Challenge Brief:
21 Signs of Spring
This week's challenge idea comes from Bekah. A while back she shared with me a whole list of ideas and I thought, with all the spring rain we've been getting, this would be a good week for a Spring Challenge! Bekah mentioned that she and her mother used to go for walks in the springtime and try and find 21 different signs of spring.
Rules:
1.) Take exactly 21 pictures this week exploring the theme.
2.) Submit your top 5 favorite images.
3.) Colour only.
4.) No tweaking.
5.) If you feel like sharing all 21 images feel free to do so, but please mark which are your top 5 favorites (Note: you do NOT have to post all 21 images if you don't feel like it.)
For this weeks challenge I pumped up the camera to vivid color and then went out to shoot. The real challenge this week was picking my 5 entries. Phew it was rough, only five? Really? I still don't know if I picked the best five out of the batch. I toiled over it for quite a while with no real good criteria to help me choose. So, alas the first five are my entries this week and the rest are the rejects just for fun! Hope you enjoy. Spring has definitely sprung down in Austin. It is gorgeous and the creepy crawly's are out in full force too!! (btw...the black beetle was ginormous!!! at least 2 inches long, if not more) Ewwww...gross!!!
Entry 1
Entry 2
Entry 4
Entry 5
Posts
Very nice, Erin!
ReplyDeleteHow did the squirrel and the duck not make it? I love the framing on the duck picture and the look on the squirrel's face.
ReplyDelete1. This is a nice pic, but the least favorite of your 5. I like the colors on the bottom and top, but I don't like how the middle is all dark and I can't distinguish between the tree in the foreground and the trees in the background.
2. What a great flower! I love the blurry daisies in the background.
3. I love how the little lizard seems to have so much attitude. Nice choice with him against the red. (Because I'm sure you had lots of choice as to where he was sitting.)
4. Awesome pic! I actually like the other ladybug picture a little better because he looks like he's looking out into the world and I can stick some emotions on him.
5. Great soft picture. I really enjoyed your series this week.
I love the choices you made of photos and the squirrel is adorable and quite photogenic! How much did you have to pay him to pose?
ReplyDeleteWell, I'd have to say my favorite of this bunch of entries is the ladybug pic (fourth pic) - the colors are amazing, great detail and it features a cute ladybug.
ReplyDeleteThe first one definitely seems very Texas to me - one day I will go back and visit.
The 2nd one is very lovely - great angle - like the flower is really standing tall above the rest of the smaller flowers.
The third one is interesting, though not as dramatic as the one before and after it - the two different textures of the lizard and the brick. Good coloring too.
The fifth one is very lovely and soft
As for the other pics, well done on the squirrel photo! SO CUTE!
Another few favorites of mine are the ladybug pic, rolly poly pic, and the berries.
Difficult choices to make for sure. Is that the same lizard I befriended while in TX last? They are all enjoyable pics - hard to choose a favorite.K4
ReplyDeleteWOW erin- these are all so beautiful!
ReplyDeletewhat setting do you use on your camera to get the hyper color? it also seems to get some interesting textures...
I can tell that you really enjoy the color green- the little chameleon is SO cute- i'm glad he sat on such a cool backdrop for you-
the ladybug one was also amazing- the reflections in it's shell are SO clear- and the texture of the leaf just creates such a visually interesting composition- just so cool!
mine are up, too..sorry for the late entry (yet again!)
Thanks Emily! I had so much fun this week. Yeah, I have this option in my manual settings to like "boost" I guess you would say certain colors. I can also change it to B&W or sepia or positive film.....all kinds of options like that. So sometimes I choose Green or Blue or Red or something..... ( I remember I used Red for the Red challenge a while back) but, there is also a vivid color option. This makes every color brighter and more saturated. So that is what I think it was set at for most of these this week. Yes, I do like green!!! guilty as charged.....I use the green option alot actually!!! lol It was a nice day too....partly sunny, but a lot of the time I was shooting was cloud covered and not overly sunny but still brightish. I think this helped the pictures not be washed out, but have nice color and some shadows. I took a lot of them on a Macro setting. This is probably how I achieved the cool texture in some of them. I also have an option to change what type of light source im shooting in. I guess this would be equivelent to white balance?....i think. But I can change it from like cloudy, sunny, flourecent, tungsten, and custom. So I mess around with that sometimes too, and I can achieve totally different looks with it.
ReplyDeleteThe little lizard/gecco/chameleon guy did not like me at all. I was soooooo lucky to catch a shot of him. He was running away from me and I chased him down on the wall of my house and got him against the brick. I had to get really close to him too and he was not diggin that! Pure luck that shot.....he was a fast one! You can also see on his nose that he started to change to the brick color right away too.
The lady bug one I took on macro.....so that is how i got his shell so clear i think......but she was just super glossy....she was pretty. I almost passed her up though.....I stopped at that plant for another bug that was all over it. That other bugs however were much less interesting, and then once I was looking in the plant I saw the lone lady bug. It wasn't one of those orangy beetle things either. Was a true red ladybug I think. So I was lucky to shoot her. That is one of my favorites as well. Also, I hate those little lizards.......but they are absolutely EVERYWHERE down here. They get in the house a lot too.....which I despise. But I have to agree that that shot is one of my favorites from this week. There is so much that I like about it!
Thanks for the comments. Look forward to seeing yours!
WOW! Austin is beautiful this time of year! For some reason, I really like the muddy tire track. It has a great sense of motion and it makes my imagination take off!
ReplyDeleteI also LOVED the last one with the sun's rays bursting through the clouds...
Your bug pictures are great as well! That could be a whole series in and of itself! (Do you have the "love bug" season in Austin as we do down here in Houston?)
Awesome!! 2 and 4 are my favorites. The vivid colors and how the main subjects really stand out are appealing to me. I also like the lizard--how it's in line with the bricks, but the photo is taken at an angle.
ReplyDeleteOkay, here I am to post a week after the fact!
ReplyDelete#2 is absolutely my favorite! I really love the composition and movement in this photo...as well as the bright and lively colours.
I know everyone else liked your lizard photo, but I thought some of your other photos were more interesting...I just read that last sentence back to myself and realized I probably feel that way only because I grew up with lizards running all over our house! Just like you said you experience in Texas.
Your last photos of the colours are lovely! I have a thing for cloud photos! I think just about every one of your photos this week were stunning! Nature is truly your "thing" Erin. Have you ever considered working for a company that sells stock photography? It would be an easy way for you to make a little money doing something you love!