Phoneography and Non-SLR Digital Devices Photo Challenge: Black and white…Morning fog on Cape May

One morning during our stay at Cape May, New Jersey, the fog was quite thick and enticing, so I hurried out for a walk with iPad in hand.  It felt as though I were walking with shoes wrapped in cotton; the air was quiet, close, and damp.  The photo opportunities were numerous and beautiful, but most enjoyable of all was the feeling of being completely alone in the quiet. The original photo was almost naturally black and white and after I made it monotone, I tried two different, simple edits.  Which one appeals to you?

This week is the launch of a new title for this photo challenge: “Sally D’s Mobile Photography Challenge.”  The challenge is for any photos taken with non-traditional cameras and this week’s theme (theme’s repeat monthly) is “Black and White.”  If you enjoy mobile photography, consider joining us every Monday.

Phoneography and the Non-SLR Digital Devices Photo Challenge: Macro…pollen

If you take photos with a non-traditional camera,please consider joining Sally’s weekly challenge (begins each Monday).  There’s a theme for each week and lots of talented photographers take part.  Sally also shares thought, tips, and links to work done by other photographers.  It’s lots of fun.  And today, since it’s the second Monday of the month, the theme is “Macro.” I was playing with the Olloclip, a much-appreciated Christmas gift that allows eve closer macro shots with my iPhone 5s, and getting up close and personal with some flowers. I have to admit I was thrilled with the results!  Here’s one of them.  And don’t forget to stop by and take part.

Phoneography and Non-SLR Digital Devices Photo Challenge: Reflections on water

“Nature” is the theme for every first Monday in the Phoneography Challenge. I’ve been getting out into nature at every possible chance now that the weather is good. Friday, I took to the side trails in the park, to explore the places I’m always glancing at while exercise walking. I ended up by the river and found these lovely reflections, symbolic of the reflections going on in my mind while walking, relaxing, and renewing. Do you have a preference?

Photography and Non-SLR Digital Photo Challenge: Black and White…natural vs. manmade

“Nothing is black and white.” Often that’s the case. Other times, things or choices are black and white, or should be. We see very little in the world in literal black and white, so when we see photos that way, it forces us to look at the details, the patterns, the shapes, the elemental thing, with no distraction of color.  Perhaps that’s something we should do more often in life: get rid of the distractions and trappings, attempt to see people and situations for what they really are.

On a lighter note, I offer two contrasting black and white photos for your perusal.  One is from nature, the other manmade. Each has its own beauty, its own place in the world, its own use.  Hopefully we can see those around us in this sort of black and white, to their advantage and to ours

Phoneography and Non-SLR Digital Devices Photo Challenge: Macro…the spottin’ of the green

Calling all photographers who take photos with non-traditional cameras, such as phones or tablets!  Sally, at Lens and Pens by Sally, hosts a weekly challenge with rotating themes which go live on Monday.  You’ll meet some amazing photographers as well as excellent writers, share your photos, learn, and just have lots of fun.  The theme for the second Monday of the month is “Macro“, one of my favorites.

I’m happy to be back walking in the park, at least on those mornings I don’t have to leave for work early.  This morning was, as you can tell, we,t and I made the mistake of going off the path that, while not paved, is firm and beaten down.  Instead, I choose the grass path, but as the grass was short, I thought I would be fine.  In less than 25 yards, my shoes and socks were soaked, but I was so taken with being outside and with the bits of green that were showing that I didn’t mind.  I did, however, take my wet, muddy shoes off before and bag them in a plastic grocery bag before getting into my rather clean van.

Phoneography and Non-SLR Digital Devices Photo Challenge: Editing…abstract in the kitchen

On the rare fifth Monday, our challenge is to play with editing a photo that fits one of the Challenger’s Choice categories from week 5.  I had fun with another food photo, this time of a layer of oil suspended atop other wet ingredients, turning it into an abstract by the use of editing.  The Picasa 3 edits I used are listed under the edited photo.

original

soft focus, HDR-ish,crop, sharpen, vignette, tuning, boost

Phoneography and Non-SLR Digital Devices Photo Challenge: Challenger’s Choice…Color!

While waiting for my husband in the theater lobby recently, I snapped a few shots of the carpeting, ginned this one up with a bit of editing, and offer it for Challenger’s Choice.  Quite simply, I love the colors and the shapes and I hope you do, too.

Have a week filled with photos and, hopefully, good weather.

Phoneography and Non-DSL Digital Devices Photo Challenge: Black and White…moon and clouds

The Phoneography theme this week is “Black and White.”  I always enjoy finding natural shots for this challenge.  This is my entry for this third week of March, a month when spring has apparently deigned to not only visit but to stay.  I’m loving every minute of it!  This shot, however, may evoke winter once again.  Or perhaps your mind will imagine a warm, still night with only the noise of insects and perhaps some frogs if you’re near a pond.

Phoneography and Non-SLR Digital Devices Photo Challenge: Nature…winter splendor

I know, I know, I should save this for the third week when we do black and white photos, but I just can’t.  This naturally B&W photo is full of the beauty and splendor of winter and I have to share it right now.  If you live somewhere warm, you can enjoy it from the warmth of your home and don’t have to go out into the cold.  If you’re living in winter now, you know what I’m taking about.  However, in the interest of truth, I’m looking forward to spring.  In the meantime, I’m enjoying winter as much as possible.  Sally, thanks for much for hosting the challenge every Monday.  You rock.

Phoneography and Non-SLR Digital Devices Photo Challenge: Black and white…airport au natural

I hope you didn’t expect from my title to see a shot of a nudist airport. 🙂  The “au natural” refers to an unedited (except for copyright) photo shot at the Phoenix airport while waiting for our Southwest flight back to the land of winter.  Even while tired and still sick, I was captivated by the shapes, shadows, and reflections in a black and white segment of a world that normally appears in color and had to grab the shot while I could.

“I suppose there has been nothing like the airports since the age of the stage-stops – nothing quite as lonely, as sombre-silent. The red-brick depots were built right into the towns they marked – people didn’t get off at those isolated stations unless they lived there. But airports lead you way back in history like oases, like the stops on the great trade routes. The sight of air travellers strolling in ones and twos into midnight airports will draw a small crowd any night up or two. The young people look at the planes, the older ones look at the passengers with a watchful incredulity.”
~F. Scott Fitzgerald

“It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on Earth has ever produced the expression “as pretty as an airport”. Airports are ugly. Some are very ugly. Some attain a degree of ugliness that can only be the result of a special effort. This ugliness arises because airports are full of people who are tired, cross, and have just discovered that their luggage has landed in Murmansk (…) and the architects have on the whole tried to reflect this in their designs.
They have sought to highlight the tiredness and crossness motif with brutal shapes and nerve jangling colours, to make effortless the business of separating the traveller from his or her luggage or loved ones, to confuse the traveller with arrows that appear to point at the windows, distant tie racks, or the current position of the Ursa Minor in the night sky, and wherever possible to expose the plumbing on the grounds that it is functional, and conceal the location of the departure gates, presumably on the grounds that they are not”.”
~Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

And your feelings about airports and flying?