Happy Halloween

There is a fairly large pumpkin patch in Foxtrap (Conception Bay South) and this time of the year is very busy for them. Halloween is becoming more and more commercialized and this year many families have decorated the outside of their properties.

To capture the first image, I zoomed in to eliminate distractions. I liked the shapes and textures radiating from the centre. The second photo shows a lonely pumpkin surrounded by greenery.

Fall Colours 5

The leaves of the northern wild raisin were very red last weekend and, like other photos I shared this week, shooting with the sun behind them makes images with interesting lighting and textures.

I am sharing three photos this morning to illustrate how each image is different even though they are the same subject. I decided to shoot a wide view of a group of leaves, then moved closer which emphasized the largest one. Then I moved closer still and chose to shoot a vertical image.

You will notice a little lens flare in the third image. This often happens when you are shooting towards the sun. I usually hold my hand near the lens to avoid this, but in this case, I didn't notice the flare until I downloaded the photo.

This is the last in my Fall Colours series.

Fall Colours 5

The leaves of the northern wild raisin were very red last weekend and, like other photos I shared this week, shooting with the sun behind them makes images with interesting lighting and textures.

I am sharing three photos this morning to illustrate how each image is different even though they are the same subject. I decided to shoot a wide view of a group of leaves, then moved closer which emphasized the largest one. Then I moved closer still and chose to shoot a vertical image.

You will notice a little lens flare in the third image. This often happens when you are shooting towards the sun. I usually hold my hand near the lens to avoid this, but in this case, I didn't notice the flare until I downloaded the photo.

This is the last in my Fall Colours series.

Fall Colours 4

To capture the photo of several colourful trees I walked to the bottom of the small hill. I did that in order to get rid of the power lines that were blocking my view. I liked the variety of colours against the perfectly blue sky and didn't want several wires running across the image.

The second photo was taken in my yard and shows the bright red leaves of a young northern wild raisin tree.

I think the berries are highbush cranberries that are growing by the side of my driveway. I liked the bright red colour of the berries. The yellow leaves of meadowsweet also brighten my back yeard this time of the year.

Just a few more days of my Fall Colours theme.

Colours of Fall 3

Today's photos show houses in addition to the colourful trees. The bright yellow and orange maples certainly add to the properties this time of the year.

I took both photos while sitting in my vehicle. I often shoot from the car, not because I am too lazy to get out, but if there is a lot of traffic or there is not a good place to pull off the road, making a few quick photos from the car makes more sense. In fact back in the mid 90s, I started a photo essay of subjects taken while waiting at red lights. I shot hundreds of slides and if the light turned green before I could capture the image, I would miss the shot forever. :)

Colours of Fall 2

Today's photos are closer views of maple leaves. You can notice the variation in the colours, especially the leaf in the second photo. Notice how there are still tiny parts of it that are still green. In a few weeks there will be no leaves left on the trees in this part of the world.

Colours of Fall 1

It was a beautiful day here yesterday and I took an hour or so to make images of the beautiful fall colours. Over the next few days, I will share some of the photos with you.

The bright yellow and orange maple leaves are probably the dominant colours along the roads here in Holyrood. When I looked up I could see the bright yellow leaves against the clear blue sky and I really liked the combination of colours. Other photos show a combination of orange and yellow maple leaves. When shooting towards the sun, the light passes through the leaves which causes interesting lighting as shown in the last two photos..

Willow Tree Figurine

I photographed a wedding for friends a couple of weeks ago and while in the bride's home, I photographed a Willow Tree ornament that shows a couple in love. I thought that the photo would probably make a good title for a slide show so I made several images of the Together figurine and am including two of them this morning.

Note the different composition and lighting in each of the photos. The closer view is a little darker and the colour of the wall looks slightly different. I added words to the first image to show that I composed the image with a "title" in mind. I may even put a photo of the couple in that area of the image instead of words.

Jets

On my trip back from Deer Lake, I saw the contrails of two aircraft that seemed to be flying close together. I pulled over and took a series of photos.

As you can imagine photographing aircraft that are speeding by at 500 miles per hour and are 5 or 6 miles up is a bit of a challenge. I used my 70-300 mm lens at maximum zoom. I followed the aircraft with my camera, shooting images very quickly. I held the camera as still as possible to keep the aircraft in focus. When I looked at them through the viewfinder, I could see that one aircraft was higher than the other. I was lucky that the flight path of the higher one intersected with the contrails of the lower one. Look closely at the second photo.

Birch

Today I am sharing a few more photos of birch trees. Yesterday's photos showed wide views of a forest full of birch trees. When I am walking through the woods I also take close-up photos and today's images illustrate this.

The first photo shows the bark of the birch tree. I have always found it interesting that the bark peels off like paper. As a school child I learned that Beothuck (native people of the island of Newfoundland) made canoes from birch bark but I could never understand how a canoe made of "paper" could ever float. A couple of years ago I visited Bear River Reservation in Nova Scotia and they were building a birch bark canoe and, after all these years, I understood.

The second shows a close-up image of a leaf that is still partially green, but you can see that the edges are yellow and starting to decay. I assume the holes in the leaves were made by insects during the summer.

Feel free to check my Birch Gallery at: http://lanephotography.com/plants/birch/birch.htm.
As well, a search of my Blog will display 20 more photos of birch.

Birch

When I moved to Holyrood in 1982, there were several birch trees growing on my property and I have photographed them through every season, year after year and I never tire of photographing them.

When I was on the west coast of Newfoundland during the Thanksgiving weekend, I drove through "Birchy Narrows" and it is not difficult to figure out why it is called that - the predominant tree is birch! And with the leaves changing colour, it is a beautiful sight. I am sharing two photos that were taken when I stopped and walked into the trees and made images of birch in their fall colours.

The first image was taken under the canopy and shows the light and shadows on the trunks of the trees. I made the second image by looking up and including the coloured leaves and blue sky. I like the second image much better!

Feel free to check my Birch web site at: http://lanephotography.com/plants/birch/birch.htm
As well, a search of my Blog will display 17 more photos of birch.

Tomatoes

This morning I am sharing a two more photos of tomatoes that I grew this year. These tomatoes are on the windowsill in my kitchen and I photographed them with available light.

Several of you grow your own tomatoes and have told me how delicious yours are as well. The photos of the tomatoes are examples of my theme - EVERYTHING'S A PICTURE. I photographed the plants throughout the summer and now have photos of the growth process.

Feel free to send photos of any types of food to our photo album project at mqpphotos@gmail.com.