And the winner is...

"Eerie Night" 

Chosen by the readers, "Eerie Night" is Irish Lady Photography's top photo manipulation of 2011.  It's a view of low-hanging storm clouds that passed just to the east of my house.  Between thunderstorms, I grabbed my D40 equipped with the 18-55mm lens and ran outside to snap pictures.

The initial photo didn't show the proper definition seen by the naked eye.  I popped the photo into Microsoft Office Picture Manager and played with the color and contrast.  When I got the clouds the way I wanted them, I then used another editing program like PhotoScape and used the watercolor filter to get the finished look you see here.

~ ~ ~

Thank you so much for your time spent viewing and voting.  I plan to add more manipulations throughout 2012.  Please come back often to see the new additions.  There will be chances at the end of each quarter to vote for your new favorites. 

Thanks again, 

Maria

"Early Morning"

Aug. 20th, 2011
Horseshoe Mountain Rd.
Paris, AR

A Little Adventure

"Abandoned?"

Back before summer temperatures got out of hand, I spent two or three mornings each week traveling farm-country highways near home. On one hand, I love getting out and driving slow through the countryside with my window rolled down.  On the other, I like finding old or abandoned buildings to photograph.

One morning, while working my way down one of these roads, the old house in the above picture caught my eye.  I parked across the road from it and hopped out with my camera.  Behind the house were two or three chicken barns, so I walked back and forth on the highway to find the best perspective in order to not include them.  Since it was mid-morning, there was no traffic.  It was peaceful.  A couple of brown mutts crawled from under a fence, saw me, and trotted out to see what I was up to. I'm glad they were friendly.

I first took some practice shots with my 55-200mm lens.  Not happy with those, I swapped back to my 18-55mm lens and crossed the road. 

One thing I want to make clear at this point is, I never go on a property without permission.  Not only was I raised to respect other people's property but there are safety issues to consider as well.  You will understand why I brought this up shortly. 

I wish I could have gotten inside the fence to work my way around the entire house to find the best shot.  But I stayed either on the road or just outside the fence to get all of my photographs.  I did walk, squat, sit and lean every which way to get the pictures I took.  Had anyone looked out their windows at the time, they probably wondered what the heck I was doing. 

I spent about 15-20 minutes photographing the old house.  Satisfied I'd done all I could to capture the essence of the building, I hopped back in my truck, tucked my equipment safely away and headed off.  As I passed what evidently was the currently inhabited house of the farm, I heard a gunshot.  That's right--GUNSHOT!

I ducked and looked back toward the farmhouse.  Remember how the brothers in Second Hand Lions prepared for 'company'?  That's what I saw when I looked toward that farmhouse:  Two older men, sitting in rocking chairs on the front porch, one with a shotgun pointed my direction.  You better believe I floored my truck to get out of there fast!

The experience serves as a reminder to always check my surroundings when out photographing.  It isn't just snakes and dogs I have to look out for, it's also making triple sure I'm not putting myself in harm's way with people either, just for the sake of a cool picture.  I don't have to have every photograph but I do have a family to take care of.

And that's exactly what I was thinking when I blew past that old house in order to get back home...

No photographers or trucks were harmed in the pursuit of cool pictures on this trip.

Wedding Day Jitters

A couple of months back, a friend asked if I would help her photograph a wedding for a co-worker.  The bride-to-be had originally planned to hire a professional photographer.  However, circumstances changed and she could no longer afford one.  So, as a favor and a present, we offered to document the wedding for her.

I have only attended three weddings that I can remember, one of which was my own.  Most of my photographic endeavors involve the outdoors.  But I wanted to help out this young lady and gain experience.  Was I scared?  Yes!  I was petrified I might mess up.  But I was excited too.

As the wedding day approached, however, I began second guessing myself.  How could I hope to do justice to such a special occasion?  I'm just an amateur outdoor photographer with big dreams.  I stressed over it.  By the eve of the wedding, I was downright dreading the whole thing and feeling like a heel for it.

I spent the next morning on the phone with my friend going over last minute details, checking my equipment and charging batteries.  Going through my mental checklist, I felt a little better, even started looking forward to the day again.  Little routines are great to stop unfounded fears in their tracks.

Once we arrived at the chapel, we realized the weather had changed the lighting inside, making everything much darker than we had originally anticipated.  Scrambling, we focused on taking practice shots as the wedding company practiced.  I can't speak for my friend but it forced me to concentrate on the subjects and not my fear.  This helped me to settle down and start having fun.

The bride was beautiful, and funny -- very easy to photograph.  Little girls twirled in and out of the dressing room in their dresses while she got ready.  Downstairs, little boys wrestled around on the floor, bored with the whole affair.  Everything ran smoothly, giving us plenty of time to take lots of candid pictures.

And then suddenly, it was Time.

