An Evening in the Forest

New York State has so much to offer in beautiful landscape.  I have more to discover in the Hudson Valley area.  I'm amazed by this region constantly!  It's incredibly beautiful here.  Last week I took a drive out to Harriman State Park where the Seven Lakes are.  The following images were taken at a few different lakes.  The whole park was quiet right before the sun set and wildlife was everywhere.  These images were all taken with a 50mm lens  and half are from the roof of my car.  I have too much fun! 

Portraits in the Evening

When the evenings are quiet and the light is soft and warm, I am undoubtedly drawn outside with my camera.  Lately, I have only gone as far as my yard, but my yard has turned out to be a lovely place for photography.  Since I do not have college roommates or an abundance of friends within a block to place in front of the camera any more, my subjects have become my little sister and flowers.  My sister may be getting tired of my shutter, but she's willing and I enjoy using her as a subject.  She's so lovely and sweet and someday, she's going to be a beautiful young lady. 

So, without any more words, here are a few portraits from this warm, sunny evening. 

Fun in the Sun

We finally have warm weather in New York and my sister and I are definitely enjoying it!

Photograph #45

I obviously have posted more than just one photograph.  For my 45th photograph, I've decided to display a few more images.  It was a beautiful afternoon, one of those afternoons where I wanted to just lay in the grass until the sun went down and soak it all in.  And that's exactly what I did.  I laid in the grass with my camera and when I felt like taking a picture, I did.  Then I laid back down in the grass and watched birds, and closed my eyes and felt the warmth of the sun on my skin.  It was, ideal.  All of these images were taken in my yard.  Beautiful.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a shot of your feet kicked up while laying on your stomach facing backwards using a 50 mm lens?  Try it sometime....I think I'm still cramping!

New York Tree

I wait quietly along the river for splashes of movement.  Nothing comes.  I close my eyes and listen.  I hear a dark, low tone beginning beneath the ground, rising up and up.  My senses perk and the sound reaches into the sky, strong and sustaining.  I open my eyes and I see a tree, rooted deep and stretching high whispering, "Here I am.  Tall and stong.  Photograph me." 

And so I do. 

Scan Art

In my digital photography class, we've been working on photography using SCANNERS.  How cool is that?  Well, yes, it does sound cool. But what you probably didn't know was, it takes a lot more than just pressing a button to get the photograph you want.  I wish that was true!  I experimented a little first with flowers and rose petals and came up with this:

I dropped the petals as the light passed over the scanner.  I thought it was a cool effect.  Moving on from that, my teacher asked us to follow the inspiration of photography Maggie Taylor and come up with an image using her technique.  Here is an example of Maggie Taylor:

This is all done with a scanner!  How cool is that?  She scanned several different objects and images and used photo shop to bring them all together and create one image.  So, using her technique, this is what I came up with:

 I used a postcard, one image, and cut out colored paper to create a tree (assembled by my dear sister Abbey). Using those three scans and photoshop, I put them together and made a few changes and here it is!  I'm pretty happy with it.  I honestly would like to try some more of this style of art.  It's fun, but incredibly time consuming.  It took me over four hours!  But I enjoyed it...other than the fact that I have the flu.  So, maybe in my flu subjected mind, this looks good.  Maybe when I'm well again, I'll think otherwise.  Hmmm???

Spring on My Mind

While the snow is coming down outside and the cars are getting buried, all I can think about it spring. My photos, lately, have been very dull, and very gray and white because of all the snow! So, here are some photographs taken last spring and summer to help add a little color to your life and my life while we wait for the snow to melt away.

Pose Please!

These are photos of recent projects I've been doing for my classes. Goodness. It's hard to get creative in Rexburg! It's not like I'm a ten minute drive from a castle these days. Bummer. I'm really having to stretch my creativity. All there is around here is snow, and snow, and snow. Luckily, the occasional skittle will pose for me.

Snowed In

Last week it seemed that we had snow storm after snow storm. Despite being snowed in and not being able to drive on the roads, my little sister and I had fun sledding, playing in the snow, and taking lots of pictures. These pictures really can't compare to how beautiful it was after the snowfall, but hopefully you can get an idea. It was absolutely beautiful.