Up in the Tree

This are pictures I took off the ground. Well, I took them in a tree! It was actually quite fun, climbing the tree, staying up there to take a handful of pictures, and then swinging back down! The leaves were just starting to grow on the tree, so you could see the buds growing. 

This one is my all time favorite. It is the bark of a tree. I like this one especially because all the details are clear and near the edge of the picture, its blurry. So, it gives a depth to the tree. It is actually very, very slightly photoshopped. I just wanted to sharpen it a bit more. This would be great as a background picture... :D

This is a leaf bud. This one is really cool because the buds are very clear and vibrant, while the background is blurry. 

Now, this is also a leaf bud, but the closest bud is blurry on purpose. I think I could have made this picture a bit more unique by, excluding some of the branches in the back, and making the background sharper. 

This was the tree I was "sitting" on. I was about 5 feet off the ground. I guess this picture just displays a different angle of the tree. It shows a top view of the trunk of the tree. 

This is also one of my favorites because I don't capture animals, insects, or people very often. Mostly because a better quality camera would be better and it takes a lot of time to get the perfect shot. So, this is a ladybug. Luckily, I got this picture right before it disappeared off to the side and flew away. :)

Color Combinations

I have noticed that I have only posted pictures that I took on a camera. So I have just included something different here. These are color schemes or combinations that have a slight effect on it. 

So this is the original. I created this on word document, but it would be easier to create on photoshop express too. 

This is the same picture as above, but there is a transparent layer of red on top. This red gives the picture some warmth, just like temperature in pictures. 

This is also the same picture as the original, but this has a transparent of blue. That gives the picture a cold feeling. 

All in all, this was something I just experimented with. In the future, I could put a layer of transparent color on a photo to just add an effect. Also, this just shows how much some color can affect a picture when taken with a camera. (Like the sun making the picture look warmer)

Photoshopping Into a Silhouette

So in these pictures, my goal was to make a silhouette. Since I was not able to capture it with the camera, I could transform it in adobe photoshop. Photoshop totally changed the entire picture into something brand new. The end picture was not what I imagined it to be, but it is a silhouette....and that is what I wanted.

Keep in mind that this is the original picture of a Lilly flower. 

This is a photoshopped version from the original picture. This one was photoshopped to make it look like the flower was in the light and the background was dark. Unfortunately, this picture looks unnatural. It looks as if it was taken with flash. 

Now, I tried photoshopping that original picture into a silhouette. It didn't work out because as I darkened the flower, the background would also darken too much. So, if I darkened the picture a bit more, the flower would be black, but the background would be too dark. 

I experimented with that picture, until I actually got a silhouette. But as you can see, the background got very dark as I decreased the exposure. Although, I did something different. I did decrease the exposure pretty low. Then it got to a point where the background was very dark. Then, I added shadows. The shadows made the Lilly flower even darker without changing the background color. I also changed the contrast level to brighten the background. A very small amount of vibrancy was added too to add color to the background.

Now, after I experimented some more, this is what I came up with. This is a real nice silhouette. The Lilly flower is nice and dark and the background is light enough. I just added a lot of shadow, contrast, highlight, and vibrancy. The shadows and contrast brought the flower to a dark state and the background to a lighter color. The highlight brightened the picture a bit. The vibrancy just added more of a blue shade to the background. Now, if you look in the back, it looks like there are stars, not clouds. This also proves just how much changing the lighting can change a picture. Compare the original picture to this one. There is a huge difference between the original and this picture.

Long Lost

Have you ever rediscovered pictures after months and months? These are all pictures I took six months ago. I rediscovered them and they are worth making a post out of. 

This is a flower bush. Notice how the front flowers are blurry but the farther flowers are clearer. That's the specialty of these pictures. 

This is the same flower bush as above but the color looks different. That would be because the lighting is set differently than the one above. Also notice how the flowers closer are clearer than the ones in the back. In the top, it looks like there is more temperature and the sun is shining on it more. In the one below, it looks like the temperature is taken away and the color of the flowers are brought out more.  

This is the back of a flower. The front if the flower was starting to wilt so I took the back of it. 

When I took this picture, I was lying on the grass. Some people don't realize it but to take some real good pictures, you have to change your position all around to get the right angle. The focus for this is to see the grass differently... at eye level.

This is a really cool flower. It has smaller yellow flowers on top of the main flower. This picture also looks like there is an old effect put into the picture. As if the colors are toned down and faded, but no effects were added. 

A Boring Day

Ever bored? I was very bored one day so I took some pictures in my house. They turned pretty ok. All were taken on my ipod touch. A couple were photoshopped. But these were taken as past time. Also, I wanted to mention the different effects available and how they can vary. For example, the first three pictures are the same but have different effects.

This one has the tonal effect. That makes it partially black and white, but it still has some color. 

This one has the process effect with the black borders around it. The process effect just makes the colors less vibrant and more dull. 

This is the orginal picture. However, it is slightly photoshopped. Contrast, saturation, and sharpening was added. 

This is looking up at the trunk of a plant. You can see the cool textures and colors on the plant very clearly. 

This is the same plant but instead of looking up, it is looking down. 

This is also the same plant. It is one of the branches where the leaves start sprouting out. This is cool because there is not much of a background. The focus point takes up all of the space, so you don't have extra objects in the back. 

This is the trunk of the same plant. This is one of my favorites. The trunk takes up half of the picture and the other half is the background. The background is also intentionally blurry, but the background (a fireplace and another plant) could have been better. 

A Day of Ice

These are pictures of ice in some form. These were taken sometime ago during one of the winter storms. I took them on all on my iPod. Check them out... :)

This is is just icicles coming off of the railing of my deck. Only the icicles in the front are in focus while the ones in the back aren't. 

These are icicles hanging from my deck. You can also see the sheet of ice on the railings. 

This is actually one of the pictures I took in which I turned upside down. So, it looks like the icicles are coming from the ground, like stalagmites. And in the background, the white is actually the ground, and the brown is the trees. But since it is upside, the white looks like the sky and the brown looks like a hill. 

This is a thin piece of ice I found lying around. This picture is cool because the detail of the ice is very clear. 

This was our window on the car. Well, it's clean now. :)

Through the Glass

     Over the night, it was snowing from storm Hercules. Our school got cancelled the night before. Our area got about 6-9 inches!!! So these pictures are of the snow in our backyard. Plus, it was so cold, I had to wear gloves and take the pictures! Only one picture is photoshopped. 

This is the mini mountain behind our backyard. This is the original picture. 

This is the photoshopped picture. I changed the vibrancy, contrast, sharpen, clarity, exposure, and highlights. I also cropped it a little at the bottom. 

This was our lamp on the deck. And in the background is our backyard. The focus is cool because it is only on the lamp and the background is blurry. 

This is a picture of the lamp. Through the glass is the mini mountain. We have to clean our lamp.. It's pretty dirty... :)

This is a plastic rose I took a picture of in the snow. I'm not quite sure why though. I guess I had nothing better to take of outside.