I was to photograph the flower girls, ring bearers and the bride and her father walking down the aisle.  Seemed easy enough but I couldn't figure out why I had to scoot so far back to get them in the frame.  I thought my lens or camera was messing up.  But I plowed ahead and managed to get some good shots in.

My friend and I each took a side of the chapel and got the pics we could.  At this point, everything went pretty fast considering the previous easy-going pace leading up to the ceremony.

Afterward, we did the requisite posed photos of the entire wedding party.  This is where you need good communication with the other photographer.  We worked in tandem, she getting the close-ups and me working with the tripod further back.  By this time, the kids were cranky and the adults were ready to eat.  Thankfully this was a small group as it took nearly half an hour to photograph everyone.

Afterward, everyone hopped in their cars and booked over to the Holiday Inn for the reception.  We encountered a totally different, darker set of lighting 'problems' there and ended up with shadows in the cake pictures.  By this time, we were nearly 4 hours into the photo shoot and getting pretty tired.  We were also running out of space on our cards and running low on battery power.  I'm glad I thought to bring my laptop and charger, though one of us had to drive back to the other vehicle to get it.

At the end of the reception, I thought back over the day.  We were exhausted but I realized my friend and I were very lucky indeed.  Though it was a special day for the bride and groom, we were privileged to have been allowed into their circle of family and friends and to share their day with them.  I will say that it is a very different and gratifying feeling of accomplishment than I have previously encountered and one I hope to repeat often.


What did I gain from this experience?

• Don't just double-check your equipment, triple and quadruple-check it.  Remember I mentioned my lens seemed off?  It was because I had forgotten to change back to my kit lens, the 18-55mm.  I was attempting to take close-ups with a 70-200mm zoom lens. Whoops!
•  Mental checklists are good but written ones are better. 
• Always bring the laptop and the battery charger.  They WILL be needed. 
• Having to think on my feet forced me to dig in and relax.  Ultimately, I had a blast once I loosened up. 
• Spend time with the people.  Talk with them, joke with them.  Share.  It helps everyone relax and makes the experience so much more enjoyable. 
• Don't be afraid to take on new tasks. 

Pictures I Didn't Seek Initially...

All my life, I have been a perfectionist at my creative endeavors.  This has translated into my photography pursuits as well.

For instance, I may decide early in the morning that it's a great day to photograph flowers.  I'll gather my equipment, load up the truck and head to a predetermined spot to click happily away.  Some times, the results come out really nice and I'm happy with the time spent away from home.

However, other times the photos don't turn out like I remembered when I get them on the computer screen.  This is particularly true of nature photographs.  Ever have one of those days?

It's on these days I find that the unplanned pictures often turn out to be the best pictures.  The following photos are a case in point.

This guy sat on the pole singing the entire time I was photographing reflections in a pond.  Trudging back to the truck lugging my equipment, this woodpecker kept turning his head nearly upside down looking at me.  I imagine he thought the two-legged creature with the three-legged thingy and black box on it's shoulder was rather funny looking.  I say funny because his singing sounded more like laughter the closer I got to the truck.  So I stopped and got his mugshot.  :)

After downloading the pictures to my laptop, the reflections appeared uninspired looking.  The woodpecker turned out to be the best of the trip.

 

On the day I took this picture, my intention was to photograph incoming storm clouds.  It was also the first time using my 55-200mm lens.  The clouds did not turn out as well as I hoped but I did manage to get my first major in-flight picture.




So what has photography taught me that nothing else could?  I've learned it's great to have a plan and yes, definitely essential.  But I shouldn't be so focused on a picture/goal that I miss the smaller, sometimes more interesting things going on all around me.  In fact, I should at times drop the perfectionism and just have fun.  I know, it's only taken 44 years to come to that epiphany.

Getting Started

I have set for myself April 30th as a deadline to get this website started.  Now it's just five days away and I'm feeling way behind.  So much is going on at this time of the year.  Prom, Graduation, birthday, etc.  Nearly everywhere I turn, more opportunities arise to take interesting pictures, which brings up a great dilemma.  How do I choose when to stop, edit and post?

The choice actually was made for me or I would probably have continued clicking away into oblivion.  The past few days Arkansas weather has turned nastily soggy, keeping me indoors.  It forced me to sit in front of the computer and begin editing.  Of course, the fact the kids were hovering wanting their Prom pictures finished so they could post them on Facebook helped too.

This picture is from that bout of editing frenzy.  I took the original photograph a couple of weeks ago while driving home from a photo shoot in Fort Smith.  I was tired and the clouds promised I would head into a storm soon. 

I have wanted to photograph this particular tree for some time but the background never really made it stand out until that afternoon.  It just seemed to come to life against the storm clouds.  So I pulled into the edge of a driveway (hoping the land owners didn't come home just then needing to get to their house) and started shooting. 

When I got home and looked at the images on my computer, they didn't pop the way I had envisioned.  So I pulled up one of my photo editing programs and began to play.  After working with color and contrast, I finally got to a place I liked with the photograph.

I hope you like it too.