Just a note

Note the heart shape

Hi Sweet Friend! I hope you are faring well in this heat. It won't be long before we will all be complaining about the cold. Ha!

Just wanted to post something real quick to say hello. The Japanese Eggplant is from the Dekalb Farmers' Market that my friend Tammy from Simple Southern Happiness 

took me too. Although I don't eat any eggplant because I don't like the seeds, I thought these were cute little beauties and took them home. After photographing them, I gave them to my next door neighbor to cook.

Taken at Tammy's House

After shopping we went back to Tammy's, unloaded groceries and then set up for some macro lessons. From Tammy, that is. She is so knowledgeable about macro. She was kind enough to show me her setup with lights and what settings she uses on her camera.

Here is another macro that I did at my house:

All of the frames that I used are courtesy of Another Rich Collectible

That's all folks!

Stay cool, my friend! And may the peace, joy and happiness of the Lord, Jesus, be with you today and always!

Friends and Selective Focus

Have you ever had a song go through your head. over and over again? Well this one has been in my head for about 3 days straight. Weird, isn't it? But it is a sweet one. It is the theme song for "Golden Girls".

"Thank you for being a friend
Traveled down the road and back again
Your heart is true your a pal and a confidant.

And if you through a party
Invited everyone you ever knew
You would see the biggest gift would be from me
And the card attached would say thank you for being a friend."

 I have been working on my selective focus after a tutorial from my friend, Betty John. You can find her here:

She also led me to Amanda Padgett's site; Everyday Elements. She has an excellent tutorial on Focus. She really explains everything so clearly. She doesn't leave out details, as I am wont to do. :o)




So, armed with new knowledge, I took some photos right in my yard, to practice.One thing I learned is that in order to get the bokeh in the shot along with selective focus, you have to make sure that you have a fairly wide aperture. In my case, I was using my 50mm. The widest aperture is 1.8. But that is not the "sweet spot". It actually does better up to 4.0 for bokeh. 

Well, I would love your thoughts on these photos. Am I on the right track?
Think I will head over to Smith-Gilbert Gardens tomorrow to really give it a test.
All the best to you, my blogging friends!
♥charlotte

Focus 52 and selective focusing, and Creative Exchange

 

Earlier this week I read a post from Christy at 

http://way-outnumbered.blogspot.com/ about selective focusing. It has really opened up possibilities. Naturally I got out my manual to figure out how to set my focusing mode to spot focusing. But as usual I had to call my friend, Betty John, to help me out. http://artisticexpressionsphotographync.blogspot.com/

She led me to Ken Rockwell and patiently led me through the steps.

When you focus on one area, the background and foreground go all silky. I love that!

Look at all that luscious bokeh!

 

Isn't this cool!

More silkiness....don't you love silky?

Maybe you will want to try this. But first, head on over to:

http://way-outnumbered.blogspot.com/

Have a wonderful week, my sweet friends!

♥charlotte