Photography Lesson 1

One of the teachers at my school is giving me photography lessons. For the first one we talked a bit about light and aperture.  These were a few of my favorite pictures from the lesson.

 This flower was growing right outside my house. This is during the "good" light.

We thought this tree looked pretty cool. I was focusing on the similar lines the fallen branches make.

This ended up being my favorite picture. I love how the light in the background blurred so that it mimics the texture of the berries.

Little Things

I tend to take a lot of pictures of plants and such, but sometimes little things are pretty too.

Doesn't it look like it is smiling at you?

This shell was sitting on a fence post. I think this may be one of my favorite pictures to date. But I do wonder what happened to the snail inside.

Luckily I found another one. This guy was outside of the botanical gardens chilling near the bench.

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Odette and Siegfried

One time I was going through my photo gallery of pictures taken with my cell phone and I noticed I had a lot of pictures of my cats. Odette and Siegfried are a big part of my life but I never noticed how often I had photographed them. Most of the pictures were pretty bad too. However both cats decided to make themselves available for photos this morning while I was trying to take pictures for my pony blog.

This is pretty much why I only update once a week. Coming up with content is difficult in one way, as I've never been a great writer. I have ideas but they don't translate to paper/type very easily. But getting interesting photos is an entirely different challenge. By the way this is Odette, I figure just because I can tell the cats apart doesn't necessarily mean you can.

Here's one of Siegfried. Doesn't he look upset to be caught where he doesn't belong?

No I didn't think so either...

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Dew & Refraction Photography

I'll admit that high school science classes were quite a while ago for me but I remember a bit about refraction, better known as the thing that makes a straw in a glass of water look "broken". Refraction photography can be very pretty, though I feel the elements are often staged. One morning at the UC Berkeley Botanical Gardens I wandered into one of the shadier paths and sat down to take a photograph of something small. Near the ground I could see that the morning dew was still on some of the plants.

In the biggest water droplet you can almost see the purple plant that was next to this teeny, tiny plant. 

Later I walked into the greenhouse that holds tropical plants and happened to catch a bead of water rolling off the tip of a flower. Inside the droplet you can see a bright pink plant and how green the greenhouse was.

And this is a full-sized photo of the plant you can see in the droplet.

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San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers

Recently I got a notice that my membership at the UC Berkeley Botanical Garden allowed me to get free admission at the San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers. I made plans to visit before watching Don Giovanni on a Saturday evening. The conservatory wasn't quite what I was expecting, as I didn't realize it is a greenhouse and quite warm. The building is also rather small, but free admissions means I can go back several times if I so desire. 

One of the first rooms is a wetland with some giant water lilies. Some of these can grow to be 6 feet across and hold a small child. None of them were quite that big, but still impressive. I think the little spikes on the pad are an interesting and unexpected feature. 

I honestly don't remember what flower this is. I just thought it was soft and tropical looking and I tried to take a close, but visually interesting picture. I think this one is a little more abstract than normal for me. 

One of the highlights of the conservatory is the orchid exhibits. There are tons of orchids all around the exhibit.  Of all of the orchid photographs I took, I particularly liked this one. 

Clever girl! Well I bet you weren't expecting this guy at the flower conservatory....

There is a special exhibit running that highlights prehistoric plants and there are some nice looking dinosaurs to go along with them. I think the eye is the most impressive part.

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Remember, friends and family that have requested updates via email. You should not reply through the email system as your comments can't reach me that way, but you can comment on the blog itself. Just click on the link and type a comment in the box: http://nikoncole.blogspot.com/