4.25.2011

Week 16 - Growth

I almost didn't capture any "growth" pictures for my weekly photo challenge, but I had some free time this evening and the weather cooperated (it's been cold and rainy around here).

The trees are budding and leaves are starting to open up. Every year I get excited for the spring changes, including seeing much more green! I check each day how far along the shrubs and trees have gone from bare branches to fully opened leaves and seed pods. So, it made sense to try to capture some of these changes for this week's theme of "growth."


I don't own an actual macro lens, but I still try to get macro shots with my 70 - 200mm lens. For a lot of these shots, I used an aperture of around 7.1, shutter 1/160, fully zoomed in to 200mm, white balance of "cloudy" and ISO of 400. There was a lot of noise in the pictures, for some reason, so I used Adobe Lightroom 3.0 to reduce the noise.

I couldn't zoom in as close as these photos are...but rather, I cropped the images significantly.


The photo below was cropped...


and then I cropped it more to get in real tight.


My lens doesn't produce sharp, macro images...



but it's fun to try!


The theme for next week is "trees." If you'd like to join me in taking a tree photo :-), feel free to post one on my Facebook wall to be critiqued by me and other photographers.

I'd also like to mention that I am booking photo sessions for this spring and summer! I love to take photos of families, seniors, and children. I have a special going right now until the end of May, so call me if you'd like to book an hour session. 651-528-8221

2 comments:

Ria @ Life as a Wife! said...

what fun shots, Susan! :) You go girl!

Susan said...

Thank you, Ria! You go, too! Just heard you're quitting your job and going full-time as a photographer. Best of wishes to you! - Susan