Marigolds and Guardhouse

Well, the actual guardhouse is a little further to the right of this scene. Maybe this is just a sewage lift station.

Firecrackers

At least that's what I think they are.

St. John's River

This photo is taken looking south in the headwaters area/watershed of the St. John's River. This is out east of the Orlando area, the river runs north, exiting into the Atlantic Ocean at Jacksonville, Florida. It differs only slightly from the one I posted earlier taken at the same spot, I just wanted to see if viewers liked it better as a horizontal rendition.

Campground, Martha's Vineyard

Dianthus

Or maybe it's another flower entirely.

Numerology

This number has incredible significance.

Why else would this quote from Finley Peter Dunne appear on page 116 of The Great Thoughts by George Seldes: "A man can be right an' president, but he can't be both at th' same time"?

Or this from p. 116 of the Encarta Book of Quotations: "I stopped believing in Santa Claus at an early age, Mother took me to see him in a department store and he asked me for my autograph." (Shirley Temple)

Birthday flowers

HA! I finally have something to take a picture of! we don't have much to look at around here in the winter but I got this bouquet of flowers from my sister for my birthday.

Quick photo session

When I don't go anywhere with the camera for the day, I have to look for subjects close to home. This usually ends up being flowers, because they are pretty, easy to photograph, and out in my yard. So today I thought I would show people thinking "maybe I can do this photo a day thing, maybe I can't, I don't know" just how simple it is. I took all these photos in 9 minutes. Click for a bigger pic.

So this was just a quick take some pics to get it done today shoot, and there's probably photos there that I could use for a few days. It depends on what rules you have set for yourself with this photo a day.

I tend to put aside extras for days when I don't get a chance to take pics. Sometimes it happens, you know? Life happens. For me it's about using the camera, trying shots in another way, using a manual setting instead of automatic to experiment with what I get, stuff like that.

I have some photography aims for next year.

- I'd like to take some photos of cows. How one does this, I am not sure. I don't know how I feel about just walking up to Farmer Bob's field and snapping like a paparrazi. I might have to go to a sale day at the cow yard, or a show day, something like that.

- I would like to find the perfect cow face. It's got to be the image I have in my mind. I then want to photoshop that cow into other pics.

- I'd like to take a photo of a road at night time, with a moon rising above it, and then shop a cow into the middle of the road. But this might be tricky with lighting. It'd be good without the cow anyway

- more night photography

- time lapse images

- the moon and waves shot. I want to make my own version. I know this is two pics shopped together, it is actually not possible to take this photograph, but I think I can make something similar which I'm happy with.

Want to give it a try..

but think you may not be able to manage a photo a day?

Try a photo a week here.

1112

1112, originally uploaded by sn0skred.

11th December 2006 - The sand looks golden but from the previous pics you can see it is very multicoloured. It is pristine and quite unspoilt, if you go at the right time of day.

People are not supposed to let their dogs off the leash here. They do, of course. This is a bird nesting area, and also a place where migratory birds visit, even all the way from Siberia. The dogs often disturb the nests, and the birds who are resting after such a long trip. I want the job of fining the dog owners. I won't even ask for pay.

1012

1012, originally uploaded by sn0skred.

10th December 2006 - The Other Half thought I was nuts when I got on my knees in wet sand to take this photo. I could see the colors in the mother of pearl and I wanted to get the shot. I got wet knees but they dried fairly quickly, this photo will last forever..

Sometimes as a photographer you just need to get the shot, and you know it.. Though if I could, I'd go back and take this shell to the water, wet it and wash the sand off, and try it again, it would have been a little more colorful. Maybe another day

0912

0912, originally uploaded by sn0skred.

9th December 2006 - How can you tell if a jellyfish stings? There's always plenty of these gorgeous colored jellyfish washed up on the beaches around here and it makes me cautious about swimming. It's not only sharks that can hurt you. It's so pretty, though.

0812

0812, originally uploaded by sn0skred.

8th December 2006 - This shell was so pretty, I wanted to pick it up and take it home, but we don't do that, else I would have a house full of shells and there would be none left on the beach.

0712

0712, originally uploaded by sn0skred.

7th December 2006 - Rained on sand, Seven Mile Beach NSW. There are not very many shells washed up on this beach, it's quite rare to see them. What you do find is usually quite broken up. Take only photographs, leave only footprints.

0612

0612, originally uploaded by sn0skred.

6th December 2006 - The sand on the famous Seven Mile Beach, Shoalhaven Heads, NSW Australia

0512

0512, originally uploaded by sn0skred.

5th December 2006 - Flooded with light, I like this one.

0412

0412, originally uploaded by sn0skred.

4th December 2006 - Narooma on the South Coast of NSW Australia

0312

0312, originally uploaded by sn0skred.

3rd December 2006

0212

0212, originally uploaded by sn0skred.

2nd December 2006 - Road Trip to Tura Beach

Bougainvillea

Part of Florida's (imported) natural beauty.

Two Cypresses at Lake Monroe

Lake Monroe is a wide spot in the St. Johns River at Sanford. This river flows north.

Lily Pads and Dark Water

This was just off the Wekiva River, close to where I live. This river flows north.

Marigolds

Just part of the community landscaping.

The best things in life

My daughters favorite thing in the whole world is the tag on her blankie. Simple Pleasures.

1st December

pod_120106, originally uploaded by sephiroth.blog.

I'm somewhat cheating with the idea of a photo a day, because this is actually a composition of three separate photos of differing exposure times - 30, 10, and 2 seconds.

White Picket Fence

The great American dream. Sanford, Florida.

Little Flowers

I'm not much of a horticulturalist, am I?

