2009: 336/365 Echo in the Water

02 DEC 2009

Echo in the Water. Quite the angsty teen title, is it not? I was looking for an alternative to the predictable Reflection, but everything seemed slightly cheesy. Which meant, of course, I had to go for the entire cheese wheel.

About the photo -- clearly it was a rainy day, and I took this shot in the parking lot at my local grocery store. I seem to spend a tremendous amount of time at my local grocery store, so it's only fitting I have photos from there. ANYHOO...as I returned my cart to the cart corral (because I'm a good girl and I always return my cart to the cart corral), I noticed the puddle and the partial reflection there. It looked interesting to me, so I shot it.

Since the only real color in the original shot was a couple brown leaves, I decided to go ahead and convert it to black & white. And since I was already converting it, why not go ahead and overdo it just a tad? Cheese wheel post title, cheese wheel conversion? There's a tremendous amount of contrast in the photo -- helped along by the Virtual Photographer 50's filter -- but that's what I like about it.

We all need a little cheese in our lives.

Raindrops Keep Falling

DAY 33

02 FEB 09

Yup. Rain's still exciting to us North Georgians. As long as we have drought, we'll happy dance at the sight of rain. This shot in particular is the one I was going for on Day 28 when I got the reflection shot instead.

I like the circles. I like the puddle. I like the hint of concrete in the foreground. I like the out of focus What the heck is that? reflection in the water. For me, this shot just works.

Post processing on this one included conversion to black & white in Adobe Camera Raw, noise reduction, sharpening, a curves adjustment and contrast boost, and the addition of the filter "Anvil" in Virtual Photographer. And my usual simple black border, too.

Upon Reflection...

DAY 28

28 JAN 09

Rain, rain, and more rain! In a drought-stricken area, all that water falling from the sky is exciting, even if the rain is sparse enough to avoid the drops by stepping to the right.

On Day 28, I came home from...somewhere...and went into the backyard. I had to enter the house through the back door since my dogs were in the garage (they're old and they don't like getting wet). Anyway, as I walked across the patio, I saw a couple of great puddles. My plan was to see if I could capture a raindrop hitting the puddle, the splash of explosion of water on water. But when I pointed the camera, what appeared in my viewfinder was much, much better.

I still got those raindrops, but even better, I got an amazing reflection. The images of some great naked wintertime trees stared back at me from the water's surface, and I knew I had my Project 365 shot.

Post-processing on this one was minimal, just my usual noise reduction, sharpening, and curves adjustment.