In Want of Whimsy

It was bubbling around there in my mind for a while. I needed it to gel together so that I could see it clearly. My blogger friends have once again come through. On a day that I really needed to see it, Carol posted this. Within this lovely blog post Carol included these lines (along with some cute photos): ” there are things in my life I wish I had done differently. But would I go back and change them? No! Not at all!…..I would not be enjoying the whimsical parts of life and thrilling at the talents of those that can demonstrate that whimsy, that joy, for the rest of us.”

Then, in the comments of my last post Kathy said this: “I really really like the whimsical nature of that last shot.”

The Merriam-Webster definition of “whimsical” is ” unusual in a playful or amusing way : not serious”. After the way things have been around here lately, this is what I need! For a June Photo Hunt, please show me whimsy!

You may choose as many photos as you would like for this photo hunt – just have them be fun and playful photos. Or how about a whimsical collage?

Post your links to your whimsy in the comments of this post. Let’s say Sunday June 22nd for a due date – but as usual, that date is flexible. Let me know if you need more time. Please help me spread the word of this photo hunt so we can spread the joy and whimsy as far as possible!

Summertime and the living is easy…

Today’s post is a flashback post brought to you via Scott Thomas’s current photo assignment, “Vacation”. I told Scott I didn’t know if I’d participate because I wasn’t sure I could show you my vacation in a way I already hadn’t. I’ve been going to the same beach every summer for many years, and I’ve blogged about it a lot! Hills Beach has a fairly large size in my tag cloud over there on the right side of this blog.

But I really hate to miss a photo assignment, and looking back at warm days on the beach in August when a nasty chill has set in here in the northeast was kind of nice. In my last blog post, I mentioned how I respond well to music, and I’ve written plenty of posts in the past that refer to music or include music videos from youtube. So in addition to this being my contribution to Scott’s assignment, I’m including a little lyrics quiz for you! Some of the lyrics, I think, are super easy, but a couple are more challenging. See if you can figure out the song title and artist without googling them and leave your answers in the comments section. I’ll post all the answers with music videos in a couple days!

1.

“Vacation, all I ever wanted, Vacation, had to get away…”

2.

“That’s where you wanna go to get away from it all…”

3.

“Ballerina, you must have seen her, dancing in the sand…”

4.

“She had her drink in her hand, she had her toes in the sand…”

5.

“Visions of good times that brought so much pleasure, makes me want to go back again…”

6.

“Beauty in the water, angel on the beach…I would have wished in ’92 for a mermaid just like you…”

Have fun! And you still have a few days to jump in on Scott’s assignment if you’d like to – posts are due on Wednesday, December 4th by midnight your time.

Composing for Color

Color, color, color – what a challenge for this dreary month!  Those were my thoughts when Scott Thomas first announced his photo assignment for November.  I read the links that Scott shared, as well as Scott’s post full of lovely examples and set my thoughts in motion.

Jennifer, Renae and I enjoyed another lovely luncheon at Pickity Place last weekend and I hoped that Pickity might provide some photo opportunities.  There was not a lot of offerings, but I had my eyes open for leading lines and punches of color.

This may be a bit opposite of the ideas expressed in color composition, but I like the way the gray and white cat was framed by color:

These next couple shots I took on my day off from work on Monday.  I was surprised to catch the sun just peeking above my neighbor’s shed surrounded by fog, giving the shot a beautiful but a little eerie color:

I couldn’t decide which version of this picture I liked better. It was taken only a couple minutes later, but the fog is bit more evident in this shot. Does that take away from composing for color?

Here is one more different take on color composition. On my looking-for-bluebirds walk, I happened to look up and spot these bright red berries spattered among the grayish brown branches – color just jumping out at me.

So who woulda thunk it? Include my bluebirds and I think I found a pretty good variety for dreary ol’November. Thanks for the assignment, Scott!

Three for the Thirds

Winter temperatures have settled in for the weekend.  It is supposed to go down to about 6° F tonight and struggle to get out of the low 20’s tomorrow.  My rhododendron thermometer convinced me that I really didn’t want to venture outside today.  I bet tomorrow it’ll be curled as tight as needles.  I’ll try to remember to take a picture to show you.  The cold made me start dreaming of warmer days … “only” 92 days until our cruise in the spring!

The cold also helped me decide that I would use old photos rather than new for Scott’s current assignment.  I have three different situations for the rule of thirds here and I’d love to hear what everyone thinks.  My first situation is a “before” and “after” where I created a photo that follows the rule by cropping:

Before
 

In this shot, the ocean/sky line pretty much cuts the photo right in half (its a little crooked, too)

After

I edited the shot by cropping it to have the water fill two-thirds of the shot, plus have the sailboat at one of the crossings of those imaginary gridlines.  Definite improvement.

Here’s another summer shot that I think follows the rule, SOOC:

I think the rocks/sand/water, tree line and sky divide the photo nicely into thirds, although I don’t think there’s any special emphasis at the intersection points.  Does this one work as a rule of thirds?  Let me know.

In this third situation, I’m wondering if applying the rule of thirds actually takes away from the photo.  Take this photo that I loved so much of my vacation rainbow:

As I looked at it, I wondered if it would be better if my rainbow wasn’t so smack dab in the middle of the shot, so I tried cropping:

I don’t think I like this better.  In the cropping, I lost some of the nice reflection of the rainbow in the splashes of water of the tidal pools and I think the rainbow looks kind of pushed off to the side.  What do you think?

This is my contribution to Scott’s Rule of Thirds assignment.  There is still time to participate if you’d like to – due date is Wednesday, January 18th.

ETA: Several folks mentioned in the comments that they might have edited the sailboat to show more sky rather than water, so I tried it:

It may have a little more of the “feeling” I was thinking of when I shot it.  I don’t know if anyone who orginally made that comment will come back and have a look, but if you do, let me know what you think.