New Baby

Exposure: Manual
Aperture: 3.6
Shutter Speed: 1/320
ISO: 64

Our new little Guernsey heifer, Jane. Born last Monday!

The Spider & the Fence Post

Exposure: Manual
Aperture: 4.5
Shutter speed: 1/640
ISO: 64

Not sure what kind of spider this is, but I like the reddish stripe on its side.

Robin Egg Blue

Exposure: Manual
Aperture: 3.2
Shutter Speed: 1/40
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 13.2mm

I was walking past this tree when the robin hen exploded out of the nest just above my head and caused me to jump a little. I certainly wasn't expecting it. The robin sat on a nearby limb and cussed me out while admired the nest and snapped pictures.

Lurking

Exposure: Manual
Aperture: 4.0
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 64
Focal Length: 272mm

No doubt thinking they can hide from me....

Seeing Double!

Exposure: Manual
Aperture: 4.0
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 64
Focal Length: 55mm

Walking past the mud puddle in front of the barn, out of the corner of my eye I saw the water ripple and I looked to see if maybe I'd scared a frog out of the grass but I didn't see anything. I took another step and then I finally saw the frog, he'd been hiding in the blades of grass of one of the clumps along the edge. I took a bunch of pictures then moved a few steps because he was starting to swim off when I flushed another one out of the grass!

Through the Window

Exposure: Manual
Aperture: 4.8
Shutter Speed: 1/100
ISO: 64
Focal Length: 432mm

Saw this young Flicker out of the living room window the other night. Took some adjusting, but I got some decent pictures...

A Good Luck Charm

Exposure: Manual
Aperture: 4.0
Shutter Speed: 1/200
ISO: 64
Focal Length: 330mm

Four leaf clovers are supposed to be good luck. Supposedly the odd numbered ones are bad luck... Mom found a huge clump of four and five-leaf clovers out in front of the shop, where we walk all the time. One time, we found a clump that had a one with seven leaves!

Summer Sunset

Exposure: Manual
Aperture: 4.5
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 64
Focal Length: 48

Another one of my favorite silhouette pictures. Sunset, grass and vetch.

Cloudy Moon

Exposure: Manual
Aperture: 4.8
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 64
Focal Length: 432mm

I like how you can still see the pink in the clouds from the sunset, that the moon isn't under exposed. It was hard to get them both in the right balance so the moon looked nice, but then you could also see the clouds instead of just black sky.

The Fence & the Tree

Exposure: Manual
Aperture: 3.6
Shutter Speed: 1/200
ISO: 64
Focal Length: 148mm

Trees leaning on the fence make a good photo from a photographer's point of view, but not such a good fence from a farmer's perspective.

Our young black cherry blooming. This one I did take in sepia. I like to shoot in sepia and black & white sometimes, though it drives my Mom crazy.

Having Breakfast

Exposure: Manual
Aperture: 4.8
Shutter Speed: 1/200
ISO: 64
Focal Length: 432mm

Two of our resident hummingbirds drinking at their feeder, I think these two are both males though I can't quite tell because the throat of the one not drinking looks green, but that could just be the light. One of the males, he's a real show off and a daredevil. He likes to dive bomb you when you're sitting on the porch or at the picnic table and then when he's really showing off, he'll fly backwards.

A flock of Starlings perching in the big cherry tree in the yard. This photo makes me laugh every time I see it because if you look at the center of the picture towards the bottom, you can see one of the birds right in mid hop.

Drawings From Photos

This was another portfolio assignment for my digital photography class. I didn't submit this one, but just made it for fun. Just Keith, his guitar and the stool he's sitting on is drawn, the rest I let bleed through from the original photo. Talk about painstaking! All in all, I think it took me about ten hours to finish this.

Pileated Woodpecker

Exposure: Manual
Aperture: 4.5
Shutter Speed: 1/125
ISO: 64
Focal Length: 57.7mm

Another lucky/hard shot, the Pileated Woodpeckers are so wary that it is hard to get a decent picture. I like how the blue, green, and brown contrast and compliment the color of his feathers.

A Different Perspective

Looking out through the corral's chute to one of our fields. At a quick glance, it looks like the whole picture is at a slant, but looking closer, you notice that just the logs are slanted and the rest of the landscape is straight.

North, East, South and West

Exposure: Manual
Aperture: 2.8
Shutter Speed: 1/320
ISO: 64
Focal Length: 432mm

A half silhouette of our barn's weather vane. I like how the directions are off set by the light color of the contrail behind it.

Window Into the Soul, Or So They Say...

Exposure: Manual
Aperture: 4.8
Shutter Speed: 1/200
ISO: 64
Focal Length: 432mm

A closeup of our Guernsey milk cow, Della.

The Gorge - Vintage Style

When I was working on the Panoramic Image portfolio, I couldn't decide between taking it from the Vista House, or Chanticleer Point and having the Vista house included in the photo so I took some from each location with the intention of deciding later which one to use. I originally took this photo in color and then thought it would be really cool to put a sepia filter on it to make it look like the old photos of the Gorge. I think it turned out pretty great - I love the way it looks.

