tales of an ordinary girl

I have compiled the Sun series sets from this year by taking my favorite picture from each week and creating this set. There are actually 53 pictures in the set because the first and last weeks overlap.

The better pictures are towards the middle and the end, but I hope you enjoy the entire set. The slideshow is best viewed from the Original Source link.



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I really enjoyed taking the series, but I've stopped my daily photos for now. I have a few new series planned for this year and maybe my photography class will take me into new territory.

And here we end the year...

I really like how this week ended with just a faint crescent moon. The year is waning, but soon the new year will begin.



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With the solstice now in the past, the days are lengthening and I should catch more sunsets.



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Off to bake more cookies!

I finally took some time to remove the power lines from a couple of photos (see the orignals below for pictures #7 & #8). Both have gone through some additional processing on Flickr as well, so they may look a little different than in original image. #3 is my favorite this week. I like #10 too.



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There wasn't much sun this week and I didn't look for photos very often since I was sick, but I think this set captures the feeling of the weekend very well.



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I wasn't very happy with the way most of the photos turned out this week, but some of them aren't too bad. #3, 5, and 9 are my favorites.



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I was a little bummed that all of the leaves are brown now and falling off the trees. But with the leaves mostly gone I can see the amazing shapes in the branches of the trees. Especially in silhouette, they're striking.

I'm experimenting with new places. The gray days have caused me to experiment with other kinds of shots. I still miss shots because the sun sets so fast now. I found an incredible new location for sunsets not far from work, so hopefully I can catch a few beautiful sunsets in the next couple of weeks.

I also learned that it's not a good idea to run out into a corn field after the rain in heels. It's a good way to ruin a brand new pair of shoes. Note to self: Keep a pair of old tennis shoes in the trunk.



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You may have noticed that I've started editing my photos. I'm not doing very much. Occasionally I'm sharpening or boosting the color, but sometimes the color is almost too bright on its own. The pictures from Friday have not been color-edited. The sky really did look like it was on fire.

I've had more people stop me while I'm taking pictures to ask me what I'm taking pictures of or to give advice about the shot. One guy asked for my card and said he'd send me list of locations in this area that are good for sunrise pictures. I gave him my business card, but he never emailed.

I'm hoping that means that he just chickened out (or it's stuck in the spam filter - I keep forgetting to check). I really hope that he's not crazy or anything since he knows my name now, a general idea of where I live, and where I work. I didn't even get his name. But more than likely it's not a big deal.

Now that the sun has moved further South I'm still looking for new spots to take sunrise and sunset pictures. There are a few fields near where I look that might work, but it's getting hard to get set up before the sun has set and I'm not feeling very motivated lately to get up before 6 am.

I also imported all of my pictures from early this year into Flickr and wow, I can really notice the difference with the new camera. I think my shots are more interesting now too. Anyway, I can hope I'm improving. Thanks to everyone who's offered encouragement over the months. It's been a long project and I can't wait to show you my favorite shots at the end of the year.



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These aren't as nice as last week, but they're not bad. The sun is shifting more to the South and before the time change, I was on the road to work during the last phases of the sunrise.

One of my favorite spots to take pictures in the morning is now a construction area. It's where I caught the what I think were the hawks in flight and the fields of gold. Ah well, there have to be more places, right?

The last picture is the moon and Jupiter. You may have to enlarge the picture to see Jupiter, but it's the small point just above the moon.



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I took more photos on my four day trip than I did when I went to England last time for two weeks. That's the power of an incredibly expensive camera. Or, it's just me being obsessive.

I'll have those up eventually, but I hope to have some really blog posts soon too. Not just pictures.

The fifth picture really deserves more of an explanation. I kept trying to get a picture of the rainbow on the way into work, but the rainbow would disappear when I tried to get a frame free of cars and traffic lights. This is the best I could do, and still it's faint.



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So, the first two pictures, including the abysmal first picture, are with the old camera with the rest taken with the new camera. I'm still having trouble with pictures at dusk, usually only when there are lights in or very near the photograph or reflective signs to throw off the flash. But, I love the camera. I usually take 50-75 pictures in a week. This week I've taken over 250. I decided it was time to start deleting truly bad images after I saw what it was doing to the available space on my hard drive.

Oh yes, and the Extreme III SDHC cards are definitely worth the small increase in price. I copy pictures that are 2-3 times larger than my old images about 5 times faster. It doesn't help with Flickr uploads though.

All of the pictures are still unedited. I do plan to learn how to remove the light poles, for those of you who have asked, but I'm not there yet from a time perspective. I'm planning to take a digital photography class in the Spring, so hopefully that will help. Maybe I can somehow learn to avoid the light poles, though they seem to be everywhere around here.



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A lot of these were taken in the car, although thankfully not while I was moving since I was in the driver's seat. People watch me as I roll down my window at stop lights to get a picture and they must think I'm mad.

My damaged camera is still holding up, although I'm having trouble getting clear shots, especially in low light. Several pictures this week looked fine on the display and then displayed fuzzy when I looked at a larger view. It's too bad too because the sky was pretty amazing.

My new camera should be arriving today, but I'm not sure how long it'll be before I start using it. I haven't used a SLR in more than a decade. I'm a little nervous.



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I had to go out of town unexpectedly this weekend. So the blog has been neglected, as well as email (holy moly people!), and everything else. But I did bring my camera. I didn't get back until late last night though, so this post is a little late.

The new camera will hopefully be ordered on Friday. I have to check my finances again after this last trip, but I think there's still enough for the camera, a lens, and possibly a tripod. So, hopefully I'll have fun playing around with it sometime next week.

There was an incredible sunset on Saturday night, but I wasn't driving so I didn't demand they pull over so that I could take pictures. Most of the view from the pictures I took that evening were lost behind the trees.



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This was my favorite photo from last week's set, but the out-of-focus look, which wasn't intentional, just didn't quite work.

...with a few birds in flight

Three moons as well. Can you spot them all?




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Many moons




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Saved by Saturday evening...




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Mostly cloudy skies this week...




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A lot of photos this week were taking from my flights across the Eastern half of the US. Sorry, Evo. You'll just have to deal with the monotony.

It was difficult to get pictures of the sun at the convention because I was inside most of the time. It was too freaking hot to be outside. So, those are not very interesting. Hopefully you'll still enjoy the pictures I was able to get.

I completely ruined my camera at the convention by dropping it off my lap at one panel. Now the battery door won't close. It stays closed enough to get the camera to turn on most of the time, but I think the camera is living on borrowed time. It'll be at least a month before I can buy a new one, but maybe I can afford a DLSR. Any suggestions on models?




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