Team Up Thursday - Week 2 - Birds

WHAT WAS I THINKING WHEN I SUGGESTED THIS THEME….

Once again, I had some great ideas, - I thought of beautiful glossy starlings with green/purple plumage, or a flock of birds flying in formation or a brightly coloured parrot or even a cute little thrush or cheeky Indian Mynah or a Hadeda – which is a lovely, clumsy looking SA bird, which kind of always makes me think of dodo bird - (dodo n., an extinct flightless bird, once a native of the island of Mauritius. Discovered 1598, extinct by 1681)...
The trouble with birds is that you can not get close enough to take a photo with the kind of detail I envisaged…(remember I am using a lovely little camera with no extra zoom). I even googled “How to take good photos of birds” – I apparently need a telephoto zoom lens, shutter speed and aperture – say what…my camera does not do any of those – it is pure and simple a point and press (“muk n druk” is the South African phrase), but I am not too phased, I can still take pretty pictures with my camera and I can practise composition and start understanding the effect of light when taking photo’s – the more technical stuff will just wait until I have a little bit more experience.

By Monday, I was looking for a way to “cheat” - Mariette said “improvise” – amounts to the same thing, I think…

Mariette improvised beautifully - I love that she incorporated bird related items that have a special personal meaning...

I am so grateful that I did learn one of my lessons from last week, and had tried to take some pics on the weekend and had not left it until Wednesday morning – at least now I had some time to think “out of the box”…

This week, all of my lessons from last week were confirmed, in addition I learnt this week that I still have a lot to learn, but I can have loads of fun whilst learning and I realised that whilst things are sometimes challenging, we should not give up, but rather look for the solution from another angle or direction…Valuable photography (and life) lessons, I think.

I am amazed at how quickly I have started looking at details that I can incorporate in our theme – I actually noticed these birds on this gate as I drove past and quickly reversed so that I could take the pic.

For interests sake - Below is a picture (courtesy of GOOGLE) of an extinct dodo and a picture of a Hadeda - I took the photo of the Hadeda and then "zoomed in" using photo editing software, which made the picture quite presentable I think (pity about the shadow in the background), but I did not want to use it as my main challenge picture because it seems more like cheating then taking an abstract photo of a gate...

Well, that is my post for this week...Thanks for visiting and please leave a comment if you want to...Mariette I am enjoying doing this project with you and each week, learn something else about you that I never knew - thank you...

Mariette has chosen our theme for next week, and already my mind is filled with possibilities...

Tough Challenge

I suggested this week's theme, and it is an AMAZING one, BUT, it might be a little ambitious for this beginner photographer...I am looking for  a "cheat"....Looking forward to Thursday...

Team Up Thursday - Week 1 - Trees

Our theme this week is “TREES” – when Mariette sent it to me, I was thrilled – we have a tree that “lives” around the corner from us, which I love, so I was going to take a photo of MY tree…and tell you the story about it

We often take the dogs for a walk around the neighbourhood (an activity that Kayla-Fern loves) and we always pass “MY” tree…It is tall and the branches start quite high up, but it is the fact that they spread across a wide area that amazes me. It is winter in SA at the moment so MY tree has no leaves, but it is so easy to imagine it in summer with a canopy of beautiful green leaves that we could sit under and have late afternoon tea or lunch or any alfresco meal.
A few months ago my mom was with us for the afternoon and Kayla-Fern convinced us to go for a walk and I told my mom how I loved the tree, and asked if she thought the people would miss it, if I dug it up and planted it in my own garden, my mom did not say anything but she quietly picked up a few pods and told me the other day that one of the pods has sprouted, so in about ten years time, I may have my own tree.

 Mike suggested that I try an early morning photograph for my theme shot…so at half past five on Wednesday morning (yes, I leave everything to the last minute) – I drove down the road and started taking photos (anybody who happened to pass by, may have thought I was crazy), being winter, it was still dark, but I had fun taking black pictures. The shot of my tree did not come out the way I wanted it to at all, so I have chosen another shot for the challenge.

I also think the shot below is special - this tree is stunning during the day with tiny whie flowers sprinkled all over it...in my early morning shot, the flowers look like little fairy lights..Really pretty.

Lessons that I learnt from this week are don’t leave it till the last minute, if you are going to do an early morning shoot, do it on the weekend, so that you don’t have to rush back home to get the family ready for school and work and finally, do not be too set on one idea because what you have imagined and what you actually get could be totally different. Thank you for the theme Mariette, trees are wonderful subjects, you could take hundreds of photos and still find new and interesting shots.
Lookign forward to playing for next week's theme...

I think Mariette's tree (above) is beautiful - I love all the green - definately summer in her little corner of the world.  There is a peaceful quality about the picture - I can almost hear the birds singing and twittering in the branches of their home.

 

Introduction...

We have joined Team it up Thursday...My partner in photography is Mariette - we have been friends for many years, although the last eleven years it has been a long distance friendship as she and Trev immigrated to England and my family and I stayed in Sunny South Africa...Nine years ago we fell pregnant at more or less the same time and our daughters arrived four days apart - Maxine is their only child and our Kayla-Fern is little sister to Bradley.  Neither of us have ever done any photography whatsoever...In our house, Mike (my hubby) generally drives the camera - I need to get lessons from him on which way to hold the camera, so I don't end up with lots of pictures of my own eye...Mariette chose the theme for our first week...and I could not be more thrilled with it....Looking forward to lots of fun with our photography journey....one step at a time...