Color

Peacock on a Fence

There was a time in my life when I was almost afraid of color. I wore a lot of black. Or mostly black with a little red thrown in. Or mostly navy blue with a little red thrown in. Or mostly brown with a little red thrown in.

Are you sensing a pattern here?

As as adult, and with confidence in myself, I've learned to love color.

My house has every color of the rainbow on its walls. I like to tell people we got drunk and painted the house. My favorite color scheme in my home, the dining room, is orange and teal. I have almost a pumpkin orange on the walls, light teal window treatments and a teal, brown, and cream rug. It makes me happy every time I see it.

I wear color too. I'm not afraid of it any more. Well, maybe I'm afraid of yellow. It makes me look too sallow. But other than yellow, if I like it, I'll wear it. In fact, I'm toting around a patent leather kelly green purse right now. It's fabulous.

Today I wore a light orange sweater topped with a dark plum corduroy jacket, a black satin skirt with dark plum flowers sewn on and embroidered in orange thread. It sounds a bit out there, but trust me, I looked fierce. (As Christian would say.)

Color adds so much to my life. As much as I love the serene calm of white snow, all that white space calling out to me; I love the gorgeous fuchsia, celadon, kelly, violet, and all the blushing colors of Spring, more. Or the warm, rich colors of Fall deep with spices, the burnt red of crackling fires and falling leaves, and the deep shades of football jerseys.

I'm discovering that my personality and love of color is appearing in my photographs as well. While I'll always love the dark tones of a cool vintage photo,


or the peaceful feeling of a nice black and white conversion (or mocha and white),



color is my forte.



Rich, saturated, glorious color.



Color just suits me.



And I still love to add a little of my red every now and then.




What's your signature color?

Chesapeake from a Helicopter

Lake near our house, where I like to take photos.

These actually aren't my pictures, although I did edit and crop them. T had to do some aerial testing of a product his company is working on and took a helicopter ride last week. He brought along my point and shoot camera, and talked the pilot into buzzing the house so he could take some photos.

Our house.

Back of our house.

Chesapeake is Generica: strip malls, chain restaurants and McMansions. Sigh.

Leading Lines

In photography, leading lines are lines in the photo that lead you to another subject in the photo, or out of the photo. You can use almost anything as a leading line: a road, tree line, pattern, fence, shadow, etc....

Here are a few examples from Stock.xchng:



Using a leading line from the corner of an image, leading to a subject placed in a photo according to the rule of thirds, makes a strong image with nice composition:

Of course, knowing that and actually doing it are two entirely different things. I didn't fully have an understanding of what I should be doing until after my photo shoot when I looked at what I had. But here are the photos I took expressly for a leading lines group photo challenge on Flickr.

The french fry is the leading line here,
although the photo didn't turn out quite the way I'd hoped.

This is the photo I chose to enter for the challenge:


This image is unedited.
In the first round of the challenge, we submit our photos straight out of the camera. In the second round, next week, we are allowed to edit the photos. The skin tone, light, and color all look pretty good here already. I will probably crop it to place the chocolate milk or the end of the straw in the corner of the photo, making it more compositionally pleasing. I'll have to play around with it and see. Of course, I'll post my end result for you to see.

Here are a couple other "leading line" photos I've taken at other times:


This image is unedited. I take so many darn photos, I just never got around to it. I actually took this photo for the silhouette challenge I did for my Flickr group a few weeks ago.
Here's one of Hollis I took the same day I took the photo of his feet:




Here is the classic example of a leading line - the road:



And finally, one with both of the boys:

Monster of a Lunch

This weekend we discovered an indoor space with fantastic natural light - the mall foodcourt. Go figure. It has these huge sky lights in the middle, so I didn't need a flash. I needed to take some "leading lines" photos for a group competition on Flickr, so I started shooting away. (I'll post my leading lines photos later.)

Please, no judgment on the chips and french fries. You try getting this kid to eat and then we'll talk.

I think I actually like the blown out highlights in the back. They make the photo's white space a little more interesting.



"I think he wants my chip, Mommy."
I don't know why, but this green goblin Happy Meal Toy fascinated me.



Here's the little green guy again. I used Michelle Black's Funky action to saturate the colors and add a little pop.




"He's really starting to creep me out, Mommy."
I was playing around with selective coloring here. I used Michelle Black's Mocha RAW preset and then layered a faded/vintage version of the photo over the top and left the green coloring in the little goblin.

Sewing Shadows

The Swing and Sway of Play



Falling With Style



Sewing Shadows

You can't stick it on with soap, Peter. It needs sewing. That's the proper way to do it. Although, come to think of it, I've never thought about it before... um... sewing shadows, I mean.

- Wendy, Peter Pan

California is Beautiful - Part II

Fog in Sepia




Of Fairy Mist and Redwood Trees




Down the Green Road

Northern California is Beautiful

I'll have more....