Ghostly Silhouettes

Exposure: Manual
Aperture: 7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/640
ISO: 64
Focal Length: 160mm

Mel, our cattle dog and our milk cow waiting in the pasture on another foggy February/March morning.

Reflection

Exposure: Manual
Aperture: 4.5
Shutter Speed: 1/320
ISO: 64
Focal Length: 43mm

Mel, our blue merle Aussie's left eye, a reflection of what he sees looking off the porch.

Frosty

Exposure: Manual
Aperture: 4.8
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 64
Focal Length: 432mm

This is one of my all time favorite pictures that I've taken so far. The way the light, the colors and the focus all comes together, I just love it.

bree-deep

Exposure: Manual
Aperture: 4.8
Shutter Speed: 1/320
ISO: 64
Focal Length: 432mm

Mom found this cute little guy in one of our compost piles when she was putting its cover back on. He looks like he's looking right in the camera, doesn't he?

Sunset

Exposure: Manual
Aperture: 2.8
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 64
Focal Length: 36mm

Sunset from the house field again. There's almost nothing prettier than a sunset on nearly-cloudless freezing cold winter day.

Sunrise

Exposure: Manual
Aperture: 3.2
Shutter Speed: 1/60
ISO: 64
Focal Length: 43mm

Sunrise off our porch. I really love how the colors come together in this one.

Threads

Exposure: Manual
Aperture: 3.6
Shutter Speed: 1/100
ISO: 64
Focal Length: 160mm

Found this lovely spider web on the handrail one morning. I had a heck of a time trying to get the camera to focus on it because there was just the slightest of breezes blowing. It's amazing how much of a breeze they can catch when everything else is hardly stirring.

Don't Think I Can't See You Up There

Exposure: Manual
Aperture: 4.8
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 64
Focal Length: 432mm

Steller's Jays are generally flighty birds - if you move a hair, they fly a safe distance away and then sit in the tree and cuss at you. Though we've found they have a weakness for chestnuts and can be baited onto the picnic table and I can snap pictures while they grab their prize.

Soaring

Exposure: Manual
Aperture: 4.8
Shutter Speed: 1/640
ISO: 64
Focal Length: 432mm

One of our Redtails circling overhead.

Buzz!!

Another bee picture. The original photo wasn't quite as vivid, so I raised the saturation just a tad to make the bee stand out a little more. I think it worked...

Filtered

Exposure: Manual
Aperture: 4.5
Shutter Speed: 1/800
ISO: 64
Focal Length: 49mm

During the winter, when the conditions are right - just enough low-hanging fog when the sun comes up behind that stand of trees, we get this beautiful filtered sunlight. It's always so pretty.

Pollinating

Exposure: Manual
Aperture: f4.8
Shutter Speed: 1/640
ISO: 64
Focal Lenght: 432mm

One of the many bees at work in a Transparent apple tree during the last stretch of dry weather. There were so many bees in the tree that it was humming!

The Old and the New

Okay, yeah, this picture isn't really demonstrating my photography skills, but I love this picture because it's kind of like 1913's equivalent of today's point-and-shoot cameras. Plus, my camera's a Kodak, too!

Midnight

Cue the Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl music. I love this photo because it's so mysterious and sort of something you would see on a creepy Halloween night.

Waiting.

More dogs. Mom and I took the dogs on a fence checking trip and we were getting too close to an area that is right next to the road with nonexistent fence, so we tied them up while we checked out the area. They were happy as could be to wait for us in the shade.

Not Photoshop...

I repeat, this is not photoshop! This is probably my all-time favorite Redtail Hawk photo I've taken so far.

Spring!

This was kind of an accidental picture. I was trying to get a picture of the whole daffodil bloom but the wind was blowing hard enough that it kept causing the flower to wave around. Due to the shutter delay, the camera only caught part of it. I think it turned out pretty cool. Sometimes the accidental ones are like that.

Sunset Panorama

I love the different colors of this one - the dark blue-black, pink, and pale yellow. Taken from the house pasture, looking southwest.

Make a wish...

You Can't Catch Me!

Our Australian Shepherds Mel and Trace playing. I actually ended up taking this one using a tripod because I was going up in the field to practice panoramic taking panoramic shots. The always willing dogs followed me eagerly at the prospect of hunting and playing.

Man in the Moon

I love taking photos of the moon - it's almost an obsession! Almost anytime it's clear enough to see it, especially in the summer and even though I already have probably hundreds already, it's a sure bet that I'll grab the camera and go take more.

Pot O' Gold?

The remaining hint of a rainbow. I almost missed it because the camera was in the house, but luckily it was still barely there. Seen several in this last month, due to all the almost nonstop rain!

Filtered Faces

One of the assignments for the class. It was really fun to experiment with different filters and see how they turned out!