I don’t know what I love more about the month of May — the soft scent of flowers perfuming the air, or the return of the gorgeous, soft light of late afternoon and early evenings.
Like this:
It’s a sweet subject, but the way the light falls on them really makes this picture, in my humble opinion. It’s one of my new favourites. I’m learning that the quality of light becomes much more obvious in a B&W photo than in a colour one. Less distractions maybe?
This one uses light in a different way. (Is it me, or is there a crazy amount of dandelions this year?) After trying all summer last year, this is the first time I’ve actually managed to successfully take a dandelion portrait — they’re not as easy as they look!
I took this one the day I was making up some new banners for the blog. I’d wanted a banner that worked in the old and new cameras and couldn’t quite make it work, but I thought this was a fun shot nonetheless. I call it “The old guard versus the young whippersnapper.” 
Tristan’s homework required him to go on a nature walk and record the animals he encountered, so I took the boys down to Black’s Rapids after dinner. It’s hard to look for animals when you’re concentrating on making sure the toddler doesn’t go for a swim! The geese enjoyed the stale bread we brought, including a cute little yellow gosling you can just barely see in the grouping to the back right.
(Also challenging? Deciding whether to go for the photo opportunity or save the kids from the hissing, hungry goose!)
Have I mentioned how much I love lilacs?
Love them!
A lot!
Know what else I love? Through-the-viewfinder shots of fun fairs!
Like this!
This one is my fave of the series, I think.
And here’s a few shots I took during and for my new photography class at the School of Photographic Arts, Ottawa. The first night, we did a little walkabout in the Market, and had to shoot in manual mode (eek!) and then not do any post-processing. (Double-eek!!) He told us to take a non-touristy shot of Maman, the 10m bronze spider sculpture outside the National Gallery. I like the dark, gothic look and the bird silhouette on this one, but if I could have I would have brightened it up just a smidgen.
And this was our weekly assignment: shoot tulips in a new way. I gave it that sense of motion by setting my aperture to the smallest possible opening (f22) to make for a longer exposure, and then zoomed my lens out gently during the exposure.
In the end, it was okay, but I like this “traditional” take on tulips more. Not bad for straight-out-of-the-camera (sooc), eh?
Speaking of lessons, one day I will learn that when shooting with my lens wide open (in this case, f1.8) one of the eyes will be out of focus (not to mention the tip of his nose!) unless they’re both on the same plane. Oh well. He’s still pretty cute!
The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don’t know yet!!
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Yum. I love to sink into your photos.
I don’t think the lack of focus hurts that last photo at all. In fact, it’s just about perfect as is.