Will be food eventually…

     My real goal with these shots was to make a nice fall/autumn PUMPKIN wallpaper for my MacBook. I’m not really sure I hit the nail on the head. I mean, these photos are nice, but nothing special. The pumpkins don’t scream EAT ME! nor do they give me warm fuzzies about this lovely fall season. I like fall, there’s just something about it that makes me warm. Perhaps it’s the pulling out of warm blankets and sweatshirts for the first time since summer that gives me the warmth impression. Plus the colors for this season are lovely.

     Of course there is no real, wonderfully colorful autumn where I live. We have some aspens up in the mountains that turn, but it’s rather quick and not anything stunning like some locations in the eastern US. I admit, I am jealous of those locations. Arizona as whole generally lacks color. I find this makes me horribly depressed – nothing is vibrant, or if it is, it’s so small and for such a short time that you’re likely to miss it. But at least I have some supermarkets that I can purchase cool things like turban squashes from. I love the metroid looking pumpkin! It makes me HAPPY! You know what else makes me happy? My brand-spankin-new, black, 32gb, iPhone 4s! I preordered it on the 7th and got it this weekend. We had a bit of a debacle, but we eventually got my phone an actual phone number and got it activated. And now I’m lovin’ it! I will have to take some photos with the camera and then post them, just to see how they hold up (though I know in general, my DSLR will win).

 

Down and Dirty

 

Shades of Gray

     Some photos just look better in black and white. I don’t know what it is about black and white that can make a photo stand out, look classic, and homey all at the same time. I love it. When I did photography in middle school I always particularly liked how the black and white photos looked, especially since we developed the film and photos ourselves. The amateur developing lent a very raw quality to the photos. Something I wonder is whether there is a way to make negatives from digital photos, or do you have to go full on old-school shooting for that?

 

Sunset/Lightning

     I took this photo while we were still in the house in Albuquerque; in fact, you can see the top edge of a P.O.D. in the bottom right corner of the photo. I love lightning storms – from the rain to the thunder, and most of all the quick flashes of light veining across the sky, down to ground. The evening of this storm we happened to have an amazing sunset. Point in fact, I didn’t alter this image at all. I stood out in our front yard/driveway taking shot after shot in quick bursts hoping to catch a nice branch of lightning. I also had my shutter speed set to slower, because the setting sun offered low light, especially with the level of diffusion thanks to the clouds. Naturally this offered a challenge to me since I was shooting without my tripod and in rapid succession. I caught some other photos of lightning beside this one, but they were distorted primarily by my unsteady hand.

     This photo came out the best by far, though I would definitely crop out the oh so lovely moving container. I also wish elements like the telephone lines weren’t there, but since the general focus of the image is the lightning, I don’t care as much. I would love to shoot lightning again, especially with another such sunset. But an evening lightning shoot would be another challenge I would like to tackle as well. Though for a night shoot I would definitely employ my tripod.

 

I swear

…I meant to post yesterday, but I got distracted… by The Walking Dead! I had to catch up on the first couple of episodes of the new show. And by the time I did that, it was late, and I’d completely forgotten about photoblogging. For shame, I know, but blame the zombies, not me! So here you go:

     Just down the road from my campus in the UK was this amazing, and huge, park. I went there a few times with flatmates and once on my own. I lovely morning (but my evening) walk with my Pentax. Nice, peaceful. I found this lovely sort of pathway/clearing with a beautiful veinwork of roots. When I took the photo it was with my MacBook’s desktop in mind. I wanted a nice, clean, simple kind of nature wall. As well as something warm, which I thought this did nicely. I used it for a bit, but not long. It was nice, but just didn’t suit my mood quite enough at the time. If I remember correctly I upped the color saturation a little bit, just to help bring out the warmth of the wood and ground more.