Year in Review-Photography

Moon over the Grand Canyon

Photography is one of my favorite things to do.  It's always looking for that right angle or interesting feature.

Christmas lights create an abstract blur that I call, "Holiday Rush"

And it is challenging in many different ways....night shots, moon shots, lightning shots, fire shots, abstract shots, blurred water shots, shooting into the sun(careful) and oh so much more.

Lighting is some of the most challenging.  500 shots later and I finally get the one I  want. There are tricks to this and I don't like being outside while it's all going on.  

Some bloggers love to write and others love photography.  I am the latter of the two.  

Fire.  I love the various shades of this fire cloud  as it is blown into the air at the Arizona Renaissance Festival. 

I love being out in the field.  Sometimes I get stuck doing things I don't always enjoy.  But I always bring my camera and it keeps me occupied. It forces me to find the interesting:)

This particular image captured a scary feeling I had as a child at my Grandparent's house while reading about dinosaurs

The zoo, for example, was one of those places I didn't really want to visit.  So I took how I felt(haunted/sad) and transferred that feeling into the photography.  Then I manipulated the above image to create that look.

I love the colors of the orange and blues.  Taken at the Pima Country Faire

One of my favorite things to shoot are fire dances.  It has a  magical quality to it all.

These fire dancers look to be spirits as they whirl fire in different directions. 

And no matter how hard I try to resist, the moon is always fascinating to me.  While on a bird outing, I spied this plane passing by this large spacial object.

Then there was the sun and moon eclipsing.  Dragonflies, in a wonderful spiritual moment, perched on the branches perfectly as the moon blocked some of the sun and reflected off of their wings.

Night shots can frustrate people but when they turn out, it's really quite something special.....like the fireworks below.

I love this shot below. It was taken at the House on the Rock.  It was drenched in red.  With some selective toning, we were able to distinguish the various shades of red.

Capturing flowers on camera isn't as easy as it looks.  But sometimes.......they turn out magical.  Rosemary really captures the images wonderfully.  Somehow you've got to imprint the human feeling onto the flower to make the pic POP!  Sometimes a flower will inspire me to do those things.  Other times, I just look at the flower and say to myself, "Ooo, that's pretty!".  And take the pic without thinking.  That's where I have my challenges:)

And another feature I worked with on photography was the process of aging a shot to capture that feeling of childhood.  These were some of my favorites this year.  Hope you enjoyed.