Headwaters of the St. Johns

Out in the vast wetlands between Sanford and I-95. This river flows north to Jacksonville and the deep blue sea.

0112

0112, originally uploaded by sn0skred.

I saw this new flower today, I haven't seen one this color before. This is inspiring me to plant more flowers.. ;)

3011

3011, originally uploaded by sn0skred.

The last day of November.

2911

2911, originally uploaded by sn0skred.

If one had to put a caption on this photo, it would be something like - Hey, get that camera out of my face, I'm sick of you taking my photo! I'm no celebrity!

291106

291106, originally uploaded by sephiroth.blog.

What it looks like at 4:55 PM in late November in my part of the world; this is a 4/5ths second exposure, at F2.8 and ISO400; taken with no support other than my hands. :)

2811

2811, originally uploaded by sn0skred.

28th November 2006

1st Photo Here

This is pretty much natural color (maybe I increased saturation slightly), down at a local marina on the St. Johns. I'm a bold color sort of guy (sometimes). Thanks for the invite to post.

2711

2711, originally uploaded by sn0skred.

27th November 2006

I enhanced this photo with PhotoImpact's enhance option, which made more of the green in the water appear.

2611

2611, originally uploaded by sn0skred.

26th November 2006

We went to the beach and these gulls were just hovering above our heads, a huge flock of them. They didn't have to fly, the wind was doing everything for them.

2511

2511, originally uploaded by sn0skred.

25th November 2006

This is my cat Snee, she climbed in under the runner cloths my other half bought in Thailand. Check out the eye reflection!

2411

2411, originally uploaded by sn0skred.

24th November 2006

My cat Gir was lying in such a cute pose. I hoped she would still be there when I got back with the camera. Alas no but this pose is fairly nice anyway! ;)

Wanted to share this one, its one of my favorites

These are my girls at Easter, I played with the pic in Photoshop. I posted all 3 versions on my blog page if you want to see.
Cheri

2311

2311, originally uploaded by sn0skred.

23rd November 2006

One of the flowers you see here was not originally in this photo - I edited it in afterwards. It's the little one in the bottom right corner. I did this with PhotoImpact's clone airbrush function. I learnt how to use this during a scambait, where I progressively edited the scammer out of the photograph he sent me, I told him I had put a curse on him and once he vanished out of the picture completely, something really terrible would happen to him. So every day for 7 days I sent him a picture with less and less of him in the photo, and on the 7th day there was none of him left. I got the idea from Back To The Future. :)

2211werri

2211werri, originally uploaded by sn0skred.

22th November 2006

Werri Beach - South Coast NSW

2111

2111, originally uploaded by sn0skred.

21th November 2006

2011

2011, originally uploaded by sn0skred.

20th November 2006

1911

1911, originally uploaded by sn0skred.

19th November 2006

1811

1811, originally uploaded by sn0skred.

18th November 2006

This is another time I used the enhance feature because the original was really dark, and it makes this shot look a bit arty but what I really wanted to get was the slight green around the irises of my cat Gir's eyes. You can't use a flash on a cat's eyes without getting that strange eye effect, sort of like red eye on humans. Note the reflection in her eyes too. I like shots where you get a really good eye reflection, it's an effect I try with most animals I take pictures of since I saw it done by another photographer a while back.

1711

1711, originally uploaded by sn0skred.

17th November 2006

This photo was enhanced using Photo Impact. You can get free photo editing software called GIMP which may do similar things for you. The original photo was quite dark because I did not want to use the flash. Enhancing this shot makes a huge difference to it. Sometimes you may have a photo you think is bad, but if you use the auto enhance it can turn out to be stunning.

1611

1611, originally uploaded by sn0skred.

16th November 2006

1511

1511, originally uploaded by sn0skred.

15th November 2006 - different coloured star effects. If you have an SLR you can do this too - just use the smallest aperture you have available. This will mean a slightly longer exposure and sometimes you may need a tripod to get the best effect. With this one I used the flash and this is a photo of sequins. They are actually not black, they are coloured.

1411

1411, originally uploaded by sn0skred.

14th November 2006

How do we do it?

People have asked how they should be blogging this - once a day, every few days, once a week maybe, or should they wait till the 1st of January or start now? I guess the answer is, whatever makes it easier for you, and you can start whenever you like. :) There's no rules, and though the vague concept is to take one photo a day and post that, we can all interpret that in the easiest way for us - some days you might not feel like uploading the pics, and instead of letting that stop you or make you throw in the towel, upload them when you like. If you missed a day of taking photos, make it up another day. The only important thing is, don't give up, keep trying.

I'm going to start getting into practice for this. It's probably easier if we're all doing it on our own blogs, but who cares about easy.. I've already got something like 4 blogs and I can't see me making another one, so my pics will end up here.. ;) But another way to categorise them is to put them on flickr with tags, and then you can make a slideshow of the 365 pics.

As far as this blog, anyone I'm linking to has been invited as a contributor, so you can post photos or thoughts here every so often, if you like. You're welcome here. ;)

So let's have some photo fun! ;) And welcome to our two newest contributors, when they accept their invitations, vamom7678 and Cheri ;) They each have their own blogs by clicking on their names in this post, or usually you can find links to them in the sidebar. We also have Me, who I have welcomed previously but twice is nice as well.

Thanks for joining in. It's not long till the 1st of January now, but feel free to get into the swing anytime you feel like it! ;)

13/11

pool2, originally uploaded by sn0skred.

I tried a few tricky pool shots ;)

A New Path

A New Path, originally uploaded by sephiroth.blog.

Just a test to see how it works with my settings: 500px with center tags around the photo and pre-installed caption. ;)