Janet Brien's photos with the keyword: dried

I think leaves are wonderful photography subjects and have always thought it was a shame that most people don't pay any attention to them. To these people, a leaf is a leaf, who cares, so what? But photographers--and especially those of us who have stopped to take a close look--have discovered that leaves can be endlessly fascinating. Instead of being blind to leaves, I am always on the lookout for another star to capture. They are everywhere, and with a keen eye, it's not hard to spot the special ones that deserve some attention. This wonderful leaf curled its edges as it dried, and it hangs on its meandering stem. The gaps in the forest behind provided some nice bokeh to enhance the background, and finally, it's always fun to find a composition that fits neatly into a square format! Explored on April 9, 2016.

I found this pea pod glowing warmly, the sun shining through and illuminating the seeds inside. The texture and tones are amazing to me--it's very hard to see this unless the sun is shining through the pod! I was very happy with the bokeh too! That's another thing about macro photography that you may not know: unless you take the time to study every picture just after you take it, the bokeh is largely an unknown. After literally over 100,000 pictures, I'm finally getting an small idea of what I might expect, but it takes forever to translate crisp surroundings into bokeh in your mind. Two years in and I'm finally beginning to learn this "language." I think the myriad facets of macro photography are endlessly fascinating and I love that there will always be a neverending world of education waiting for me!

1 picture above in a note! :) You see these two interesting looking things? They are both halves of a single pea pod after it's split open and released its seeds! For a better understanding, roll your mouse over this picture to see the previous picture I posted. That is a dried pea pod just about to burst open and spray its seeds everywhere! After the seed are released, the edges of each half will naturally begin to curl into this interesting shape! Isn't that cool?!! The background of this image was desaturated a bit so that the pea pod would stand out better. One of the problems of taking picture in a meadow of dried grass and weeds is that the subjects tend to have the same tonal range. By selecting the focal object and placing on its own layer in Photoshop, the background can then be manipulated separately. Having the subject on its own layer also allows me to apply sharpening filters or whatever I like to enhance the object in subtle ways, further separating it from the background.

How's THIS for cool?! When wild pea vine tendrils dry up, they are very tiny and hard to see, but once I found a one, I was able to locate more all over the place! This pair of tied up strands was a wonderful find, full of curling goodness! :D Because the tendrils are blond and the background was light beige, I changed the background color to a tinted monochrome and then added some vignetting to add depth. I then gave it a sandstone texture to give it a more tactile quality.

In the morning light the sun's rays captured the sparkle of resin droplets and with a shallow focus, turned them into dazzling bokeh! In the background, I added a bit of sandstone texture from Photoshop's Texturizer filter, and a light bokeh texture from Texturetime .