Category Archives: Photography

May 2017 Sunset Photos

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After talking about knitting for the past few weeks, I wanted to give everyone (Including myself) a break from posting about sewing and knitting.

When I bought my new camera few months ago, I wanted to see how well my camera took photos of sunsets. I thought I’d have at least a few chances to take photos of sunsets, but, unfortunately, the weather conditions were not perfect for a pretty sunset or I missed the chance for a variety of reasons. On May 29, 2017 I was able to get outside and take photos of a beautiful sunset.

I’m very pleased with the way the camera took photos of the sunset. My old camera took sunset photos clearly, but the photograph colors began to look off in the last two or so years. Even if I edited the colors in Photoshop, the colors were off. This time, once I adjusted the contrast in Photoshop, the colors looked the same or very similar to the way they did in real life. I think the colors my old Sony couldn’t take photos of was hot pink and orange, but my new Cannon took photos of the clouds with hot pink and orange. This makes me so happy because it improves my ability to take good photos of sunsets with more true to life colors.

That’s all for now! Thank you for reading!

 

New Camera and Desert Test Photos

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After five and a half years of loyal service, I realized my main camera, a Sony Cybershot, was dying. I knew it was having problems in 2013, but I was still able to make it work and do what I want until last year. While at the Renaissance Festival, I realized it was really having problems and was draining the battery even though the camera was off. I tried new batteries, but nothing worked. I also had problems with it focusing and zooming in when I wanted it to. So, it was time to get a new camera.

After a lot of debate, I decided to get a Cannon Powershot. After getting it, I began playing with my new camera and took photos of a cactus blossom, a tree blossom, and fruit on a barrel cactus.

After taking these photos and editing them, I was very pleased with the way they turned out. Since I didn’t take many photos the first time, I took more photos around the desert to see how far I can push the camera before it starts to have trouble taking photos.

After I took this set, I discovered my camera’s image stabilization stops working after zooming 60x. My camera has a standard 40x zoom, but it can go up to 160x. I think the stabilization of the camera will be fine if I use a tripod, but it’s something of note when I’m carrying the camera around and need it to zoom that far. Also, it has problems focusing on the plants in the foreground when taking a close up of them. My Sony had the same problems when I take close up flower photos, so it’s something I’m used to. Still, it’s something annoying I need to remember if I want to take close up flower photos.

Over all, I’m very pleased with my new camera and find it a good replacement for my old Sony. I still need to test the Cannon to see if it will take photos of stars at night, but, since it behaves like my Sony, I believe the Cannon will be able to take photos at night just fine.

That’s all for now! Thank you for reading!

Arizona Renaissance Festival- March 11, 2017

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The 2017 Arizona Renaissance Festival is over for the year and I have some more photos I took while there to post and talk about.

The weekend of March 11th and 12th was Time Traveler’s Weekend. It is my favorite of the themed weekends at the festival because there is a Tardis from Doctor Who in front of the front gate and there are Star Wars characters from the 501st Legion in the festival. It’s always amusing to see the storm troopers serve as body guards of the royal court or Darth Vader watch the joust.

Like the last time I went to the festival, I mostly took photos of the joust. I was intending on taking photos of other acts, but I ran into problems with my camera’s batteries so I couldn’t take photos of anything or anyone else. In addition to this, I didn’t stay the whole day. It was unseasonably hot (Over 90 degrees Fahrenheit) and I didn’t want to over exhaust myself. As usual, I had a great time and I’m glad I went on this weekend!

That’s all for now! Thank you for reading!

January 2017 Sunset Photos

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Sorry about not posting in a few weeks. I’m still playing catch up with my side projects due to the stomach flu I had a few weeks ago. Since I’m not done working on them yet, this week’s post is about some photos I took of a sunset in January!

I took these photos after a winter storm on January 24, 2017. I’m happy with the way the photos I took that day turned out. In addition to these photos, I also took some other photos that will be used for future fabric designs. Right now they are not available for sale or public viewing, but once they are I’ll make a post about them!

That’s all for now! Thank you for reading!

Peach Tree Blossoms 2017

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I realized that I have a lot of photos that I never posted here on my blog, so here is another photography post! This time, the peach tree blossoms!

The peach tree outside my house has begun to bloom again… so that means a new batch of peach tree blossom photos! I’m not sure if anyone likes my photos of the peach blossoms, but I enjoy taking the photos anyway.

That’s all for now and thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed looking at the photos!

