Tuesday, June 29, 2010

TTV Morning Glories

A couple days after the first few morning glories showed up, there were several more, and I played around a little more with the Brownie.  

As I said before, since these particular morning glories have sprouted up from seeds from last year's flowers, I never know exactly what colors they'll be.   It's starting to look like these along the shed will be light pink, magenta/hot pink, and dark purple.  purple not pictured ;)

These images are "small" because when I tried to make them larger, the colors got all wonky... Thanks Blogger... (I went back to old posts and apparently this is not new.  Just hasn't been as noticeable before...)

Not only that, but the colors are already not that accurate, despite my efforts to correct them in Photoshop.  Could be due to a couple things- the fact that the flowers are in open shade, or the old/imperfect Brownie lens/viewfinder... OR maybe because of my Nikon.  I've seen a couple of mentions that some digital cameras, Nikons in particular, have some trouble accurately capturing reds and purples.  Not sure how accurate those theories are, or if that's the case here, but I guess it's possible.  One more argument for film!  (Of course, different films have different biases but at least you're not stuck with one!)

Anyway:




And one non-TTV shot:



Thanks for looking! :)


Tuesday, June 22, 2010

TA-DA! The first morning glories!

So, I've become a little bored with my "garden updates"... I probably won't do anymore...

BUT, the first morning glories have opened!  This is why I like morning glories.  They're easy, and they grow ridiculously fast!  So while most of the rest of my flowers were duds, I have my daisies and my morning glories, so I'm happy.  And you'll probably see photos of those once in a while...

I went back through my photos and found the ones I took of the shed at various times.  Here are a few:

Here's what it looked like just 2 months ago on April 24th:
About a month ago on May 19th:
 A week and a half later on May 31st:
A week later on June 8th, at a bit of a different angle, but you can see the BIG difference!:
Here's one of 3 buds I found yesterday:
Here's what the shed looks like today:

I guess I'm a nerd, but I think it's kinda cool to see the progress....
Anyway, a couple more photos that I took at the crack of dawn this morning:

I really love how the new twirls itself around the old.  The old vines, and the old crumbly shed.  There's something kind of beautiful about it. 


And this last one, it looks kinda cool- the light wasn't that bright yet, and I moved (only because I was being snacked on by mosquitoes) but I've never had movement look quite like this.  It almost looks like a double exposure.  Kind of.  Anyway. I like it:
Thanks for stopping by and checking out my silly flower photos! :)

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Saturday, June 12, 2010

Brownie Through the Viewfinder

Did a little TTV experimenting today with my Brownie camera.  I tried before and failed because I couldn't get the Coolpix to focus close enough to the glass.  It might be because I've had lens issues with the Coolpix, but suddenly, it's focusing closer... hmmm... so I busted out the Brownie again.  Because of the (tons of) glare I was getting on the glass, and how still I had to be to keep the Coolpix aligned with the glass, (this isn't the case with shooting TTV with the Holga) I felt a little limited by what I could shoot, so for experimenting purposes, I took a daisy out to the front porch where there was lots of nice light this afternoon:


I really like the borders I got... but there was lots of glare on the glass... I think tomorrow I'll attempt to do some shooting with a dark cloth!  Just like back in the day with the 4x5!  At least the Brownie and the Coolpix aren't as heavy to lug around...  :)

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Strawberries!

The other day after I picked my first bunch of strawberries, they looked so pretty sitting there in a pile, so I did a little photo shoot... They're a bit on the small side, but a couple of them were perfectly shaped!




Monday, June 7, 2010

Crazy Pink Flowers

As promised, here the TTV photos I took of my favorite new flowers.
I like these flowers because:
1- they're pink!
2- they're a little crazy-like and they just do whatever.  And I think that's what made me want to shoot so many pictures of them the other day!

I think what I like about these photos is that a couple of them are pretty close to what a real Holga photo would look like.  With all my experimenting with the Holga TTV photos, I've had very few that have had that imperfect-focus-blown-out-highlights look.   (The first one especially)







prints & cards available on fineartamerica.com

Saturday, June 5, 2010

garden upate #11

So, I've decided I'm a little disappointed with all these flowers I started from seed.  They aren't gonna bloom until September at this rate!  I think I got a little ahead of myself because the only other flowers I've grown from seed are morning glories, and those are easy, and they grow FAST...
I've already planned to start next year's seeds on Christmas, in my sister's closed-in porch, which is pretty much like a hot house. :)

Most of the seedlings failed miserably.  At least the remaining ones are perennials, so the time hasn't been totally wasted.  We just won't see them until next year most likely... And speaking of perennials, I've decided from now on, that's the way to go.  So much cheaper that way!

