2011: 50/365 Alone

22 MAR 2011

I had wanted to get a picture of the last leaf on the tree in my front yard. I jumped the gun on it—got tired of waiting. Instead, I tried to take a picture with a single leaf in it. I was almost able to isolate one. If you would, just ignore that other leaf in the background.

Less than a week later, all the leaves were gone. And now just a couple weeks after that, the entire tree is covered in brand new leaves. Funny how quickly these things happen.

I Can See For Miles

DAY 119

29 APR 09

Jury duty, day 2. I went to the Vending Room to grab a snack during break, and I decided to also grab a shot out the window. Again. There's not really much about this photo; it only serves to show -- again -- how out of the way this courthouse is.

Can you see the house in the distance?

Post-processing: noise reduction, sharpening, slight saturation boost, border addition.

Dreaming of a...Parking Lot?

DAY 112

22 APR 09

This was the day of The Great Shoe Search. My son absolutely had to have a new pair of Converse Chuck Taylors, and my mother, who is in from out of town, promised him a pair. So on Day 112, we drove all over looking for a pair of sneakers.

I ended up ordering them off the internet.

I took this photo in the parking lot of a Kohl's. I had taken the picture because I liked the symmetry of the trees on the islands, but that didn't show up the way I'd hoped in the photo. Unfortunately, none of the other pictures came out the way I'd hoped either. Since this was the best of the bunch, I had to do what I could with what I had.

Post-processing: I played around quite a bit with this photo. After the regular noise reduction and sharpening, I cropped the photo and ran a Velvia action. Then I ran it through Virtual Photographer, applying the Ambiance filter.

Make Like a Tree

DAY 107

17 APR 09

My husband was purchasing car parts. I didn't find the idea of standing around in a stranger's garage appealing, so I opted to stay in the truck. It was a partly cloudy day, and my husband parked beneath some very old, very large trees. Spring had sprung(gotta love those cliches!), and the branches directly above me had gorgeous bright green leaves all over it.

Suddenly, the sun peeked out from behind the clouds, brightening the leaves above me with amazing backlight. Of course, I had to take out the camera and get shots.

Post-production: noise reduction, sharpening, curves adjustment to ease up the green, a little bit of dodging, and a border addition.

Locked and Loaded

DAY 88

29 MAR 09

It's that time of year in Metro Atlanta, the time when everything turns yellow. We recently had snow flurries predicted, one person reported he thought he was seeing snow fall until he noticed it was yellow. Not snow. Pine pollen.

Here, we have pine pollen before it's decided to take flight and blanket my neighborhood. Take a look, you'll see it's right on the edge. Once that pine pollen is on the move, every vehicle in Atlanta is the same color.

Post-processing: noise reduction, sharpening, crop, lighting adjustments, border addition.

Welcome, Spring

DAY 83

24 MAR 09

When you make the turn into my subdivision, this is the first tree you see. The greeter, if you will. In fact, I was going to give this post a title that somehow incorporated a greeting and a tree, but I couldn't come up with a phrase that made sense so I had to settle for the much lamer "Welcome, Spring". Still, the post title does fit; it seemed as soon as we hit the first day of spring, this tree started blooming.

I love that this tree is what greets me when I come home. It's beautiful. It's cheerful. And it makes me happy.

Post-processing: noise reduction, sharpening, border addition.

Fuel the Fire

DAY 75

16 MAR 09

Every Monday, I try to do my FlyLady house blessing. Part of blessing my home includes vacuuming my family room. In the wintertime, the most difficult area to vacuum is that in front of the fireplace/woodstove. Those wood chips are hell!

On this particular Monday, I was engaged in my regular Battle of the Wood Chips, when I started paying attention to the woodpile. It looked kind of cool just sitting there all asymmetric and stuff. Of course, I took a picture. And another. And another.

They all sucked. Just my luck.

Besides sucking, the pictures also drew my attention to the top log on the pile. It had some interesting colors and textures, so I tried a more specific shot. This was the second one I tried. It's still not perfect, but it's much better than the woodpile shot. :)

Post-processing: noise reduction, sharpening, curves adjustment, border addition.

