Valfal's photos

Macro Mondays 2.0: Traditions Día de los Muertos , or "Day if the Dead" is a tradition often celebrated on 1 Nov. as a day to remember children who have passed away, and on 2 Nov. to honor adults. This holiday originated in ancient Mesoamerica (Mexico and northern Central America) where indigenous groups, including Aztec, Maya and Toltec, had specific times when they commemorated their loved ones who had passed away. The holiday is celebrated in present day Mexico and in the United States among Mexican immigrants. Calaveritas de azucar, or sugar skulls similar to the plaster skull shown in the photo, along with toys, are left on altars for children who have passed. The skull is used not as morbid symbol but rather as a whimsical reminder of the cyclicality of life, which is why they are brightly decorated. For a more complete description: insider.si.edu/2016/10/5-facts-dia-de-los-muertos-day-dead

Playing with the use of cropping to change the perspective of this photo of my cat, Rusty.

Saturday Self-Challenge: In honor of our second anniversary as a group, choose something you've learned in SSC and take a photo using this technique. I chose long exposure for this challenge because I learned so much about the relationship between exposure time, F-stop and ISO. It wasn't until after I took this image and my camera battery went dead that I saw I forgot to remove the polarizing filter off the lens! I wonder how different my settings would be had I removed it before snapping this photo! These tiny teddy bears are part of a large collection of miniature bears I collected about 20 years ago. They range in size between one and two and half inches (2.4 cm - 6.35cm). Many thanks to all my fellow group members for two years of fun and learning together, and Happy Anniversary, SSC! ~Thank you so very much for your comments and faves, my friends! You are most kind! ~

Saturday Self-Challenge: take a shot of anything while looking upwards. Under one of the maple trees in my front yard, I photographed some leaves overhead that were back lit by the morning sun. Even though we are well into Autumn, the season has been so warm that my trees have not begun to change color yet!

Macro Mondays 2.0: Paper and cardboard Macro of a card envelope made out of textured paper.

Saturday Self-Challenge: Water drops I had a lucky day when the rains came overnight and I saw water drops all over my husband's vintage Volkswagen Beetle. Have a great weekend Everyone! :-)

Saturday Self-Challenge: Diagonal Lines A weed I found growing in a crack between the sidewalk and blacktop of the driveway. Have a great weekend, Everyone! :-))

Saturday Self-Challenge: Leading Lines in Black and White My air plant (Tillandsia). www.hemleva.com/airplants

Saturday Self-Challenge: Take a photo and post process it to achieve the goal for your subject. Earlier this week, I had a chance to visit the beautiful Winterthur Museum and Gardens. During my tour of the gardens, I saw a hedgerow of Elephant Ear plants (Colocasia). The sun was shining brightly on the leaves; I had never studied them up close before, and did not realize how incredibly beautiful the leaf structure was. Backlighting by the sun revealed an intricate pattern that made for a perfect natural abstract. Post-processing involved cropping,increasing highlights, sharpening and use of the HDR effect by PicMonkey. The original photo is in the note as is an image of the leaves I photographed to give viewers an idea of how these leaves look at a distance. Have a wonderful weekend, my friends! :-)

I took a trip to Winterthur Museum and Gardens near Wilmington, Delaware today and came upon a hedgerow of giant Elephant Ears plants. The sun performed its back-lighting magic to reveal the detailed structure of these amazing leaves. Nature's perfect abstract art; my camera merely captured it. More to come...

Macro Mondays 2.0: Something Scary There are a number of things in my home that are scary, but I decided to go with comic scary. This is Rat Fink, a cartoon character that was very popular among boys of my husband's generation. As a matter of fact, he likes the character so much partly because it shares the same initials with him; R.F. :-D

Saturday Self-Challenge: Flowers, Faux flowers or something with an image of a flower SOOC (straight out of camera). This week the weather was my biggest hindrance, so I had to rely on manual settings to compensate. Another big challenge was making sure composition was properly balanced. It was a good challenge, because it forced me to actually pay attention to framing the image before snapping it. This image has had absolutely no post processing, not even cropping. ;-) The above photo is of a flower from my garden.

Saturday Self-Challenge: Squares and Rectangles My cat Flame once again came around to make my photo a little more interesting. I decided to use mirror effect on this image just to experiment and liked the result. I have two other images in the notes; one of Flame looking up at me, and a shot I was going to use before the cat decided to interrupt the session, lol.

An alternate shot for the Saturday Self-Challenge (Squares and Rectangles).

An alternate shot for the Saturday Self-Challenge (Squares and Rectangles).

Macro Mondays 2.0: Seeds/Nuts I discovered this mystery plant growing in my flower garden. It appears there is a translucent cover over the pod of seeds. In the notes, there is another photo of this plant showing its flower and leaves in addition to the seed pods. Can anyone identify this plant for me?

Saturday Self-Challenge: Bokeh in the Foreground The biggest challenge for me this week was finding the right subject to shoot that would be interesting enough and would lend well to the topic. After trying a few different subjects I settled for my collection of small antique bisque dolls. The little bather had such personality that she became my focus. I really like how the bokeh in the foreground gives the illusion of depth. In the note is a photo I took of my garden hostas for the challenge. Thanks to a wet summer, this is the best they ever bloomed! Have a great weekend, everybody, and Happy Labor Day holiday to all my American friends (Summer's last hurrah)!

Macro Mondays 2.0:Ipernity Frontpage I did not have the opportunity this past week to take a photo according to specifications of this week's challenge, so I had to make do with modifying an archive image. This one of the spider I inverted, and then scaled it to 1600 x 900, per instructions of ima. The original is in the note. I hope I modified the image properly and that the quality is good enough...