A New Day, A Different Way The creative and photographic endeavours of a woman trying to add color and beauty to her world.

Of course there aren't really flowers here this time of year, the snow and cold take care of that.  But while out driving today I did come across the remains of some flowers in the form of seed pods and berries that I thought were still beautiful.  This time of year I have to take what I can get.

The other morning when I got up it there was thick fog, as the fog receded you could see a thick hoar frost over all the trees and plants in the yard.  It looked so beautiful I couldn't help getting out and capturing a few photos although they don't do justice to how pretty they looked in real life.

I love texture in photography and I don't mean the photoshopped kind.  I mean the kind that comes from taking a photo of a random thing that may or may not appear as it really is but simply creates a unique texture in the context in which the photo is taken.  Here are a couple of examples of what I mean...

I love sepia photos as well as black and white.  One of the great things about photo editing is it allows you to shoot in full color and then convert your photos later if you think they would make nice monochrome pictures.  The first picture I am posting here was actually shot in black and white and not edited.  I think it does make for a sharper image.  The others were all shot in color and then modified in one way or another.  I love how the black and white effect allows the old church to take on a sinister appeal.

Here are a some photos from a long drive we took on Sunday.  We basically just stopped at anything I thought would make a nice picture.  I posted them on Flickr and someone actually identified the area we are in without any clues from me which I thought was kind of cool.

Can you count the birds, there are actually nine in this photo.  They were so happy in the sun with all those berries just chirping away. 

I know the black horse is lacking in detail but I didn't know how to fix that against the bright white snow.



Love the color in the photo, especially for a winter shot.

I am going to preface this post by saying there is a "bad" word showing on one of the photos.  It is unfortunate because I really like the texture and color of the photo and I didn't even notice the graffiti when I was taking the photo.  What I find equally funny is even when I downloaded the photo I couldn't see it, it wasn't until I corrected the exposure in Lightroom that it popped out.

I think sometimes industrial type of buildings and equipment can really be interesting subjects.  I found a couple of these photos a little boring until I edited them but I am kind of happy with the results.  I am still really just learning when it comes to editing so they are still far from perfect.

There is a place just outside of town where you are almost guaranteed to find bald eagles in the winter.  Photographing them isn't easy because they are on private property so you can't just hike in and they like to hang out just far enough into the field that with my simple equipment I am not able to get truly good photos. 

The one eagle flew directly over my head but when I looked at the shots I had taken in my camera I was disappointed because it didn't look like I had gotten any decent shots despite how close he was.  Given that I was quite happy with the way the photo turned out once I edited it.  It isn't as sharp as I would like but given my limited skills and equipment I love this shot. 

The second shot was a surprise as well, it also looked like nothing when I reviewed it in my camera.  But I actually like how the fog creates negative space and how the barn is so bright.  I also think it is great that without trying I happened to get two bald eagles sitting on the fence in the bottom of the frame. 

Two lucky shots of an elusive subject.