Harps

Sorry I've been neglecting this blog, our video card went out on our desktop and I wasn't able to access my photos for awhile.
Anyway, here are some of my most recent shots, of a harp.

I was going for a controlled "studio lighting" style for this shot, where it looks like I used a light on the harp in a dark room (though in fact it was just a regular room with a chair in the background, and the lighting actually came from further to the right).

This unique angle was pretty awesome in my opinion, except for the part of the window down in the corner.

Did You Know? An actual harp lesson was going on while I took these photos. ;-D

 Same angle, edited in "duplex" coloring, whatever that is. I love the accents it gives to the mechanisms in the center left of the photo (when viewed full screen).

 Another duplex-colored photo, this time with the harp being played! This photo is actually my favorite I think, though the metal part of it looks much better if the photo is turned sideways:

So that it, and not the hand, is more of the main focal point. But that doesn't make much sense, now does it? Since harps aren't played sideways.

I hope you enjoyed these, and I would love your feedback! :-D

Oh, and make it quick...I've got more photos coming since I am behind. lol.

The Many Edits of Watered Grass

Should have posted this waaay earlier, 'cause now I've forgotten how I did it. XD Oh well, I'll make a few notes on what I do recall.
The photos are of a small patch of wheat grass near us, and the edits I did aimed toward a darker "movie poster" style of feel, though I can't really place where I've seen a movie poster of this hue specifically...

 Minor edit of the original (contrast, color, clarity).

 Increased contrast and vividity (I also used a foliage vibrancy plug-in, which is why it's so green).

I took the foliage vibrancy back off and increased the colors for this one, probably stuck it through a filter for sunsets, too, then took some of that color and changed it with another plug-in (Or I just used the Sunshine plug-in to do both effects...).

This is even more contrasted and the color brightness and vividity toned down to make a nice shade of forest green.

Added even more contrast and played with another plug-in (Probably "Tonal Contrast").
Notice the shine on the nearest leaf, it doesn't look like a realistic reflection that much. I'll be changing that in the next pics.

This one is much darker and spooky-ish, lol. However, the reflection still isn't quite right.

This is my last edit (besides my Cold one) and the reflection is much better. The darker hue and toned down color makes good focusing for the water droplets. I lightened this one up a bit compared to the last one which was too dark.

I hope you guys liked some fo them! Which where your favorites? Some of the peope who've seen themalready liked the first vivid ones best.

Colorful Flame

Have you ever looked at you stove burners in the dark and thought how cool they look? Well, obviously I did anyway, and here's the result, lol. The blue ones are the original color, and the green one is the best quality edit I did. I used PSP X4U's color changer to do the color edits, and the noise removal for sharpening and softening.

 Light Side
The blue really adds to the reflection down on the left corner!

 Dark Side

 Best quality. :-D I shoulda done it yellow so I could say 'neither light side nor dark side' lol. I increased the effect of the contrast with a plug-in. 

 These two are when it was on "low".

Up Next: A ton of edits to a picture of grass! XD

Photo Summary of my Week

I'll probably post some of the pictures from the photo shoots I did for this Photo Summary - but if you'd like to see them now please visit my Randomness Blog on like Monday next week or something to see the entry. :-D

I lead a pretty boring life, but this is my first time at this and I'd love some feedback.

Water Droplets

Some months ago my mom suggested I do some water droplets photos, so not long after that I found a plant at a friend's place and put water on it - then took pictures. I picked the plant because it was impervious to water, water just slid off of it, so it made pretty good droplets if you could get any water to stay on it.
I will have to have a go at this again sometime as I didn't get enough good shots, but here's what I do have, starting with the best, lol:

The best shot ^

This one was just so weird with how many different focal depths of droplets there were, it kinda hurts the eyes. This top one here is the higher-contrast and saturated one, that's cropped.

 And this one is closer to the original.

This picture turned out quite well in terms of the leaf and the colors, but the large droplet that I wanted in focus....was not. This above picture is using an "Earth Tone" filter.

And this shot was edited with a "Night Effect" filter. Which do you like best?

In other news, I'm over being sick, so I should be able to post more (I've got some more edits - of flowers - coming soon), and I changed this site's "Favicon" to the GT shown at right. ---->>

The favicon is what shows up at the top next to the URL and hotlinks to my page.

They're actually pretty fun to make, and I have a custom one for each of my blogs on blogspot here. If you guys would like one, just ask! :-D

Flower Bush

We have a bush of these flowers nearby our house, and I'm not sure why I didn't take pictures of it before. They are amazingly hard to get complete focus on, so that is the main problem with the shots I have so far: Bad focus.
I hope you like them anyway though, I shall be taking more shots trying to get some better focus. :-)

This one is my favorite from this shooting. The focus is better and the flower looks so soft!

I like this angle, but yeah, the focus is kinda off.

Here you see one's before they are blooming.

This is from my second time trying. The flower doesn't look bad, but it's a little small an doesn't appear to be the main focus. I love the leaves in the bottom left corner though! They make an awesome border.

Things learned: The middle of the day is not the best time of day for taking shots of these flowers.

Cave Painting - Leaves

What do you think? lol.
It's actually an impression of some leaves on cement, after a rain fall.

Icons

A few days ago I created some icons for a photography group on deviantART called "ThatPerfectMoment".
At first I used some cat pictures and added the group's name on it (which can be seen Here), but decided it was probably better to create blank icons that text can be added to later on.
Here are some of the one's I made, of course they look better small:

 

The purple flower on the left could have probably used better focus, lol.

<                                    ^
Both of these shots are very nice in my opinion. I hope to add the full-size pictures very soon. :-D

If you've been following this blog for some time, then you've already seen the originals of these beach pictures.

Purple Stars Revisited

Finally a stand-alone single pic post. lol. This picture is called Purple Stars Revisited, but in truth I have taken more than just a few shots of this type of flower.....it's just not many have made it out of my hard-drive. XD
Hope you like it.

Please Click for Full-View!

Grapes

I had the great opertunity to pick grapes this last week! Wine grapes to say the least, one's that make $30 bottles of wine! XD (though I do understand most of the cost is the bottle itself...)
They tasted better than I thought they would, but that may be just because they left them on the vines as late as they could to get the sugar content up (it's the sugar that ferments to make wine).


Very fun indeed. Here's some pics!

Trio Cluster!

This one has a cool glowing feel to it. I hope to edit this into something awesome.

Two shots. One is a bit better than the other, which do you like better?

Soft Red Petals

Wow, way too long since I've posted, but not if you've been following my deviantART! XD

Here's a few things that I've taken recently, the last being my favorite, and I hope yours too!



Cats Galore

I hadn't realized I had taken so many pictures of the same cat! Below I have some of my best ones, but for all of them, please go here: http://oneofakindknight.deviantart.com/gallery/

Hope you enjoy! They look even better full-size! (click to go full-size)

 I LOVE the pose on this one!

 I'm soo sleepy

 

 Contemplation...

 Look into my eyes....

 

The Black and white looks really nice on this shot I titled "Devious Kitteh".

I love the quality on these shots too. They came out better than I expected with my compact (12MP setting woohoo!).