Janet Brien's photos with the keyword: practice

4 more pictures in notes above! :) Wow, yesterday's bike ride totally wrecked me! I've been tired all day, and so has Steve--we really should have gone on a shorter ride--and I'm very run-down and battling cold germs that are threatening to make me sick. Airborne is really helping, but I'll be sure not to stay up too late tonight... I hate getting sick! That being said, I decided not to go on my long walks today and instead took the dogs to the lower forest where I uncovered another one of the mushrooms I found the other day. (They are hiding in the tall dead grass and weeds and you can only just barely see the caps!) Since the aperture merging trick I used worked so well with the other mushroom, I used it today as well. This is also a Parasol mushroom, but as you can see, it's very different looking, so I thought it would be ok to share. I am crazy about the exposed gills, aren't they fabulous?! I always like to show them because they're so interesting, but it's not always possible to get a proper angle for this. However, this mushroom's gills are very exposed and I just HAD to take pictures!! Sanford I. "Sandy" Weill (born March 16, 1933) is an American banker, financier and philanthropist. He is a former chief executive and chairman of Citigroup. He served in those positions from 1998 until October 1, 2003, and April 18, 2006, respectively. Wikipedia: Sanford I. Weill Explored on October 22, 2013. Highest placement, page 3.

2 more pictures in notes above! :) About a week ago, I discovered some special mushrooms growing down by the road where I saw them last year. Because I know that these ones live for weeks, I didn't rush to take pictures, and instead waited for the right time. Well, today was the day! Steve had the camera on a photo shoot until this afternoon, which meant the sun was in the perfect placement for these mushrooms. In the morning the area is in deep shadow and only when the sun begins to dip towards the horizon does the light look just right for this area of the property. I took Moosie and Zoe with me and as I approached the spot, I noticed that there were other mushrooms too! Taking one look at the large, gorgeous mushrooms, I immediately plopped down and groomed the area for taking pictures while Moosie and Zoe had fun nosing around and exploring nearby. When I got home, I was very happy to find that there were many nice images to choose between, but in the end, I ended up merging two pictures: one with an aperture of 2.8 for a soft background, and one with an aperture of 16 for deep focus on this mushroom, which was about 6" tall! I used a Topaz filter called ReMask to get a clean mask around the mushroom and then placed it into the image with the 2.8 aperture. A bit of massaging to remove bits of the original mushroom, a bit more massaging to work the crisp mushroom into place, and voila! Picture of the Day! :) (If you are interested, Topaz Labs has a 30 day free trial for all of their products, including ReMask: www.topazlabs.com/downloads Rachel Louise Carson (May 27, 1907 – April 14, 1964) was an American marine biologist and conservationist whose book Silent Spring and other writings are credited with advancing the global environmental movement. Wikipedia: Rachel Carson Explored on October 20, 2013. Highest placement, page 4.

3 more pictures in notes above! :) A few days ago I shared pictures of Ponderosa Pine tree bark. That day I was attracted to the area because I saw pine cones on the ground, and took lots of pictures of them. However, when I saw the pictures on the computer, I realized I made many mistakes, so I studied them with interest to understand what I did wrong. A few days ago, I took more pictures and because I was rushing, I wasn't thinking about the mistakes I made. So, though I did manage to get some nice pictures, I made some of the same mistakes again! :D They say that three time's a charm, so today I took many more pictures. This time I was really paying attention and thinking about what I needed to do differently. I got home and after deleting the garbage pictures, I ended up with lots of presentable keepers! HUZZAH!!! HIP HIP HOORAY! Oh brother! :D This picture corrects my errors of dof that was too shallow or too deep and also ISO too low with blurry results. I have added some texture to the background to bring out the pine cone as well. (You can see my other images as insets above or by viewing the next three pictures!) Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German writer and politician. His body of work includes epic and lyric poetry written in a variety of metres and styles; prose and verse dramas; memoirs; an autobiography; literary and aesthetic criticism; treatises on botany, anatomy, and colour; and four novels. In addition, numerous literary and scientific fragments, and more than 10,000 letters written by him are extant, as are nearly 3,000 drawings. Wikipedia: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Explored on October 18, 2013. Highest placement, page 3.

Just take a look at these PRICKLES! Handle these cones carefully or you will come away bleeding! One close look at any pine cone and you will be amazed at their individual beauty. I wanted to share images of these awesome Ponderosa pine cone scales so you can see how awesome and armored they are. Almost like turtle shells with a spike on top! :) (If you would like more information about different pine cones, and to see other pictures, Wiki has a great page here! Wikipedia: Pine Cone If you've done any macro photography, you've learned that the depth of field is a very touchy thing with these specialized lenses. If you get very close to a subject, your dof must be high enough to get the entire area of interest in focus but no higher, because you want the area beyond to fall into blur. I kept using an aperture that was too low for this close-up to include the caps of the scales to be completely in focus. Maddening! I kept getting "near misses" or a touch of blur to ruin the image. But finally, here I've gotten the focus of the scale cap with nice bokeh beyond. Hooray!! :)

This pine cone had a cluster of scales that I wanted to isolate, and I really loved this cone so I worked hard at getting the angle just right for proper focus. I was very happy to find that this image turned out nicely!

Backing off a bit from the previous picture, I was able to isolate these scales so that only they were in focus while everything else fell away into blur. This was tricky to get just right!! Nothing like a good challenge though, and here you go! :)