A few More Photos of the Bee and the Flower

It's a Small World

Today I set out to photograph a bumblebee pollinating a plant, and this is what I ended up with:

Keep in mind as you look at this photo that it is just 1 of over 200 attempts.

New Camera

Well, I've finally made the leap from a point and shoot camera to an SLR. I've been wanting to up my photo game for some time now, and after carefully considering all of my available options, I settled on the Canon EOS 7D.

I understand that the 7D is capable of producing professional level photos, assuming the photographer knows what they're doing. Unfortunately, I've never learned the mechanics of photography, and because of that, I've always relied on my camera's auto settings.

To prepare myself for this new era in photography, I took a two week course in basic photography at the local community college, which I hope will help me to improve my photos.

Here are a some sample shots from the new camera:

The subject of the first one won't surprise anyone who knows me. It's my favorite dog Cody!

The second one comes compliments of an adult Cicada who has shed his skin and entered the final stage of his life:

Photo Effects

I've never really experimented before with adding effects to pictures, but decided to give it a shot with a couple I took last weekend. I'm no expert, but I think I did ok.

Here's the original of the first shot. Nick was standing at the top of the stairs, acting casual.

Here is the edited shot. I let Nick direct me on the effects he wanted. He was interested in an older, antique look.

Here is the original of the shot of Alex. This is a freeze frame of him trying to catch a nerf football.

Here is the edited shot. I took all the color out of the background, and added some blur around the edges.

To get the full effect of these photos, click on them and look at the larger versions, the smaller ones just don't do them justice.