Happy Easter!

Easter is the demonstration of God that life is essentially spiritual and timeless.

                                                                                                                          ~ Charles M. Crowe

You want me to WHAT??

Well, things never seem to go as planned around here… My plans tonight to post about a new contest I will be running got waylaid – I had to take my daughter into emerg tonight!  After 4.5 hours, 3 ventolin treatments, some prednisolone and a chest x-ray, we’re home – tired but breathing much easier!

So since the contest news will have to wait until later this week, along with the December tutorial and assignment, I just wanted to tell you about this new phenomenon that’s catching on!  Since it’s similar to November’s assignment, I thought I’d share!

Apparently, there is a new trend out there called Camera Tossing – it basically uses any camera with the ability to set a long exposure; a couple of light sources, such as two or more candles or lights, and (in my opinion) the dexterity to catch!

Here’s a tutorial from Wired Magazine:  Snap A Camera-Toss Picture  It also includes a video with more detail. Thanks to my hubby for pointing me to this via Twitter!  You can also visit the official Camera Toss blog for lots of examples, or view these on Flickr.

The end results look amazing… but I’d be afraid of dropping my camera!  Please share your photos with us if you try it (at your own risk!!)

Happy tossing!

Two more evenings!

Tomorrow’s the last evening to practice this month’s assigment!  Tell me… have you been experimenting with light painting?

You have??  Then don’t forgot to submit your photo to me by 11:59pm tomorrow night for a chance to win this great Karen Foster prize pack!

Come on – show me whatcha got!

Giving Thanks

As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.

~John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Get snapping…

and this gorgeous prize package from Pink Paislee may be yours!!

**October '09 prize pack by Pink Paislee**

Oh, baby… come to Mama!

So, did you take a nap this afternoon so you could stay up late and get some night-time shots?  I want to share a series of photos that I snapped of the full moon last week – it was around 8:30pm but already the sky was so dark…

Not that you can tell from these photos!  All were shot with my tripod and a wide-open aperture of f/1.8:

**Settings: f/1.8, 6.0 sec., ISO 400**

After photographing this, I realized that my exposure, at 6 seconds, was too long, overexposing the photo and showing considerable amounts of blur from the trees swaying in the breeze.  So I halved my time to 3.0 seconds and snapped this one:

**Settings: f/1.8, 3.0 sec., ISO 400**

It was still way too overexposed for my purpose!  So I dialed it right down again to 1.3 seconds:

**Settings: f/1.8, 1.3 sec., ISO 400**

Since it’s hard for me to judge exposure on my LCD screen, I always take several shots, bracketing my photos.  I find that it increases the chance of me getting the shot I want, so I photographed it at 1.6 seconds and 1.0 seconds:

**[Settings: f/1.8, 1.6 sec., ISO 400**

**Settings: f/1.8, 1.0 sec., ISO 400**

Ah! Now we’re getting somewhere!

These images are all SOOC (straight out of the camera) so I enhanced the colours slightly, using the Pioneer Woman’s Photoshop Actions (go and get your own right HERE – they are awesome!)

First, I ran her Boost action (one of my favourites) to enhance the colour:

**Enhanced using the PS Boost action by Ree Drummond**

Then I ran the Lovely and Ethereal action (another favourite) – perfect for those photos where you want a dreamy and well, ethereal look!

**Enhanced using the PS Lovely and Ethereal action by Ree Drummond**

Ah… Photoshop is a beautiful thing!

So get out there and start snapping – not only will you learn a bit more about your camera, but you may end up with a fabby photo to scrapbook, not to mention a wicked prize!

Happy Clicking!

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