Like an Old Tire

DAY 68

09 MAR 09

I seem to be doing a lot of tight shots lately; am I in a rut? I'm not sure, but I'm inclined to say no because of this picture. You see, I wanted a picture symbolizing the arrival of spring. And here just outside metro Atlanta, the blooming of the Bradford Pear tree is a definitely sign spring is here.

On Day 68, I got a few full pictures of Bradford Pears blooming every time I turned around. Unfortunately, it was a bright, sunny, warm day, and the sky in every one of those pictures was horribly blown out. So I had a choice: a tight shot of Bradford Pear blooms or a glow-in-the-dark sky. I went for the tight shot.

While these trees are very pretty in the early spring, the profusion of white blooms always makes me smile, there are a couple drawbacks to these trees. First, they're kind of frail. After this recent snowstorm, every yard that has Bradford Pear trees also has a pile of branches at the curb. Second, the smell. Have you ever smelled a Bradford Pear tree in bloom? If you haven't, I'll tell you how you can without ever even seeing one. Find an old tire and wait until a stifling hot day. When that day arrives, completely enclose yourself in that old tire and inhale deeply. Smell that? It's Bradford Pear blooms.

Ick.

Post-processing: noise reduction, sharpening, curves adjustment, border addition.

Contrasts

DAY 63

04 MAR 09

Three days after the snowstorm (sorry I keep mentioning the snowstorm, but it really was a big deal), and my neighborhood still had snow on the ground. Not a lot, most of it had melted away. But we still some.

The contrasts referred to in the post title are not the colors in the photo, but the fact that with snow still on the ground, I looked up when I was waiting in line to pick my daughter up from school and saw the trees budding.

On the ground it was still winter. In the trees, the first signs of spring. I know it's not unusual, but I still think it's very cool.

Post-processing: noise reduction, sharpening, minute curves bump, selective color adjustment, border addition.

Snowbuds

DAY 61

02 MAR 09

The day after the big snowstorm, most of the snow throughout metro Atlanta melted right away. Through most of metro. In my area, not so much. The snow was crunchier after an overnight freeze, but still there.

When I took this photo, I was struck by the stark contradictions: the blue blue sky compared to the grey skies of the day before; and the budding tree branches covered in fresh snow.

In post-processing, I cropped, reduced noise, sharpened, tweaked in selective color, and added a border.

Bark Bark Bark

DAY 50

19 FEB 09

These great trees shade the cars outside the office of my son's allergy specialist. I'm sure at one time or another I knew the name of these trees, but that information seems to have fallen through the holes of my Swiss cheese brain. The only think I know for sure is they have the coolest papery bark that makes me want to peel peel peel.

They apparently affect my son the same way -- I had to physically stop him from clawing at the trees. He wasn't pleased.

PP included noise reduction, sharpening, black and white conversion, curves adjustment, and border addition.

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.

Foggy Morning

DAY 27

27 JAN 09

After the rains came and went, we had a few mornings of dense fog around here. Since I didn't have to be out trying to drive in it, I thought it was tres cool. When it's like that outdoors, I like to tell my children we're in the clouds. That almost makes a foggy day mystical. At the very least, a dense fog lends an air of mystery to the day.

There is some extra post-processing on this one. After my usual noise reduction, sharpening, and curves adjustments, I converted this one to black and white then cloned out a chain-link fence. Not the greatest clone job, but for a quick disappearing act, I'm pretty happy with it.

Peek-a-Boo

DAY 15

15 JAN 09

On Day 15, I decided to see what kind of photos I might get in my backyard. I shot the woodpile. I shot the trees. I shot rocks and bricks and random debris. But this is the picture that was my favorite.

I played peek-a-boo with the sunlight through the branches of the trees. Yes, the sun is bright here, and somewhat blown out. Yes, the branches are very dark and pretty much silhouetted. But look at how blue the sky is. Look at all those little branches and twigs. One could almost imagine that tree is reaching out and trying to grab something.

It's nice to know I needn't go any further than my own backyard for a nice photo.

Post-processing includes sharpening and noise reduction, curves and contrast adjustments, a slight color boost, and the border addition.