A Second Look….

I’ve been delving into my archives lately, looking for shots with possibility….shots that I passed over when I took them, thinking they had no value. The featured photo here is an excellent example of that: a pair of morning glory blooms in sunlight. No big deal, right? Ordinary as dirt. And yet….how it is that until today I never noticed the shadow of the bee on the larger flower? Photography is about light, but it’s also about shadows. And this is one shadow that made the shot. Finding hidden treasures in my archives is one way to chart personal growth, as my eye becomes more accustomed to looking for the small, often overlooked details, and my skill level increases enough to know how to make them the focus.

If you’re a photographer, I challenge you to look in your archives this week, to see what undiscovered beauty waits for you there. Happy hunting!

Peony II, Salvaging A Shot

It happens to every photographer–a shot that is almost perfect, except….

I’m a perfectionist, and I can get hung up on those exceptions. When I started taking photos there were a lot of images that I deemed unusable. Along the way, I picked up some useful tricks, and now, if I don’t like an image, it’s usually because the composition is off. Another thing I can get hung up on. The two photos in this post are an example of what I’m talking about.

The first one is almost perfect, except (there’s that word again!)…

Do you see it? Right in the foreground, there’s a leaf that’s blurry. Grrrr!! I like the rest of the shot but…what can I do about that leaf? What has been seen can’t be unseen; when I look at this shot, my eyes go straight to that leaf.

In the second shot, I applied a focal softening filter, then repeated it. It makes more of the background blurry so I don’t immediately see the flaw. It’s still there….I just camouflaged it, ending up with a shot I like, 100%.

Moral of the story: don’t be so quick to discard those less-than-ideal images; as you grow more comfortable with and confident in your editing skills, you’ll find yourself returning to them again, seeing them with new eyes.

As Shot

I always feel blessed when I take a photo that needs no editing; it doesn’t happen that often. In these two instances, all I did was crop. Butterfly Garden, Mackinaw Island, MI.

Thanks for viewing! Comments always welcome and appreciated. 🙂

Ruffled Feathers

When I’m shooting photos, about 90% of what I end up with is throw-away, shots I’ll never use. Some are merely passable; some are pretty good. Others are out of focus, or just not what I was aiming for (no pun intended). Photographers don’t strive to take photos that are “pretty good.” They strive for the best–in composition and clarity, images that don’t require a lot of editing to make them shine. That doesn’t happen every day…but when it does, you recognize it, because the image gives you goosebumps.

Over the past several days I’ve been documenting the nest-choosing process of a pair of wrens. Most of them fall into the “pretty good,” category and a few are fun, if for nothing else than the poses of the birds. Today, I happened to catch a solo wren as it went about its grooming process–ruffling its feathers, ridding itself of opportunistic insects. I took a total of thirteen photos; these two are the best of the lot. They represent the pinnacle, what every photographer hopes to see when he or she puts his shots on the computer, and so seldom does.

As shot, cropped and enlarged.

Thanks for viewing–comments always welcome.