Spring

Hurray! It’s spring! The trees are blooming, there are blossoms everywhere.

Happy spring to all! And especially to Dale Cooper at The Cosmic Photo Challenge.

How does he do that? Every week, it seems, The Cosmic Photo Challenge manages to come up with a challenge that just fits what I have been doing. Coincidence or spycraft? Well, whatever, I had just started the draft of next week’s Monday Window. I used one of two photos from just a few days ago. Here is the other one, and I think it fits the topic “straight lines“.

The other photo also has lots of straight lines, but I am keeping it for Monday Window.

Tags: #CosPhoChal, Challenge, CosPhoChal

Last on Card – February 2023

Another peek behind the curtain

Once again, you dear reader, get to take a peek behind my “public persona”. All because of bushboys world “Last on Card” challenge.

The last image on my iPhone already made it into the world in my post “Fading Glory” over at Gallery Ludwig.

Here, for your amusement, is the original.

You can see that I gave it the “greasepaint” treatment described over at Cafe Ludwig, in the post “Greasepaint for a Daffodil”. Well, not as garish, just so it would look its best.

Tags: #LASTONTHECARD, last on card, The Last Photo

Intentional camera movement

As I finished my take-out order last Saturday, I became aware of the background image on the app.

The restaurant is using one of my photos that I had taken for them almost ten years ago.

Just a little while earlier I had seen Dale Cooper’s post about the upcoming challenge “Intentional camera movement (ICM)“.

Another coincidence!

At that bygone shoot I had done a number of exposures with intentional camera movement. It had resulted in a fun photo – more on that in a bit.

But here is one of those photos that has never been shown to anybody.

Now I don’t do “ICM” very often, much less frequently, I might add, as unintentional camera movement photos. But on that assignment, I shot some images, some with camera movement, some way out of focus, for possible use on the restaurant’s website as backgrounds.

On reviewing my photos after the shoot, I noticed one that had really “gone bad”. The session included photos of drinks. I had spent too much time adjusting lights and arranging the details, and the salt rim on the margarita glass had started to sag and slip down.

I had a good chuckle and decided to label the drink as a “hula margarita”. The proprietor had a good laugh too but did not add this “drink” to his menu. Here is that old fun image, it uses another of my blurred photos.

Tags: #CosPhoChal, camera movement, Photography

In three directions

Up, down and sideways

Coincidences happen. Let me tell you a story. When I went outside yesterday morning to pick up the newspaper, the birds were making a racket. Amongst the many voices, I recognized the call of our hawks. That explained the upset birds and their frantic alarm cries. I checked on our daffodils, several new ones were blooming. Some were bent over quite a bit, so I used my iPhone to shoot straight down. Then I knelt and held the phone so the camera would look sideways into one of the blossoms.

The hawks’ cries came closer. I looked up and the pair were circling and landed in the sycamore tree at the neighbors. I pointed the camera up at the tree. Of course, the birds were on the far side and couldn’t be recognized in the photo.

Later, I was photoodling and used some of my photos from the morning. Yes, the ones you see here.

Then I decided to check and see what was happening on the internet. Dale Cooper’s Cosmic Photo Challenge was announcing the next topic. It was “Up, down, and sideways“. Hey, I had just done that! Coincidence?

So here are my photooodles in all their glory. Sorry no photos of the hawks. I will get around to them soon enough.

Tags: #CosPhoChal, daffodil, photoodle, sycamore

Last on Card – January 2023

Some strange ones here …

Oh, it is that time again, Time for the last image on the card for the month – Last on the Card- January 2023. Well, this time I have two. Let me start with the last one from my camera.

You might ask, what on earth is that? Before I answer, let me show you the last photo from my iPhone.

Now you get it! I have been playing with pinhole photography. That first photo here was an attempt to capture the diffraction pattern of a tiny bright light source with a pinhole. The source was the bare LED of a flashlight covered with a small pinhole, with the camera and its pinhole pictured above. I left a small light on in the room between to help find things in the image.

Here is another image taken with that rig.

Now as you know, small apertures, here about f/200, bring out the dust bunnies, the tiny specks of dust on the sensor. What I got were rather surprising ones. Like this:

Indeed, there is an article in the works. I still have a bit of work to do. But now you are among the first to learn about this project. All, because of bushboys world and his challenges.

Tags: Challenge, The Last Photo

Plant in Window

… yearning to get out

With a big nod to The Cosmic Photo Challenge: House plants.

Tags: #CosPhoChal, Challenge, plant, window

Winter Morning

A glimpse of the morning sky

With bare wintery trees. Not nearly as gorgeous as the winter morning sky over at The Cosmic Photo Challenge: One winter’s morning.

The original photo of this “glimpse”, and others from that morning, are at my Photos at Dawn.

And from my Ludwig.Gallery a winter morning a few years back:

Tags: #CosPhoChal, Challenge

Reflections

Mirror-sided building

These two photos have been the images shared on Monday Window, but for my visitors here there is a bit more.

This post is in response to The Cosmic Photo Challenge on the subject of reflections.

But allow me to reflect some more on one of these photos. As my friends know, I love to “photooodle” and play with manipulations in the hope of coming up with some “cafe art”. Here are a couple of these creations.

Tags: #CosPhoChal, Challenge, reflections

Last on Card – December 2022

Tall Oak

It was on December 27, 2022. I went out to pick up the paper. The sun was shining brightly. I looked up and saw our oak reaching into the clear blue sky. It became the last photo on my iPhone for 2022.

This post may seem late. I did put it together on January 2, 2023. However, there were other posts already scheduled. It had to wait its turn. Hope that Bushboy will forgive me for the tardy publishing.