Arizona Renaissance Festival- February 12, 2017

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Last week I got sick with a nasty stomach flu so I was unable to sew, draw, or basically do anything besides rest. Because of this, my blogging plans for the next few weeks are going to be off by at least a week. While I work on my sewing, I decided to write a few posts about photos I recently took. Well, photos took before I got sick. XD

On February 12th, I went to the Arizona Renaissance Festival. Last year, when my family member died, I decided to go on multiple days to the festival because I have the freedom on the weekends to do “fun” things this year without elaborate planning that will end up not working out in the end. So, although I didn’t have a costume ready to be worn, I didn’t mind because I already planned to go on other weekends. :)

On this weekend I ended up not staying as long as I normally like to because I was starting to not feel well. I think the flu was starting to creep up on me back then, but it didn’t make me so ill I couldn’t do things until last week. In spite of this, I was able to take photos of the festival. Continue reading →

2016 Sewing, Photography, and Art Roundup

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Excuse the reflective beginning of this post, but to put it bluntly, 2016 was not a fun year for me. Also, please excuse the amount of photos in this post. I wanted I worked on this year that I’m pleased with to get mentioned in my post.

2016 is almost over and I’m happy to see it over. This year, like many people I talked to, I didn’t really have a great year. My year wasn’t good mostly because I took care of an ill family member and that family member eventually passed away. When it sunk in that my family member wasn’t going to live as long as I believed they could, I had a very hard time talking care of my family member knowing that there was nothing I could do to help them. But, with the assistance of my immediate family, friends, and faith, I got through it. I feel a lot better than I did a few months ago, but when I decided to go through 2016’s post to see what I can talk about in this end of year post, I felt sad because I didn’t get to do nearly as much as I planned to this year.

If I learned anything from 2017, it is that life is unpredictable in both good and bad ways and no amount of planning can save you from the unpredictable. Although I am sad my family member is no longer with me, I know they are in a better place and that I did my best taking care of them. I also learned how important family and friends are in a person’s life, how much grit and strength I truly have, and what loyalty really looks and feels like. I am a different person now and, although what I went through was very painful, I am glad I went through it. I may be a different person than I was in the beginning of the year, but I am a better person now. And I’m thankful for it.

Since I had a hard time with my personal life, I didn’t have the time or energy to work on anything “artistic”. I would draw, sew, and take photos, but everything would fall to the waist side because I was more worried about other, more important things. Still, I tried to work the last half of the year so I could start blogging again. :) Continue reading →

October 2016 Flower Photos

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In a post last week, I talked about having so many posts backlogged that I decided to make two posts a week for a while, but last week my cold came back so I stopped working on my Inktober sketches and most of my blog posts so I could rest more. Because of this, I will be making only one post this week. Also, next week will be busy for me so there will be only one post that week as well. I hope by the end of next week I finished my Inktober sketches and can make a post dedicated to the sketches from week 3 and 4. :)

This week I’m doing something a little different from art and sewing, I’m going to talk about photos I took last week of flowers!

Before I became too ill to go out for anything besides work, I went to the downtown area in my local town and to a mall I used to go to a lot when I was in college. I don’t normally take photos of my town, mostly because I don’t have a reason to, but I did last week because there was supposed to be a parade. While taking pictures of the decorations in downtown for the parade, I took pictures of the flowers that grew in flower boxes on the sidewalk as well.

After I took photos of downtown, I went to a mall I used to go to when I was in college. I got some great photos of the mall and the buildings there, but I want to go back and take some more. As for the photos of the flowers, they turned out well. Here are a few of them…

Most of the flowers are found in the downtown area of my town, but there are a few from the mall. The mall’s flowers weren’t that impressive, but I found a few blossoms nice enough to take photos of.

That’s all for now! Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed my post!

2016 Orange Tree Blossom

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Last week I posted about this year’s peach blossoms. This week’s post will be about the orange tree blossoms.

The blossoms on my orange tree are never as large, attention grabbing, or spectacular looking as the peach tree’s blossoms, but what they lack in looks they make up for in their sent. In previous years, the orange trees did not smell when the blossomed, but this year they did! I like the smell of orange tree blossoms, so to walk outside and smell the trees made me very happy.

Since the orange tree blossoms are not as nice to look at, I only took a few photos of the blossoms. Actually, I only took four.

I keep telling myself that next year I’ll take more photos of the orange tree blossoms, but I never do. Sometimes the blossoms don’t look “perfect” enough to take a photo of them, other times there aren’t enough blossoms to take photos of. Still, I hope next year I’ll take more photos of the orange tree blossoms.

Thank you for reading!