Good Morning, Monday

You came very early 🙂

Claire was riding with friends to camp this week which meant we were up early. After she came back inside from loading her suitcase in the car she said, “I heard an actual rooster.” She was excited about her week ahead though so she didn’t really mind.

We have friends coming to stay a few days but a dear friend gave me some beautiful roses from her garden yesterday and it was such a lovely start to my week and I wanted to share the love.

Aren’t they just simply gorgeous? I wish you could smell them.

I was talking with some other friends yesterday and we all agreed that snail mail is such a wonderful gift and an artform we are in danger of losing. It inspired these pictures:

The roses themselves in their lovely vase are so classic and romantic that I had to add pearls in to a few shots. This was my favorite.

But of course it wouldn’t be much of a Monday post without a few macro images.

Isn’t the yellow so soft and dreamy?

I love floral pictures so much and can’t seem to keep myself from taking their picture. With the start of our flower farm I have a feeling (I hope) that I will have many many subjects in the future to capture so I hope y’all don’t get tired of them.

Have a beautiful Monday, friends! The Lord be with you.

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A Little Macro On A Monday

Last week I was gifted a beautiful arrangement of antique roses and boy, did I enjoy them! A few of the shots I took close and a few of them closer still. I am fascinated by the intricate delicateness of flowers.

Everything is packed so tightly inside a tiny little bud.

And then when it is released from the confines of its green cocoon the petals just seem to spill out, at first slowly and then seemingly in a burst. I loved the color of this one and oh mmm gee the smell has heavenly.

The petals are so delicate and thin. I love how you can enjoy the variegated shades of color on the pink one.

And then there is the tight spiral that gradually unwinds.

Each petal unwraps itself but still maintains the ruffle of memory.

My favorite flower is the tulip but I cannot argue with the beauty of a rose.

Have a wonderful Monday, friends. I hope you see little bits of beauty in random things this week and marvel at the work of His hands!

Learning New Things

Did y’all know my brand new son-in-law is a photographer? He is and a really good one. He’s a young whippersnapper though and has given me grief over the fact that I don’t use Lightroom (the industry standard) for my editing. All in jest of course, and much love, because he wanted to marry my daughter 😉

He is actually going to second shoot a wedding with me in July though and in the interest of making life easier for both us in that endeavour I made sure my computer was up to snuff and could handle the Adobe program and I am now officially doing things like a grownup photographer.

I’m shooting in RAW and editing in Lightroom.

Turns out that young whippersnapper knew what he was talking about when he kept telling me I just needed to do it. I still have a bit of a learning curve and as of yet I haven’t worked on anything involving people but I love love love what I have been able to do so far just with some flower pictures I took in my yard.

Between the extension tubes and Lightroom I am feeling all fancy and the clover in my yard has never looked prettier.

I don’t do a whole bunch of editing but I do think I like what I have the freedom to do since the file is larger and gives me more information to work with if I do want to play with it.

I know, I know. I’m just geeking out over a few pictures and new techniques and skill sets and it’s probably not terribly interesting to you. But seriously, look at the scope of detail that God put into a simple little clover.

The swirl and flare of each petal. The movement of color from stalk to stem. Even the beautiful tea stained shade of the dying flower.

How much more does He care about the details, the smalls ones and the big ones, about your life?

I’m still hung up on the wonder leading to wisdom I guess. Because how can we not be in awe of the God who created this and not trust Him enough to live the life He calls us to? A life of genuine love and real forgiveness? One flush with steadfastness and truth, beauty, and goodness.

“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” Ephesians 2:10

We have been created with even more attention and care than the flowers and He has work for us to do, good works. So get busy. You’re supposed to glorify Him today. Go make someone marvel at what He has done.

A Fine Point

Friday Favorites ~ Birthday Edition

My birthday was Wednesday and turning 51 was a lowkey event and lovely. The kids gave me a beautiful Willow Tree figurine and it seems I am finally going to actually start collecting them and that makes me happy.

Rob got me a thingie called an expo card that helps set accurate white balance when taking pictures and I am looking forward to working with that but what I am most excited about is the set of extension tubes he gave me. They are a poor man’s answer to a macro lens and they worked so much better than I expected! A good dedicated macro lens is going to range in price anywhere from $400 to $1200 and while it would be nice to have one I just can’t see spending that kind of money on “nice”.

Enter the extension tubes. They work great for a macro hobbyist who is just doing occasional up close work. Metal rings that attach to the camera, literally extend your lens so it can function as a macro. The set came with three different sizes and what is pretty cool is that they can be stacked to achieve different focal lengths.

I took around 275 pictures yesterday morning just getting a feel for them. Any macro lens gives you an incredibly narrow depth of field which means focus can be hard to nail. Pardon me while I geek out, but it was just so much fun to play around with!

This was one of my first successful shots.

I received some beautiful birthday flowers from friends and they came in quite handy as a practice subject.

And of course I needed to see how cheerios looked through the tubes.

I braved the cold (winter has arrived in Louisiana!) long enough to do a couple of random outside shots.

I’m hoping that as I practice I will get really good at macro work. There is something special about focusing in on the very small details that we usually just glance over. Almost like God is sharing a secret with us. Not sure what the secret in cheerios is but… 🙂

Always happy to get suggestions for photo ideas so feel free to share any you have.

You can use this link to check out some really amazing macro photographers who are most likely not using extension tubes 😉