Sunday Stills Power lines and Landscapes!

This weeks assignment was to shoot a cool landscape or sky scape and include those pesky power lines.

As a photographer, you learn to compose carefully so that you can leave out the distracting things that would mar an otherwise gorgeous shot like a stray branch that looks like it is protruding out of your models head or those power lines that are flippin' everywhere.

It was tough for me to even include the power lines but I even managed to throw in a few cars as well as light posts.

This was probably the toughest assignment for me so far. I'm not complaining but man was this one tough...LOL

I have included a couple of other shots as well from the area in which we went to feed the geese. They can be a bunch of nasty buggers. They hiss and try to run you off.


Be Sure to check out my wife's {Andrea Baker} photo blog at Http://www.andreabakerdesigns.com/

Sunday Stills Yellow!

The challenge this week on my favorite blog was "yellow". You could choose anything yelow to shoot. I have a couple of old shots and a couple of new for you to peruse. These will have a distracting watermark (sorry) because I have found do to the large sizes that I shoot and post. Anyone can download the images (I haven't found a way to keep that from happening as of yet).

The first two are older shots from the Good Guy Car show that was held here in Columbus a year or two ago. I love the abstract lines and chrome from the grill of this custom car.

The Second shot from the car show is of a tail fin from a '55 (if I remember correctly) custom car. The thin pin stripe really sets of the bright yellow in the shot.

The other shots are from my favorite place to shoot Macro. The Franklin Park Conservatory has a "Blooms & Butterfly" exhibit every year from April until about September. They release the Butterflies twice daily.

I really love the colors and the way the delicate butterflies do their thing. Flittering and fluttering about.

The last shot is of a piece on display from the Chihuly exhibit. They have several wonderful pieces on display that show some real talent. Enjoy the "Yellow", I know I did.

My City!

I have lived in Columbus most of my life and have always wanted a good skyline shot. Our skyline has changed quite a bit in the last few years and I could never a spot that would give me the best angle or show enough of the city.

There is a restaraunt that is located where the Olentangy and Scioto rivers merge called Confluence park. They have a deck that overlooks the city and the river.

The conditions were perfect. It had finished raining and there were still some clouds in the sky and the glow from the lights put a nice halo around the city.

Sunday Stills Challenge "Eyes"

I first thought to myself that this would be a very tough challenge this week but the more I thought about it, the easier it seemed to get. I decided to put up photos of my two girls.

Allisa is my very pretty but shy 12 year old. She has a wonderful smile and big brown eyes as you can see from the picture. She has made me very proud. She has been recently accepted into the Young Scholars program at The Ohio State University. The program instills them with the academic skills needed to succeed in College and focuses heavily on Math and Reading (two subjects that she does well in) She has also been accepted in the National Junior Honor society.

That's my girl!

Elise is my 3 year old daredevil/princess/baby. This one is a true ham. She will pose like a supermodel trained her every time you get the camera out. As you can see from the photo that she is posing there too. They both have very expressive eyes and have me wrapped around their fingers...

She is like a small parrot and will repeat almost anything you say (Isn't that right, Honey?).

One of my favorite things she says is "that is discusstin' " translation= "that's disgusting". She will eat anything that has the words "MAC & CHEESE" in it. Anything else would be wishful thinking...

Thanks for the comments! Stop by later in the week as I will be posting new shots or check out my Flickr at http://www.flickr.com/photos/carrollbaker/ !

Sunday Stills B & W with a twist Challenge

This weeks challenge was to look back at some of the other challenges and pick two and then take new photos. I am a newbie to the challenges so I picked a couple of subjects that I hadn't taken shots for and went out.

I decided to shoot my shots at night to get richer and darker shadows and crisper "whites".

I chose to do the "lines" challenge and the "landscape" challenge and the shots turned out well.

The shot of the landscape and lines were both taken along the Creekside area in Gahanna, Ohio at night with my new versa-pod.

The "landscape" was taken along the creek and I have included the originals as well for comparison.

The shot of the "line" is of the footbridge across the waterfall portion of the creek.

I perform Magic at the Old Bag of Nails in Gahanna every Tuesday night. The view is fantastic and I like to listen to the water as it goes over the rocks. The Bag has two patios and the upper patio looks over the whole creekside area.

When I grow up...

As a kid, I wasn't super athletic. Don't get me wrong, I loved sports but I was the one that got picked to keep score... Just kidding, I have always been a big football fan and I took this Photo at the end of a High School game that my Step-daughter (from my ex) invited me out to see her play in the band. I was very proud to see her doing something she loved.

I saw this little guy trying to get into the huddle at the end of the game (they won). He looked so excited to just be on the field.

This shot happened because I was paying attention. When you shoot, look around at something other than your original subject. You might be surprised at the outcome.

Keep shooting!

Sunday Stills Plants Challenge

This was a fun challenge but harder than I thought it would be. Almost all of the spring colors are gone... Plenty of green but the Tulips and early bloomers are almost all gone. Walking through my local grocery, I spotted these very bright (almost gaudy) daisies. The flowers looked very fun and way to colorful not to shoot them.

I didn't make any adjustments with either color or saturation.... what you see is what you get.

I had bought some new Extension Tubes to take even closer macro shots and these are my first attempts using the Tubes. The learning curve on these won't be that tough but I will have to keep notes and keep playing with them. I love taking Macro shots and I am always looking for new things to shoot.

I am really enjoying the Sunday challenge and look forward to the next challenge.

Please post your comments!