Matt T’s Neighborhood

I was going through some photos I took at Tumacacri Mission a few weeks back and I saw a lot of photo with diagonal lines.  So I'm just going to post a couple for this quest.  For this one I changed it to black and white added some noise and artistic stuff and lighting.  The diagonal lines are the stones on the grave site.

 

 

 

I played a little more with the next photo.  I selected the church and didn't select the brick tower.  Then I changed the church to black and white, worked some on the contrast and brightness, added an artistic filter and erased the black and white from the top arch and the two diagonal columns.  By added color to the the diagonal lines I wanted to push the viewers eye up to the arch and the cross on top of the church. 

 

 

In this photo the main subject the pots are in a diagonal line.  In the original photo the pots where in a dark shadow.  I cropped the photo then selected the shadow and lightened it and added saturation.  Then I selected the light wall that was too light, added contrast, darked the highlights and added saturation.  Now the shadow looks more like a stain or paint on the all and less like a shadow. 

 

The last photos is of the columns supporting the covered over the walkway for the visitor's center.  In this photo the diagonal line formed by the columns draws the eye to the door. 

 

Gees can you believe this is the 78th Photo Quest?  Seems like I started this just a few months ago.  I thank all the loyal members for all their great photos and for teaching me more about photography.

For this weeks quest lets look at diagonal lines and how they contribute to a photo.  You can use diagonal lines to draw to eye to your subject or the lines can be your subject.  The human eye natural views an image by going from left to right.  By placing a diagonal line from left to right you are using that natural view to your advantage by now drawing the eye to your subject.  Make it easy for the viewed to know what your subject is.

Can you look at your photos and know what the subject is?  Do you look for the subject of your photo in your view finder or LCD before you click the shutter?  Do you remember the rule of thirds?

Now that I've filled you with questions....here is this week's quest.  Take some photos using diagonal lines.  Photos can be any that you have taken in the last year.  If you can't find a photo with diagonal lines or can't find a subject with diagonal lines around use a photo software to make some lines.  No excuses this time. 

Here is a great article on diagonal lines  http://digital-photography-school.com/using-diagonal-lines-in-photography.  Any questions...please ask!  Take care and  have a wonderful week.

Yikes there were some very scary photos this week!  Thanks to all the folks that send in photos, it was so much fun to see what you were doing for Halloween.  I miss Halloween so much.  The department I worked the for last 9 years didn't do much of anything for Halloween.  Now that I'm retired well, it was even less.  We are too far out in the country to get trick-a-treaters so it was like any other day here.  Darn it...I did get to see some cute photos of my grandsons dressed up.

Back to the quest I didn't see a bad photo in the group and we had tons of photos this time.  Darcy made my job easy by posting only one photo, thanks so much girl.  Her photo of her daughter as Wednesday Adams showed tons of creativity.  Darcy's daughter played with the photo in photoshop to make it spookier!  Great work there.

Then along came Cap'n wow frozen pumpkin fields and a great jack-o-latern...amazing work on that.  My favorite was the jack-o-latern photo. Taking the photo at night gave it a real Halloween glow.

Next was Yan with his great photos of Halloween in Japan.  My favorite was the friend dressed as an alien...great capture in a dark bar.

Now it was Amy Sue...boy she made my job very hard with all her great photos!  Thanks for the great photos of the kids trick-or-treating downtown.  What a great place she lives that the merchants give out candy..keeping it safe for the kids...very nice!  It was so hard to pick a favorite...so I picked two.  I loved the pumpkin and  hunted house photo.  The low light gives the photo a very nice Halloween spooky feeling.  Then I really like the Halloween old photo of the two kids under the movie poster.  Nice work there with making the whole photo feel very old.

Wow then there was Metz....so many, many photos my friend.  I felt like I was there with you enjoying seeing how your children had so much fun. Of couse it helps that her kids are so cute!  So my favorite of all the photos was Halloween 048 with the red tree behind your daughter!  That was an amazing photo, loved the red leaves that matched your daughters outfit.  Nice work there!

 

 

Our digital camera is pretty crappy actually but I tried to make do with what I got by messing around with the basic of most basic elements color adjustment & brightness & contrasting.  Which mostly just consisted of me sliding the slider bar back and forth until it gave a result that looked interesting to me.  Yeah, skills, I have none. LOL

Here are the results.

 

Here she is, playing the part of Gothic Tween Red Riding Hood, Miss Gabrielle.  I wish I could've done the picture in my head justice.  I loved the idea of her posing pensively near that red tree.  The middle one is my favorite of of Gabby.

 

 

And playing the part of the plundering pirate, Benjamin.  ARRRR!

 I had to gently remind him that we do not stab the neighbor's boo globe.  LOL

Yeah, she's all that!  :-D 

 

This one is my favorite of Ben. 

 

 

 Gosh darn it she's just so freaking beautiful!  Yeah I know, I'm not exactly impartial but hey...

To Grandmother's House! 

The Driveways Are Alive With The Sound of Pirates! 

 

 

 

Some attempts at "artistic" photos.  LOL 

 

 

OOOOH, Spoooky!

Scarecrow C.S.I., or was it Scarecrow S.V.U.?

Yeah yeah, I'm the Ghost of Costumes Past.  There's 3 different costume remenants here.  :-P

The 1st photo is my veil deciding it wanted 2 be in the picture.

A chocolate Halloween House the kids got to decorate/make in a craft program at our local Library.  I LOVE our Library!

FLOWERS!  

EEEK!  Save us!

WHEW!  We're free!

Free to Trick Or Treat again!

Two Lumps made me laugh and shake my head today

No editing this time...

the field was already haunted!

Let's have some fun with this quest....show me your Halloween...make it scary, funny, magical, silly or spooky.  All photos must be taken during this quest and no limits to photo editing for this one.

For this quest push the limit on your camera and your editing software...have a ball and show us how creative you can be.  Keep in mind this is a family friendly group so nothing too gory or sexy.  Now go out and take some photos!

I learned a lot from this quest and from seeing the photos that were posted for this quest.  As Darcy said having the subject out of focus add some mystery to the picture.  Usually we try everything we can do to get a detailed crisp photo and in this quest it was just the opposite.

Now to this week's photos and the ones I liked the best.

For Darcy it is easy...her pumpkin photo is wonderful!  I loved that she used a Halloween theme and had some scary books in focus and the wonderful jack-o-latern out of focus.  Try as I might my eye still goes to the jack-o-latern and not the books that are in focus. 

On the photos that Realworld submitted I liked the third one the best.  The whole photo is out of focus but the lamp in the widow draws your eye into the photo and you just want to know more about the house, the room, the lamp.

 

The photos that Yan submitted were amazing!  I liked them all and he gave us a nice assortment of pink and white flowers in and out of focus.  The last photo of the multi-colored flower is my favorite.  I like that we only see 1/2 the flower and that only the center of the flower is in focus...it leaves me wanted to see more of the flower!

Great work all and thanks so much for posting your wonderful photos to this quest.  Hope to see you again next week.

Wow, how cool is this?  I knew John's doggie clothing line was going to turn some heads!  Please pass this post along to any and all who love doggies.  These outfits are great gift ideas for the Holidays!!  He will do custom orders.

Read The Daily News story here.

I got this link in an email. It's an Australian ad aimed at teens who drive and text at the same time. It's pretty graphic, but if you know someone that does this, you might want them to see it. Watch it on YouTube