heavy objects on each of my toes individually.

"Sleep" - Napping Girl

Last weekend I fought another round of the epic battle for naptime.

My girls are at that age where they think they don't need to nap...except that they do. So, every weekend I struggle to get them to sleep, and every weekend they do their best to drive me to fits.

On this particular day I decided to take the "divide and conquer" approach. I left Number Two upstairs and brought Number One into my bed. After a few rounds of  "No, really. Stay in bed," she did eventually fall asleep.

This shot is pretty much straight out of the camera. All I did was crop it a little closer (my pajamas had crept into the edge of the frame). She is sleeping on top of my blanket, and I like the texture and color of the brown next to her pale face.

Of course, I wouldn't be me if I didn't play with the editing a little. I wanted to add some dreaminess to the scene.

I added a little glow to her face and increased the saturation a tad. It might be a bit too much, but I do think I achieved a dreamy quality here.

I also tried the photo in black and white.

I'm so drawn to B&W shots. I like the drama, I guess. It just amazes me that the same shot that was so sweet and dreamy in the last edit is now sort of dark and gritty.

This photography thing is so interesting. So much to learn, but I'm enjoying the process.

Extra Credit - Snow Storm

Last week we had a snow storm.

Actually, in the last several weeks we've been having at least two snow storms every week, so the storm itself was not particularly newsworthy. However, just as soon as the snow stopped falling after this specific storm, the sun came out and the sky turned blue. With the blessing of The Robb, I left the kids in his care and took off to take some pictures.

I ended up driving to the waterfall again. It's where I took this photo for the first week's assignment.

On this day, however, the falls looked like this instead.

I tried several angles and areas of focus, but couldn't seem to get any interesting shots of it this time. I was actually using a tripod this time and still couldn't get the look I wanted.

If you look at the lower left of the above photo, the water runs below that layer of ice to this point.

I absolutely love the little round tufts of snow of top of the rocks. I like the photo as is, but when I try to correct some of the blue, the shafts of sunlight become distorted and garish.

I'd taken a closer shot, so I pulled it up.

I actually did very little to edit this one - all I did was warm it up a little to help with the blue tint from the snow. I'm happy with it. Totally worth wading up to my thighs through the snow to get to the falls.

As I was leaving I saw a snow-covered bush that I thought was sort of neat-looking.

I liked the ice-covered branches and the lines they created.

As I was looking through the camera to find interesting perspectives, I was surprised that a flash of color crossed my lens.

 I went back to find it again and saw this:

I almost did a little dance there in the snow. I edited the photo two ways.

First I stayed pretty far away.

The only thing I did was deepen the shadows a bit to define the branches.

I love the sweep of that branch going from left to right and that the pop of color is relatively subtle amid all those twigs.

Then I decided to get much closer.

The snow almost looks like sugar crystals. Cropping so closely has made the photo pretty grainy, but I don't think I mind. I really like this one.

I'm snowed in today with another storm, but I don't think I'm going out to take pictures of it. I'm tired of snowy photos. Bring on the Darling Buds of May!