Category: Still Life

A little over a month ago, I decided that Offshoots Photography should join the world of Instagram. I have a personal account already for friends and family pics, but I wanted a place to share portraits as I one day build up the business side of Offshoots.

In the meantime, I am using it to share creative works on the go and as a chance to use some of the awesome mobile photo-editing apps out there. Moreover, like WordPress, it is a great way to connect with other photographers and artists in order to learn from and enjoy their work, as well as to connect with potential clients in my area. I am also using it as a medium to share long forgotten images I may fine tune or completely revamp into photo art.

I am having a lot of fun with it because I can sit anywhere with my phone and create versus being tied to my laptop. Also, pulling up old images brings back lots of good memories.

Follow me on Instagram.

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Do you have an Instagram account for your creative photography? If so, feel free to leave your @accountname or link in the comments.

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We stayed within walking distance of downtown Gatlinburg, Tennessee on our vacation last week where there were so many little shops and specialty stores; not so much of the typical touristy t-shirt places you’ll a lot of times see.

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One of my favorite places was this candy store.  All the yummy treats and brightly colored deliciousness made me feel like a kid in….well, a candy store, of course!

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We are in Gatlinburg, Tennessee right now on family vacation and believe it or not, while in America’s heartland, one of the first places we chose to eat dinner was a full-on Mexican cantina called, “No Way Jose.” Since I am prone to saying this phrase to my children a lot, I thought it was quite appropriate to include them in some of the photos. 😉

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Time keeps things orderly.

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Paving stones placed in a patterned order.

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Traffic lights keep cars moving in an orderly fashion.

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Rows and columns in perfect order.

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WPC – Order

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This is my very first attempt at light painting an object and I must say it was very…unsuccessful as far as light painting goes.  The light beam was too wide so the back wall was illuminated which was not good.

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I decided to get creative with it and messed around in GIMP (Photoshop equivalent) and with some filters…

Fleur Green phone

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Fellow photographer, Julie Powell, gave me a tip on how to pinpoint that light, so hopefully my next attempt will yield better results.  Can’t wait to try again!

 

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I took this image a year or two ago of my daughter and have been holding on to it to post for the “perfect challenge.”  Today, I thought, Who cares!  What am I waiting for?  Life is too short and we are never guaranteed tomorrow.

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Tonight we dyed Easter eggs, an annual tradition in our household that my two daughters have always enjoyed.  This year, however, my oldest one who is just shy of sixteen, decided to forgo the family tradition to go out with a friend instead.

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It was a little strange not having her there, but the rest of us were just as goofy as ever, trying to outdo one another’s colorful creations.

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I think we all did an equally fine job!  Happy Easter!

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It appears I fell off of the photographic wagon for a night.  This made me happy.  I hope to keep it up.  After not posting for well over 6 weeks, here are some shots of various angles of our modest Christmas tree.

I will be doing the last bit of shopping tomorrow.  Only three gifts left to pick up and then some cleaning since we are having family over both Christmas Eve and Christmas day.

Hopefully, I will be inspired to shoot more this weekend.  I will post once more before the end of the week and I will get back to visiting everyone soon.

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I’ve been very busy editing hundreds of images from high school events including senior pictures, volleyball games, a powder puff game and homecoming.  Here is one of my favorite candid shots of my daughter on homecoming night and a photo of her pretty corsage.

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corsage

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As I stated yesterday, the photos in these posts are special because they are straight from the camera with no post-processing edits. They are the results of my deliberate manipulation of shutter speeds and positioning of the flowers near a brightly lit window. It was fun experimenting with exposures in this way.

All photos:
f/2.8
Exposure times vary between 1/8s to 1/100s
ISO-100

Linking with Cee’s Flower of the Day.

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These and the rest of my daisy posts this week are straight from the camera – no post processing edits aside from some minor cropping on a couple. I had fun playing around with shutter speeds to over- or under-expose the photos, using the natural bright light coming in from a large window to assist me in creating various effects with my camera that I would normally achieve with photo editing software.

I slowed down the shutter speed on the shots below which over-exposed the them, and since I was holding the camera and not using a tripod there was some camera shake which cause the blurring. I think it gives the photos an impressionistic, oil-painted look. What do you think?

All photos:
f/2.8
Exposure time 1/4-1/5s
ISO-100

Linking with Cee’s Flower of the Day.

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Daughter turns 14 years old + a dozen teenagers, lots of food, loud music, and laughter + no embarrassing moments from mom or dad = “best birthday ever!”

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We used Kool-Aid packets mixed with 3/4 cup of warm water to dye our Easter eggs tonight instead of a traditional egg dyeing kit. Cheaper, no vinegar smell, and still just as pretty!

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This is for Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Music. These are the instruments in my house.

My oldest daughter teaches herself to play songs on the piano and ukulele by watching YouTube videos. One instrument that I can’t photograph is her beautiful singing voice. It is my most favorite instrument in the world!

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My youngest daughter plays the recorder for school. In music class, they have “Recorder Karate”: for every song she masters, she receives a karate “belt” (i.e., the strings tied to the end of the recorder.) The belts progress in color as the difficulty of the songs she learns do.

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Several years ago, my husband bought me a guitar for my birthday because I wanted to learn how to play it. I realized right away that I do not possess the patience or true ambition for such an endeavor. It is my favorite instrument to listen to, however, besides my daughter’s voice :).

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This is for Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Abstract. I had these dumped out every where on my counter, but it turns out they look much cooler sitting in the container they came in. I dialed up the highlights during post-processing to give it more of a vibrant, artsy feel.

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This is for Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Cameras and Photographers. This first one is an old camera I used to use before I really got into taking pictures. It’s been so long since I’ve used it, I couldn’t even get all of the dust off of it!

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This is the camera I use now, and I really like it. It’s a Sony Alpha SLT-A35. I just recently started shooting exclusively in manual mode which is very exciting to me! I feel like I accomplished something big. 🙂

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Lastly, here is my phone camera, which I rarely use simply because the quality isn’t as great as my Sony and I don’t have any control over things like aperture, shutter speed, and ISO settings.

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This is for Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Things Made Out of Plastic. The first is a butterfly craft Caitlin made at her 4th grade spring party yesterday using jelly beans, a snack-size plastic baggie, a clothes-pin, and a pipe cleaner. So cute!

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This last one is a photo of a frog figurine taken through the view of an almost empty plastic bottle of hand sanitizer.  I think he’s cute, too!

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This is for A Photo a Week Challenge: Saturation. The first photo is before any edits were made. The second photo is after minor edits were made to the saturation levels of the colors, just to make them a bit more vibrant. The differences are subtle but noticeable, nonetheless.

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Below are a few ways I use saturation to change the look of my photos. I increased the saturation of the red only in the first photo to alter the color of the roses.

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In this last photo, I decreased the saturation of all the colors down to zero EXCEPT for the red. The red I left alone. This is one of my favorite ways to play around with color saturation levels. I love black and white photos with a pop of color.

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Thanks for looking!

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friend for all seasons

Winter, spring, summer, or fall, all you have to do is call and I’ll be there, yeah, yeah,
you’ve got a friend. ~ James Taylor

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