I’ve been wanting to do a new feature on this blog for a couple of weeks now related to my photography. At first I thought I would join a photography challenge club and post my photo for the challenge each week. The first week went by and I didn’t take a photo of anything related to the theme. I decided that instead of trying to do that I would just post three of my favorite photos that I had taken each week. I take a ton of photos each week and thought that would force me to choose only the very best.

The first photo from above is of an adult Cicada. According to Wikipedia they emerge from the ground every 17 years. They are really thick around the house and every morning when I wake up it sounds like sirens outside because they are so loud. They don’t irritate me like they do some people.

The second photo is of a lily from my sister’s flower garden. I cut the flower and brought it home. Had it in front of a white jacket (one no one wears anymore) with two lamps to the side. One of these days I’m going to have a light tent so I can take better photos of flowers.

The third photo is of an abandoned kitten my sister found on the side of the road. She brought him home and he’s been here for a week or so. I don’t know if they have named him yet or not. He’s so cute, can fit in the palm of your hand!

The fourth photo above is another Iris from my sister’s flower garden. Photo taken in front of a piece of copy paper, two incandescent lights beside the flower. Color corrected and enhanced with The GIMP. I had to erase a lot of the background out of the photo because I couldn’t get the yellowing removed. Regular light bulbs suck for photography.

For the fifth photo I walked across the road and got some roses off my cousin’s rose bush. Hopefully he didn’t mind. I took the photo in front of a white jacket with two lamps on the side. I removed all the color except that of the petals of the rose.

The sixth photo I had picked a flower like this and didn’t realize there was another bloom on the stem until I had brought it into the house. I put the unopened bloom in some water and it opened while I was out of the office that night. I couldn’t resist taking a photo of it.

I hope you enjoyed my photos that I chose to post on the blog. I am a couple of weeks behind which is why I posted 6 photos instead of just 3. I plan on doing 3 per week. Like I said I think that will help limit me and help me to show off only the very best. If you’d like to see more of the photos that I have taken please visit my Flickr photostream. The latest. My sets.

I have to say that I am extremely proud of this video. I started recording footage yesterday afternoon around 3 PM and finished recording footage at around 11 PM. I had to empty the memory cards and restart several times, that’s why you see the shifts in the video. There is 6 hours and 46 minutes (approximately) of footage in this one 30 second video. There is another 12 hours of editing. I actually recorded for over 8 hours but like I said, I had to empty the memory cards, format them and restart several times.

I really like the shifts in this. They almost make it look as though I was zooming in on the flower.

I had a hard time with the lighting in this one. I placed the flower on a plain piece of paper and put a standard incandescent light over it. I took the Gorillapod and positioned my camera over it with a macro lens attached. I also left the overhead (incandescent, also) light on. I may have had too much light. I used spot metering and center focus.

The music in this video is "Natchoongi (Breaked DUB RMX)" by Antony Raijekov

Unwilting (MP4) (2.2 MB)

Unwilting from andymelton on Vimeo.

The past few days I have been going out during lunch or a little after lunch and taking some photos or some quick videos to post onto Flickr. I took this video of the butterfly yesterday and posted a version on Flickr. The version here has all of the footage I took of the butterfly. I think when I post videos to Flickr I am also going to make a version for Andy Not Andrew. That way there is a version you can download at much higher quality, although, the quality that comes out of my camera isn’t the best. Anyways, I digress. Here is the video. Enjoy.

Music in this video is "Just Another Lie" by Tomas PhUsIoN

Butterfly Feast (MP4) (10.3 MB)

Butterfly Feast from andymelton on Vimeo.