The Chinese Lanterns (perennials, yay!) had a big growth spurt this week.  I also planted some of them in pots, just to spread them out, but those aren't as big as the ones I left here in the tray.  Hmmm...
There's a few Columbines still doing okay.  I'm afraid to do anything with these yet.  I don't want to freak them out.  I really was looking forward to these.  But I doubt they'll bloom this year.  I don't know.  Maybe they will.  But, they're perennials, so next year!!!
The other ones still doing okay are the Cypress vines... These aren't perennials, but that's okay.  Maybe I'll slip them some fertilizer, give them a kick in the butt.
The morning glories are crazy! And they started climbing!  Woo hoo!  This is definitely the earliest I've seen them this big already... Usually this would be the time that I'd be planting the seeds.  And since most of them sprouted up on their own, they've been growing for weeks already. I'm gonna make a prediction right now that they're gonna bring down the shed! haha


These pink flowers are my new favorites.  They're called Nemesia.  They are so cute!  They're kinda like vines, but not really.  And I THINK they're in the snapdragon family.  They remind me of the dragons at Chinese New Year... I've got them in some terra cotta pots with some morning glories on either side of the shed.  They're not perennials, but I LOVE them anyway...  I took a bunch of TTV photos of them the other day and I really like how they came out.  I'll probably post them ALL in a separate post...
I really like these little blue flowers I planted a few weeks ago too:
The roses by the garage have gone a little nuts.  But that's okay.  I like them that way... The morning glories over here aren't quite as big as the others yet, but that's because these are the ones that I planted from seed.


There are actually 2 different roses here.  The red/magenta one, and then there's a pink one.  The buds on the pink one finally showed up:


I finally have the netting up over the strawberries.  What a pain in the ASS this netting was!  It sticks to EVERYTHING.  It's got like little grabbers on it or something.  I don't know, but it was a PAIN.  
I'm pretty confident that the bunnies and birds aren't getting in... I've got it tied down, and then bricks layed on top to hold it down too.  After I finished, I wondered if I'D be able to actually get in!  (But I did and had some with dinner last night.  They were yummy!  And OH MAN do they smell amazing!!!)
Also- after I picked them and they were sitting there in a pile looking so pretty- I OF COURSE did a photo shoot with them!  You'll see those in a later post too! 

Now for the front yard.  I'm pretty sure the last thing I posted about the front yard was that I had one side of the steps dug out... Now it's all planted!  Both sides have Liatris which are perennials.  They'll be tall, 2-3 feet, so they're planted along the back.  
Right now they're still little and a few just sprouting.  Maybe I'm a dork, but it's kinda cool to see them breaking through the dirt... :)

Also, my sister and I used to call them "microphones" because we used to stand behind them and sing into them... dorks.   :)  Since it will be a while until there'll be any flowers I can photograph: here's a photo.
 
Since the front yard isn't symmetrical anyway, I didn't plant the same things on both sides.  Both sides have the "microphones", our side has blue and purple pansies, and my uncle's side has pink dianthus.  Both sides also have Gaura plants.  They're pretty cool looking... there's a Passionate Blush Gaura on each side right by the steps.  

 
That monstrosity on the right (above my name) is a Yucca plant.  It's in pretty rough shape.  When I dug up this side of the steps, I ripped out all the dead brown leaves from underneath this thing.  I swear, it's half the size.  I planted some morning glories in front of it.  Hoping they'll climb up it and make it pretty.  You can barely see it in this photo, but there's two tall stalks(?) sticking out of it, and there are little white bell-like flowers that bloom on them.   When we were little, my grandmother had one of these, and we would take the flowers and float them in puddles in her driveway... :)

And to balance out the Yucca plant, I put the one larger Gaura plant, a Pink Fountain Gaura, on our side.  I don't think it will get as large though... I really like these- the branches are long and delicate and flowy.  Here's a close-up of the little pale pink flowers:

That's all for now.  Please click here for all the garden updates!

Gwyneth & Jimmy: The Best of Shazzazz

This episode was on again last night.  So silly.  I thought it might cheer me up a bit today...

Friday, June 4, 2010

Broken Heart

May Ann Licudine is an amazingly talented illustrator.  I stumbled onto her website last year, and she instantly became one of my favorite artists.  (I love her blog too!)

I love the detail and emotion in her images.  They are so sweet and playful and delicate and quirky and sometimes sad...

This is one of my favorites: 
Broken Heart by May Ann Licudine

new banner part 2...

Okay.  Here's another one.  I added a border to it to the previous one... it's a filed negative carrier border from another image.
I've never combined any images in this way- I think I did an okay job...
Still, I'm not quite sure how I feel about it.  I think I need to see it on the blog, and live with it a bit.  :)

Thursday, June 3, 2010

new banner

I have a new banner!  I've been fiddling around with this font for a while- for a watermark, logo, etc.  The background is one of my images, cropped and desaturated a bit...  Not sure how I feel about it, so I'll probably have a new one again soon... In fact, I'm probably gonna open Photoshop back up right now...

I figured I should probably add the banner to the post about the banner... just in case it's gone soon!