By the side of the road

I pulled over, on the way home from the grocery store, to get shots of this tree. I had passed it so many times, wanting to stop. I was drawn by the shape of the branches that curved so gently and the tiny pinecones. After getting out of the car I realized that I was not going to get any good shots because the tree was much higher than I thought and I was unable to get an interesting perspective.


f/5.6, 1/1000 sec., 90 mm, ISO-400

All was not lost, though, because I was able to spend another twenty minutes shooting the weeds, and other vegetation, as well as the infrastructure around the nearby telephone pole. I am so easily amused. (All shots are straight from the camera.)


f/11, 1/125 sec., 70 mm, ISO-400


f/11, 1/125 sec., 135 mm, ISO-400


f/5.6, 1/2500 sec., 135 mm, ISO-400


f/5.6, 1/500 sec., 135 mm, ISO-400


f/5.6, 1/1000 sec., 135 mm, ISO-400


f/5.6, 1/1600 sec., 135 mm, ISO-400


f/5.6, 1/1250 sec., 135 mm, ISO-400


f/5.6, 1/320 sec., 135 mm, ISO-400

Date: 01.09.2008
Time: 1:42 PM

Lost in the Weeds, again

Driving down the road, it was these colors that caught my attention.


f/5.6, 1/640 sec., 50 mm, ISO-400 (cropped)


f/8, 1/250 sec., 50 mm, ISO-400

Then once I got out, and took a few shots, I kind of got lost in the weeds. This was back in the early days of the fifty, shooting wide open, of course!


f/1.4, 1/8000 sec., 50 mm, ISO-400 (cropped)


f/1.4, 1/8000 sec., 50 mm, ISO-400


f/1.4, 1/8000 sec., 50 mm, ISO-400


f/1.4, 1/6400 sec., 50 mm, ISO-400


f/1.4, 1/8000 sec., 50 mm, ISO-400 (cropped)


f/1.4, 1/6400 sec., 50 mm, ISO-400


f/1.4, 1/6400 sec., 50 mm, ISO-400


f/1.4, 1/5000 sec., 50 mm, ISO-400


f/1.4, 1/6400 sec., 50 mm, ISO-400

I bet I got a lot of interesting looks from all the cars going by. I was thoroughly oblivious, of course.


f/8, 1/320 sec., 50 mm, ISO-400

Location: Watkins Mill Road
Date: 01.05.2008
Time: 2 PM

About all those close up weed shots...

I learned something today, quite by accident (or by my insistance on shooting so many of the same type of shot, whereby I was bound to learn something). I love all these shots, with the different textures and shapes, but it really enhances the shot when you have a background that creates interesting colors or shapes of its own.

Here's an interesting weed:



And here's one with a visually interesting background:



Even this soft focus (ok, blurry) one is interesting because of the color and patterns in the background:



And here are all the rest (they look better larger, but I did not want to take up vast amounts of blog real estate with the images, click through to the enlarged view if you so desire):















Yeah, I am definitely developing a thing for weeds. I think I am going to have to get a weed identification guide or something because you should see the ridiculous names that I have to come up with for the images to differentiate them.

Shooting wide open on the speedy little 50 mm is definitely my current favorite thing to do. I captured the frost on these leaves...



...and then managed to get so much light that the background disappeared! It's interesting that way, like they are just suspended there.



Speaking of frost, I will leave you with this last one -- not a weed!



Notes:

Location - Watkins Mill Road
Time - 9 AM

50mm f/1.4, my new speedy friend.

Got a new lens for Christmas! At f/1.4 it's got lots of potential for bokeh. :) It's also small which makes it possible to have slower shutter speeds without camera shake.

All of these were taken at f/1.4 in Aperture Priority mode, with no post-processing.

It takes great shots indoors, in low light.



And great "frizzle" pictures. (I took quite a few of these!)





Just a few weeks ago, these grasses looked like this. Can you believe that these are in my backyard and I never noticed this transformation? In my defense, it's only recently that they have gotten this tall. But, still!



And and experimental, pine needle shot, using manual focus.



And a cool shot of my Azalea.



Gracie was having a hard time figuring out why I was on the outside of the fence and she was on the inside.

I finished off the adventure with a Squirrel Chase.

Weed Shoot (No, not that kind)

Last night, once again, I found myself dreaming with a camera in my hand. For a few weeks now, I had been meaning to shoot these weeds, on the corner of a busy suburban intersection. I stop at this intersection everyday, sometimes more than once. The shape and outline of these ugly-beautiful structures against the sky, and their interesting details kept calling to me. In my dreams, I figured out where to park and how to navigate to the corner, and put my camera up to the sky.

Of course that meant that this morning I had to get up and go out. I woke to dark skies and cold drizzle. My only consolation was that my parking location had a 7-Eleven where I could run the heat in the car for a bit and get a diet coke.

I'm finding, more and more, that shooting in our current grey weather environment produces an interesting feel to the shots. While these shots are not exactly what I want them to be, they are damn close.

Shooting in Aperture Priority Mode, wide open. I did some very minimal post-processing to adjust the levels, and darken the highlights in a couple of them.


















The second to the last one, in the series above, is my fave. I had another close up, similar to the last one, that I really liked, but it just does not have quite the right focus. But the composition is just oh so sweet, IMO.



As a bonus, I got a shot of the evergreen, back in the parking lot, with some bokeh from the car head and tail lights at the intersection. I'm just a slut for bokeh. Heh.



Oh, and another storm drain for my budding collection.



Here are a couple showing my *location*. Don't you just love all the photography jargon I'm throwing around now that I have real equipment. : )






I was standing on that hillside, to the left of the fence, and was just imagining myself tripping (in my ridiculous choice of footwear for such an expedition -- crocs) and rolling down into the traffic. What a spectacular way to go out, right?