When I first saw someone’s artwork on the side of a building in downtown Sarasota, my first impression was that it was somewhat “quirky.” I have been trying to master portraiture photography so the more I looked at the artwork the more I thought it would make a creative backdrop for a portrait if I used a wide aperture to blur it significantly. Thanks goes out to my husband for agreeing to be my model.
I was full of excitement today when “I found this” female honey bee buzzing from flower to flower gathering pollen. You may ask why I would get excited and want to photograph it instead of running toward my car. Take a look at her rear leg with her bulging orange pollen basket. After she visits a flower, she begins grooming herself and brushes pollen gathered on her body down toward her hind legs and packs the pollen into her pollen basket. Female bees feed their offspring with pollen mixed with a little nectar.
Flower photography is not what I know best but give me a pat on the back for being brave enough to post this photo alongside many of you who excel in photographing flowers. This flower caught my eye this morning because it was so beautifully “back lit.”
While in Chattanooga a few weeks ago, Mike and I decided to drive up to the Georgia end of Lookout Mountain. The weather was beautiful and had a hint of Fall in the air with very little humidity. The view gave me an opportunity to take four photos and stitch them together to make a “panorama” photo.
Lucky for me, I had my camera set for just the right shutter speed and pointed in the right direction to catch “an action shot” of these two girls at second base during one of the ASA Championship games.
While in Chattanooga recently, I sat behind home base in “the ballpark” where I played softball regularly as a young girl. Oh, what memories flooded my mind! Of great interest to me was to see girls’ softball teams from all over the United States participating in the annual ASA National Championship.
Welcome to another year of blogging! I hope you enjoy my photos as much as I enjoy photographing items which I think represent each of the 2017 – 2018 themes. During Week 1 on August 1st, I am in Tennessee and as I walked the road where I live, I saw a planter with beautiful pink flowers and I asked myself, “If flowers could talk,” what would these say? I stood there for several minutes admiring the flowers and started thinking about my buddies who I hold dear, who I enjoy spending time with, and who I can share good times and bad times with. Then it became obvious to me that these beautiful flowers were a lot like me and would say, “I enjoy hanging out with my buds.”
The interior of the Sarasota Opera House is a beautiful building of great interest and history. If you have never attended an opera or ballet there, I would encourage you to do so but beforehand read about its history and renovations here. It’s a place where dreams are fulfilled and because of that, I have processed it with the dreamy “Orton Effect.”
I love old handmade quilts and have managed to collect quite a few over the years. I have fond childhood memories of my Mother, Grandmother and lady members of our little church meeting once a week for a quilting bee, and I still have some of those old quilts in my collection. The photo of the one below, which I keep on a guest bed, is of the pattern Miss Sunbonnet. According to research I did, quilt blocks of Miss Sunbonnet began showing up as early as the 1800s, but popularity with crafters only began to grow after the publication of the Sunbonnet Babies Primers in the early 20th century. This pattern is also known as Dutch Doll, which I have always known it as. To make a quilt, the pattern was sewn and attached to individual quilt blocks, which were then “stitched together” by hand to make a quilt top. The finished quilt top was then placed atop a roll of cotton and a large piece of fabric for the back. The entire piece was then placed in a large quilting frame around which ladies sat and hand stitched with small even stitches to hold it together. It’s a labor of love.
I couldn’t find a tutorial I liked for this theme, so I just guessed how to place a frame around my subject and have her step into the frame. Her right leg is “out of bounds.”
A 52-Week Photo Journey 