Through New Eyes

Photography is one of my "things"... and I personally have too many things - far as interests are concerned!  But getting a camera in your hand and trying to get a shot that you can marvel at for days, weeks, months, even years to come is now my obsession! 

I am learning that the shot is more interesting if it is somehow 'off' in the sense of it being an angle you wouldn't have thought of without the camera. 

This amaz-balls shot in St. Croix of my niece is not mine, it is her mom's, but the color and quirkiness of it was too much to pass up. I love it.

This shot was somewhere along the Jersey Shore. And let me just take the time to say now that nature photography is HARD! I would rather shot angry kids in the mall with Santa than try to be a nature photographer. All that time, patience, the (many) dozens of bad shots before you get the prize... But this was worth it. That bloody butterfly knew he was being stalked by a nature paparazzo and just flitted about to make me work for it. I was just learning to use my telephoto lens (still am) and it played with my head to see him visually off in the distance and then lose him in the shot because the zoom was so powerful! It might not be Nat Geo but it's mine,

This little bad boy made me get down and dirty to capture him... well sorta - I have a Nikon 5100 so I just lowered the camera and flipped out the screen...
I am proud of the depth of field that focused not on the shroom but on the background. It was an accident, but the results were cool. It made me rethink that what is the focus initially, doesn't always have to be the focus in the end. Your eye is still draw to the mushroom anyway! Mission (unintentionally) Accomplished!

This last shot was of a gasoline mark after a light rain shower. I was out walking the dog and saw the interesting colors. My first reaction was to get the shot, but then I worried that neighbors would think me crazy for snapping shots of the asphalt on a rainy day! In the end, my creative desires won over and I ran into the house for the camera. Neighbors and confused onlookers be damned!

There is just so much to the art and science that is photography... and math - if I'd know there would be math involved, I would never have gotten into it all (sorta sad, but true) but the bug bit me and the seed planted and whatever else corny saying you want to attach here... it rocks. 

If you had a photography 'bucket list', what would be on it?