Spring in Wisconsin!

 Springtime in Wisconsin!

Last Year's Spring...

Today there is about 4 inches of snow on the ground. It is sad, but I am trying not to think about it. I did manage to get some spring photos though...not! These are from last year around this time. I do enjoy Wisconsin's spring, but right now all I want is for it to be warm. I don't mind if we skip quickly into summer.

 April 22, 2010

April 22, 2010

April 19, 2010

April 22, 2010

 April 15, 2010

April 13, 2010

April 19, 2010. This is actually Iowa, but I am pretty sure it snowed there this past weekend too.

End of Summer Holgas from Central Wisconsin

Some end of Summer Holgas....

Kayaking at Lake Eau Claire on Labor Day

Yes, it was rainy, but we managed to get in a picnic on a sandbar before it really started to rain.

I love boardwalks through the woods. This is from the Ice Age Trail near Mondeaux Dam.

 I have been really into yellow lately. As a flower and pretty much any color except sweaters circa 2001.... :) I also enjoy that final yellow burst of summer and sun before fall in winter. Fall yellow is such a different yellow than summer yellow.... to me anyway!

Birds on a wire along the road. Holgas don't pick up that much detail....

Some flowers for you...

Photos of end of summer flowers that I saw on my morning run. No, I don't run with my camera, but I drove somewhere to run and had my camera in my trunk. Normally I don't have enough time to take photos after running, but it was Sunday and my only plans were laying out at the lake, which was accomplished!

I have developed a strong interest in taking photos of flowers from below. I like the way the sun shines through the petals and illuminates tiny details that from the top I would never notice.

And some summer grass!

Mead Nature Preserve

This weekend I went on a little jaunt to the Mead State Wildlife Area in Marathon County. I was hoping the flowers would be blooming in the prairie, and they were! My digital camera (Canon 40D) and my nice portrait/macro lens (Canon 28-70) are somewhere getting fixed, so I had to use my film camera, which was lovely. I picked it up and said, "Hello old friend!" And it seriously was like an old friend. It is a Pentax ZX-30, I got it after high school graduation when I realized that I might want to be a photographer. It served me well, all through college and until I finally got a digital camera at the end of my fifth year.  Anyway, here are a few photos from this weekend. Most of the photos I shot with my Pentax 50mm f 1.4 lens.

Prairie flowers, but I am not sure what kind they are.

A series of daisies

I had to cover my head with my hood and lay in the dirt to get this. I was scared of ticks jumping on.

I know these scans are a bit dirty, but they are kind of a pain to clean. I do miss the look of film. I think it looks nice when nature photos are a little less sharp and a little more dreamy.

I have no idea what this plant is, but I like the symmetry.

These photos were at the beginning of my roll from last year. It seems like even though a year has passed, I was in the same mind-set last time I used my film camera.

Trillium

That is all I have for now. The rest the scans were too bad to look decent to post. I will just have to re-scan them. I have another roll that hopefully won't take a year to finish. I put it in and then realized it is slide film that expired about 8 years ago. I am not sure if I can even get it developed anywhere around here.

Tulips

In Kansas City the tulips were out!

Tulips in my sister's yard

Here they are almost out.

Spring is springing!

And... Action!

And.... action!

I downloaded some actions from Actions and Textures by Michelle and was waiting for the right neutral-ish, yet not snowy, photo to experiment with, something that had color and details. Finally, the snow melted and the first flowering tree/bush that I saw, I photographed for that purpose.

I don't use actions for my work photos, and don't normally use them for day-to-day personal photos, but I do occassionaly use them for post-processing wedding photos. I tend to stick with a mild vignetting action and some vintage-type black and white actions. Many professional photography studios and start-ups use actions and I feel like they are pretty trendy right now. I think it is important to experiment (and I am not a huge Photoshop guro and not sure if I want to put the time into developing my own actions) so I wanted to check these out for that potential use. I am not sure about how I feel about actions in general, it seems like a lot of times, actions are used to disguise a bad exposure, or every photo has a ton of post-processing that diminish details in the highlights/shadows of the photo.

Original toned photo

Basic Pop

Warm Cinnamon

Breeze

Mint

Barely Vintage

Lovely B/W

Memories

Antique Vintage

I think these are nice actions and the Lovely B/W, Basic Pop and antique actions would work well for  wedding photos. The mint is a bit too green and manipulative for my liking.

If you are interested in downloading these free actions, HERE  is the website. The blog, http://actionsbymichellenicole.blogspot.com/, also has a ton of other actions and textures for photo post-processing.

I'm Thinking Spring!

 

 

 I took these photos awhile ago to make some cards for my Etsy.com site. I set the flowers up in my "studio" at home to control the light. My studio actually consists of a piece of paper taped to a big piece of cardboard propped up between a table and a chair so that the paper drapes onto the table. It works though! I use off-camera flashes for the light source.

The results:

 Etsy Card: Bloom 

Etsy Card: Hello

Etsy Card: Blossoms

This is also a cool link on Magnum in Motion. The first photo also reminds me of spring.
The Shipping Forecast : Magnum in Motion